Creative ZEN Vision:M 30 GB MP3 and Video Player (Black)
by Creative
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List Price: Our Price: $150.00 You Save: $99.99 (40%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Network Media Player See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Creative ZEN Vision:M 30 GB MP3 and Video Player (Black)
Customer Review: I'm free, finally free! Anybody want a used iPod?
Summary: 5 Stars
I've run the gamut of MP3 players; Muvos, Cowon and finally iPods (Nano and Video). After struggling with iTunes and the crazy things it does to my music collection (like for instance I can't play 90% of my library on my laptop now because its not "authorized"!) I finally decided I was ready to take charge of my own MP3s! Somebody in a very helpful review mentioned that this was the MP3 player to get if you want to have control over your collection and they were so right.
So here are the wonderful things I can do with the Vision M that I can't do with my iPod:
1) Musicmatch, I finally get to use my beloved musicmatch which I abandoned when I couldn't get it to work with my iPods.
2) Volume levelling... doesn't everybody else notice they have to reach for their iPod on every other song to adjust the blaring or whisper quiet volume?
3) Delete, edit, create playlists; how wonderful that I don't have to remember what I want to do to my playlist til I get home and hook my iPod up to iTunes... I can just make the adjustment on the spot now! I must have died and gone to heaven.
4) Listen to music while recharging
5) Watch my videos in bold crisp beautiful color, I didn't realize how clunky videos looked on the iPod til I saw them on the Vision M.
6) Wonderful bass boost, with the Vision the sound is so much fuller and deeper than the slightly shiny sounding iPod.
7) No more converting to iPod format, many videos will copy over with no conversion at all. Nowhere near as difficult to get videos onto the Vision M.
8) No more iTunes purchases, now I can buy my music anywhere and still be able to use it on my Vision M. Especially Rhapsody which is my favorite way to buy tracks... after I've listened to them for a while and really decided I like them.
9) Shuffle within a playlist (as far as I can tell the shuffle on iPod will only work on its entire music collection!).
Now I'm not saying this baby is perfect, but its such an improvement from the iPod/iTunes world that I just had to give it 5 stars.
So to be fair, things that are not so hot about the Vision M:
1) Hard to buy accessories in stores.
2) Whats with this weird adaptor/dock thing that you have to plug in the bottom to charge it or connect USB? It would be so much nicer to just plug the cables directly into the Vision M.
3) I am finding that this isn't easily used as a backup drive, the iPod was really nice in that regard. I don't really understand why they make it so difficult... you have to format it and then it is hard to find the place to put your data, kind of silly! Maybe I will keep the iPod just for backups, I don't know.
4) Lacks the iPod Wow factor, but then my iPods have lived in their cases for 10 months so they aren't exactly making people drool since nobody can see them anyway! I'm thinking Wow factor is fun but overrated...
In conclusion, I am a convert and will be using this for all my music needs once the case and skin comes in the mail ;) This baby is geek heaven and us control freaks love it too! Fashionistas may want to stick with the iPods...
Customer Review: Outstanding.. The best in market..
Summary: 5 Stars
Pros: Music, Videos and photos run with extreme clarity and sound. Video playback in High Definition. Awesome build quality, attractive interface, supports almost every format on earth.
Cons:Trying to find one.. None yet !!
Full user opinion
I got this as a B'Day gift and was stunned with the clarity of the video and photos.. Let me tell you i was a fan of it even before owning it.. I had been seeing the review and tracking this product ever since its launch.. I was impressed when i could see people giving it very good reviews all over the internet.
Now i got this a week earlier as a gift.. Let me tell you my experience. First thing u'll notice when you open the box is its elegent and beautiful built quality.. Then when you charge it up and start, you cannot resist shouting out a "WaOoooW", looking at its High definition screen.. Its simply awesome.. I like the fact that Creative had pre-loaded a lot of videos and photos so that that you could right away experience the excellent quality of the device..
I ran through a few of the preloaded videos and photos. The video qualityis beyond words.. The sound is crystal clear.. I trid to pump up the volumn to test for any noise.. but could'nt find any till it hit the 21 mark on the volumn. I couldnt get any higher coz i know that would have damaged my ear-drum!!!
