Creative Zen Vision:M Review

The Zen Vision: M 30GB Multimedia Center makes it easy to carry all your digital files around - and navigate them more simply. You’ll be able to enjoy thousands of photo and audio files — or even video files, thanks to the great-looking 2.5″ LCD screen. Its 320×240 resolution and 262,144 color display will makes photos look almost as good as the real thing, even in bright sunlight. The TV-out jack lets you store complete movies or TV shows and connect them to a TV for easy sharing with your friends. The Zen Vision will even turn your slideshows into attention-grabbing multimedia; share your collections of baby photos by adding a backdrop of your favorite music to the slideshow, directly from the player. The bigger, backlit Vertical Scroll navigation tool is smoother and helps to improve selection accuracy.

Creative Zen Vision:M 30GB Design
In most respects, the Creative Zen Vision:M 30GB matches up pretty well, and there are few things you may even like better. Length and width dimensions are exactly the same at 4.1 and 2.4 inches respectively. When it comes to girth, though, the iPod has the Creative Zen Vision:M beat; the Creative Zen Vision:M is .7 inches thick, while the iPod measures .4 inches. The Creative Zen Vision:M is slightly heavier, too. These details aside, the Creative Zen Vision:M feels comfortable, yet sturdy, in the hand, with curved surfaces in all the right places. Creative takes a somewhat different approach with the Creative Zen Vision:M’s controls, answering the iPod’s Click Wheel with a vertical touch pad–which allows you to scroll up and down menus and control volume–plus four buttons that offer navigation through the user interface. The contextual menu button on the bottom right is a welcome addition, allowing you to make quick settings changes and view information about media files on the fly–functions that are more cumbersome on an iPod.

The Creative Zen Vision:M’s screen, which measures 2.5 inches diagonally, offers sharp details, vibrant color, and excellent response with little or no video ghosting during high-action sequences. The 320 x 240 resolution is to be expected from a device this size, and although it’s small, you’ll likely have no trouble enjoying video while you’re sitting on the subway or a flight, or in the back-seat of a car.

Music, Videos, Photos, and More
The Creative Zen Vision:M’s music organization scheme is standard fare; you can browse playlists, artists, tracks, albums, and genres. Equalizer settings are robust, with a nice range of automatic settings, plus a custom equalizer that’s easy to control. The music library’s “DJ” function is a nice touch, allowing you to listen to your most popular tracks. It can also pull up the tunes you listen to least frequently–in case you’ve got some forgotten tunes lying around on the Creative Zen Vision:M’s 30 GB hard drive. Sound quality is everything you’d expect from a top shelf digital audio player, and DRM’d Windows Media files played without a hitch. The device fully supports a whole range of “PlaysForSure” download and subscription services, such as Napster and Yahoo Music. Creative also ships a CD-ripping and music transfer application called MediaSource with the Creative Zen Vision:M. The Creative Zen Vision:M can also store thousands of photos, letting you browse through them or set up a slideshow. The device’s TV-out option comes in handy here, as you can present slideshows on a TV or projector. Videos can be displayed this way, too. An FM radio with easy preset tuning functions and great signal reception, plus a voice recorder feature, round out the extra media features. There’s also a handy application on the Creative Zen Vision:M that formats a portion of the drive for use as USB 2.0 mass storage, letting you set aside up to 16 GB for data storage.

Connectivity and Synchronization
A Creative Sync Adapter ships in the box with the Creative Zen Vision:M, making it a snap to connect the device to a USB 2.0-capable PC. With the connection made, Windows XP recognized the device right off the bat and Windows Media Player immediately asked us if we wanted to load the PC’s music onto the Creative Zen Vision:M. Music management and synchronization has come a long way on the PC, and the experience of organizing and transferring music to and from the Creative Zen Vision:M was, barring a few curious click-through boxes, pretty seamless. The Creative Zen Vision:M also supports synchronization of your Outlook contacts, calendar, and tasks, in case you want to use it as a personal organizer of sorts.

Amazon Unbox Integration
To be truly successful, the Creative Zen Vision:M has to be more than a great media device, it has to integrate with Amazon Unbox and make the process feel like second nature. Although the Creative Zen Vision:M was tested using a beta version of Amazon Unbox, things are looking good already. Amazon Unbox and the Creative Zen Vision:M go together like peas in a pod, making the process of purchasing, downloading, and enjoying content on the go a real cinch.

Pros

• Crisp, vibrant color screen is great for video
• Generous video format compatibility
• Excellent sound quality and music management functions

Cons

• Narrow screen viewing angle may be a problem for some
• Finicky controls for some functions
• Slightly more bulky than other competitors

Creative Zen Vision:M Features

• 30 GB multimedia device holds tens of thousands of photos, up to 120 hours of videos, or 15,000 songs
• 2.5-inch, high definition LCD screen features a 320×240 resolution and hundreds of thousands of colors
• Supports many video formats, such as AVI, DivX 4 and 53, XviD4, MPEG-1, -2, -SP, WMV9, and Motion-JPEG
• Integrated FM radio and recorder, voice recorder
• Measures 4.1 x 2.4 x 0.7 inches and weighs 5.7 ounces

Creative Zen Vision:M Specifications

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