Creative Zen Vision W 60GB Review:

Creative Zen Vision W 60GB Multimedia Player lets you take all your movies, music and photos in a light, pocket-sized device that is loaded with 60GB of memory. At this capacity you can carry tens of thousands of photos, 240 hours of movies (500 Kbps MPEG4-SP), or up to 30,000 songs (WMA encoded at 64 Kbps), all in the palm of your hand. You can also tune in the radio (32 station presets), record your favorite talk show, or make personal voice memos with the built-in microphone. And the big news about the Vision W is that it displays your media in a widescreen, 16:9 format.

Multimedia Powerhouse in Your Pocket
Today’s big screen blockbuster, yesterday’s picnic home video, and even your favorite TV shows–they all now fit in your pocket and are ready to be shared. Creative Zen Vision W 60GB supports many video formats, such as AVI, DivX 4 and 53, XviD4, MPEG-1, -2, -SP, WMV9, and Motion-JPEG, which simply means you have more choices and less restrictions. Instead of busting out your wallet to show snapshots of your kids, you can enlist the Creative Zen Vision W 60GB to give viewers a glimpse of your precious memories–tens of thousands of them. Complete with a thumbnail gallery, the device makes it easy to scroll through your entire photo collection. Of course, music files are a big portion of anyone’s digital canvas. Perfect for taking with you on the road or just around the house, this device makes all your music sound as good as the Zen Vision W looks. And with eight preset EQ settings and 97 dB signal-to-noise ratio, you can fine-tune your listening experience for any musical genre.

Creative Zen Vision W - Great Connectivity
You can also connect the Zen Vision W to a projector or TV with the included AV cable, and put on a big show from this little device. Synchronize music files with photo or video montages for a taste of spectacular, personalized big screen magic. You can also transfer pictures from your camera to the Zen Vision W in no time flat. Simply slip in your camera’s Compact Flash (CF) memory card, and let Zen Vision W do the rest. The optional CF card adaptor also lets you use other popular memory card formats, such as SD, MMC, Memory Stick and more.

Creative Zen Vision W - Widescreen Machine
Viewing images and video on this device is a pleasant experience. The SharpPix 4.3-inch, high-resolution LCD screen features a 480×271 resolution, and hundreds of thousands of colors. What all this means is you see crisp, clear detail in every movie and photo, even under bright light. Creative didn’t scrimp on design, either. The Creative Zen Vision W 60GB features a lightweight magnesium casing that is both elegant and protective, and it sports a simple, intuitive keypad that makes navigation a breeze. And you’ll get loads more playback time with the included removable, and rechargeable, battery. Enjoy up to 13 hours of music or 4.5 hours of movies on a single charge.

Other features include a personal organizer that you sync with Microsoft Outlook, and an integrated voice recorder that can store hundreds of hours worth of recordings. The Creative Zen Vision W 60GB Multimedia Player uses PlaysForSure technology. Look for the PlaysForSure logo if you’re shopping for a portable music or video device and you want to make sure the digital music and video you purchase will play back on it every time. Match the PlaysForSure logo on a large selection of leading devices and online music stores. If you see the logo, you’ll know your digital music will play for sure. Choose from a large number of digital music and video stores, including MTV’s Urge, Rhapsody, Yahoo!, MSN Music, MusicMatch, MusicNow, Napster, Wal-Mart Music Downloads, and many more.

Creative Zen Vision W 60 GB User Said:

Creative Zen Vision W may not be perfect, but it’s a whole bunch more than I expected. I gave an Ipod away a couple years ago because I had to get all squinty-eyed to see the tiny stuff on its screen, and that wheel with a button in it started off as my enemy and got worse as time went by. The folks at Creative Zen have done a much better job with their display and controls.

The directions are pretty skimpy, but after fiddling around with it for a bit I got the hang of it. Being able to read the words on the menu helps a whole lot. The controls are easy to manipulate.

My motives for buying it were to have something that would serve as another backup for my pictures, and a means of showing them either away from, or without the computer. I also wanted to store my collection of over a hundred complete operas (some over 4 hours) so I could make room by storing all those CDs in a closet. And, since I am addicted to audible books, and since Audible would give me a certificate for a hundred bucks to apply to the machine, what the heck?

So far I have loaded a bit over a thousand pictures into six albums. The pictures are easy to find with the system’s navigation devices. Some editing of pictures can be done with the device, but I choose to do that before loading it into the Creative Zen Vision W machine. Haven’t tried viewing them on my TV, but on the Creative Zen Vision W’s screen they look bright, sharp and clear.

It only takes a few minutes to load a complete CD into the machine. The structure for denoting albums is easy to use. For instance, Wagner’s Der Meistersinger is on 4 CDs, and without any effort on my part the albums Der Meistersinger 1, 2, 3 and four end up on the menu clearly labled and in proper order. The sound using earphones is very good. There is, however an occasional faint click which is apparently made when the machine changes a track, or something like that. I can live with that.

Haven’t tried downloading an audible book to it yet, but am confident that it will work fine.

So far, have completely “ripped” all that is on 24 CDs and loaded over a thousand pictures. When I started doing this the machine had 55 Gb of usable memory space, and now it is all the way down to 54 Gb. Somehow I don’t reckon I will be running short of space.

I followed the directions and charged the unit’s battery before using it. Four hours seemed to be all that it needed, but I let it go on charging overnight. With all this fooling around, downloading, viewing and listening the machine’s battery indicator still looks like it did when it had a full charge. Of course, it does get charged some when hooked to the computer, but even with that, the battery life seems to be very good.

—– By Charles W. Long

Creative Zen Vision W 60 GB Features:

• 60 GB multimedia device holds tens of thousands of photos, up to 240 hours of video, and up to 30,000 songs
• 4.3-inch WQVGA wide aspect, high-resolution TFT LCD screen delivers crisp, clear details
• Built-in Compact Flash memory card slot lets you transfer pictures directly from your camera
• Connect the Vision W to a projector or TV with the included AV cable
• Measures 5.27 x 2.95 x 1.04 inches (WxHxD) and weighs 10.5 ounces

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