I immediately loaded all my songs in my laptop (Around 5GB).. i didnt have a idea of how large 30 GB is untill i saw that all my songs could occupy only one-sixth of the memory. I spent the next day listnening to the songs and checking the options.. The FM works well too.. and recording FM also would be interesting (though couldnt find time to check that out). The options are great.. You can rate your songs while hearing them and the DJ option allows you to play the most favourite and also rarely heard songs also, so you dont forget any song in your 10GB or so song chest!!
The manual equalizer and the presets are really good. Has an option of adding on the Bass Boost which is great if you love it..
Now i dont wanna disappoint the video ipod users, but my friend has one and we comparerd the video and photo quality.. I cant resist saying this that the ipod's video quality looked like a 1998 JVC TV with a VCR, in comparision to the HDTV quality of a Plasma in the Zen Vision M.
Two things you would like to note.. Charging the Zen would be tedious with the USB cable plugged to ur laptop. Get a wallcharger, its not expensive. I got it for $16 online and helps you a lot while travelling and saves a lot of time. Its a very worthy investment for your ZVM.. Also consider buying a case to protect your valuable investment.
All said, the experience is really great, and i feel proud to own it. You will never be diappointed with it, infact you'll feel really proud to possess it.. I highly recommend it to anybody who plans to go for a hard drive player with video.. A very good job by Creative.
P.S... A well deserved victory for the ZVM at CES 2006.. "Best in MP3 and Portable devices" category and also a "Best in Show Award"..
Customer Review: Truly an amazing gadget!
Summary: 4 Stars
I've had my Zen M for about 2 months now so I think I have a good feel for what it's pros and cons are. Here you go:
Pros: Beautiful and Bright Screen (displays thousands of more colors than the Ipod video by the way). Even at 50% brightness (which is default setting out of the box) it looks bright!
Ability to Customize most of the features. This includes being able to set your own photos for the wallpaper, custom equilizer, custom brightnes setting, custom shortcut button, organization of folders(audio, photo, video folders)...etc.
Great Sound! This isn't a surprise because Creative develops sound hardware/software like soundcards.
Good User Interface: The thumb scroller interface takes a few days to get used to, then it's pretty user friendly. You can customize the sensitivity of it too.
Ability to play lots of different video files like Divx and Mpg4.
This was a big selling point for me. The screen is perfect for watching cartoons and anime on.
Good Size. I'm refering to it's physical size. It's actually the perfect size and feels great in your hand. Still pocketable and still feels rock solid and not fragile.
Displays Album cover art! I had trouble with this function in the beginning only because in order to get it to display the album art correctly, you need to rip the Cd album with a program that automatically downloads album info including art. One program that does this is Windows Media Player.
--For the techies that don't want to re-rip everything to get the album art to display, just download a small jpeg image of the album cover that is about 150 by 150 pixels, rename it folder.jpg, make it a hidden file and place it in the folder of the correct album. When you move it to your player it will ask you whether you want to move it to the photo folder, make sure you select "no" and leave it where it is.
Cons: There isn't a lot about this player that is negative. But one aspect which is really annoying is that to charge it or plug it to the computer you have to use this tiny seperate adapter that comes in the box. It's the white adapter/attachment that looks like a dock connector. What the heck were they thinking! I have to carry the separate item everywhere I go just in case I need to charge it or upload music. It sucks man! Why the heck didn't they just build all of the ports into the player itself!!
Also, they should've included the video output cable instead of selling it separately! Or at least made it use a standard video cable! Also, the battery is not removable... at least not meant to be.
These are the only reasons why I gave this player 4 out of 5 stars. Otherwise I would have given 5 out of 5! All in All this player really rocks and is worth every penny! ... and is a much better buy then the "other" competition out there.
Hope this is helpful to you guys. If it is, please give me a vote. Thanks!
For more electronics and technology reviews, visit my site at:
http://newtechnews.blogspot.com/
Customer Review: New Zen Follower
Summary: 5 Stars
When I decided to spend the money on a player I had my decision narrowed down to 4 choices, The SanDisk Sansa 8GB, The Ipod 5.5 30 gb, The Toshiba gigabeat S30, and the Zen Vision M. The Sansa seemed cool and had alot of features but The 8GB is a little pricey plus the cost of buying extra memeory and even then at 10 GB I'd have to leave alot of my files off (I have roughly 20,000 songs plus videos on my PC ) , The iPod really turned me off because of the reliance on iTunes which I've never really been a fan of for one reason or another, but I was drawn to the vast universe of accessories that are W This beats the living crap out of my buddies iPod.available, but I'm the type of guy who has to have something different than the rest of the crowd. The Toshiba Gigabeat was nice, I liked the large screen, and the fact it was Windows media Player compatible, but it seems like there were more negative coments made about it than the Zen Vision, Bad Battery life, twitchy hard drive, dead units ect.... Plus the Zen just had more features in a comparable package and price. I guess I also considered the Zune but it still seems a bit half-baked at the moment and NO WMP support?! (ironic). Anyways I finally decided on the Creative Zen Vision M and I am quite pleased to say the ow I figgin' love this little thing I can't put it down! I just got it yesterday and I'm certainly impressed. Great design, great file support, great sound, great features.Great screen The only thing thats a little strange so far is I looked forever for a Stop button, there isnt one you can pause or turn the unit off, but there isnt an actual stop button. But in reality the unit powers up and starts the last track played really quickly so it really isnt an issue once you get used to it. Also the control takes a little getting used to but I'm already starting to get the hang of it. It could stand to be a little less sensitve though even on the lowest setting you can really zoom through the menus if your not careful. I havent really had enough time to actually drain the battery but I rode around today with th unit on random skipping through tracks like mad with the screen at full brightness for a few hours and the battery bar hasn't even moved yet. The screen looks awesome while playing videos, I wouldn't want to watch a three hour movie on something that small but its perfect for watching a short movie between classes or in the car ect... Like many others I do wish there was a few more neat little devices availiable for it in stores (hint hint Best Buy, if your going to sell the player at least stock more than ONE skin/case for it and maybe at least ONE dock/speaker system as opposed to the 20 or so you sell for ipods, ok enough ranting) that is but you can get pretty much anything you need through creatives website or amazon, ebay whatever. I quickly figured out I need a remote for the car as I'm sure to get in a wreck trying to find a track while driving on the freeway. It seems the best thing to do is use the extra programable button to randomize all the tracks. Anyways I would highly recomend this player to anybody!Customer Review: I love this mp3 player!
Summary: 5 Stars
This was my first Mp3 player I have ever boughten and I have not regretted buying it. I should have gotten screen protectors for since the screen is a tad scratched up now but that was my fault so it's okay.
The reason why I chose this over the iPods was simply because I seriously HATE, HATE iTunes. I tried iTunes a few times and I couldn't get the damn thing to work so I gave up on it and uninstalled the program. Also too after looking at the Zune compared to the iPod at Wal-Mart I really loved the Zune's design a whole lot more.
I like the way how the Zune feels when holding it in my hand. People have complained it was too bulky but I do not think so. I think it's perfect. All though I will admit the main controller on the player is still a bit sensative, even after setting the sensativity down to the lowest setting but I've gotten used to it. I just lock my mp3 player when ever I'm listening to music so I don't accidently mess something up if I accidently hit one of the buttons.
When doing the research for Mp3 players and specifically comparing this to the iPod, I read very few complaints for the Creative Zen Vision: M player compared to any iPod. The complaints from the iPods were ranging form loosing music when having to reboot it, to constantly freezing a lot, and alot of negative complaints regarding the program iTunes. With the Creative Zen you can import Mp3 files at any bit rate, all though I don't recommend ripping the music below 192kbps or the music will sound liek crap.
Anyways as far as the Crative Zen goes I've accidently dropped this thing quite a few times since I've owned it the past 7 months and it's never broken on me. I read complaints about the iPods breaking once people dropped them one time. As I said too the player has locked up on me a few times since I've owned it but that was because I was clicking too fast and all I had to was reboot it and I've never lost my music. That was another major complaint that people had with the iPods. People reported that when their iPods froze they lost all the music and had to start all over.
You are also not restricted to just one format or one pgoram with the Zune like you are with the iPod. With the Zune you can import Mp3, WAV, or Windows Media Player files. You can also drag and drop your music into the player after you've docked it with your computer. I've also read negative reviews about the sound quality for the iPods. I can tell you that with the Zune the audio quality for this is simply awesome! I would recommend turning the bass boost on and leaving the "smart sound off" so you can get the full quality while listening to your music.
I also would recommend letting your battery fully drain before recharging it when you first use it so that way you can get extra life with it. I will also note that
So my final thoughts. This Mp3 player is very awesome if you're looking for an Mp3 player I higly recommend this one. I would recommend this to anyone over an iPod ANY TIME.