Creative Labs Zen Vision:M

[parlee]

im considering buying the vision: m from best buy for 299...

http/www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7657555&type=product&productCategoryId=pcmcat63100050014&id=1134700863114

it looks similar to an ipod, a bit thicker, has similar battery life, playing video, pictures, radio, voice records, and music... since i plan to use the fm tuner, also i hear creative has better sound than the ipod... so my questions are

* does anyone have one and can give me a review of it
- can you change the background
- can you change the text/highlight color?
- for is the reception for the fm tuner?
- what can i use to encode my downloaded videos from limewire
- is video/voice/music quality good?
- and anything else youd like to add about it...

 

[uncle_ben]

I am tempted to get one to replace my DVD player alltogether with something portable.
Zen has much better resolution then ipod when connected to TV, i think it is 640x480 i.e. just about regular TV resolution
-compared to 240x360 with ipod

From the reviews I saw until now:
-you can change the background (it has wallpaper option like for the PC desktop)
-reception for the fm tuner is decent but not perfect
-there is bundled software to transcode video but as it plays back divx and xvid chances are you won't have to do that.

Here some links to the reviews I found

http/www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1915886,00.asp
http/www.tbreak.com/reviews/article.php?id=431
http/www.cnet.com/4831-11405-6412049.html?tag=next

 

[parlee]

well ive read the reviews but id like to hear a persons personal opinion on it, what he found to be hard, what he likes best about it and stuff like that. reviews seem to be positive and negative "well we like the video, but it doesnt blah blah blah" it gets confusing and annoying ... but i read the reviews u showed me and they seemed to like it as a good ipod alternative... the reason i didnt choose an ipod is because i like the extra features the creative has, also the fact that i hate itunes and AAC file types...

 

[uncle_ben]

yeah, agree.
On dapreview.net forums there are many people who actually own it.
They also set up a new forum for zen players only, have a look here if you are interested

 

[parlee]

sounds like it a pretty good mp3 player, im probably gonna pick one up this weekend... i used an ipod video thogh and it felt weird to hold since it was uber thin, i also dont really care for the circle scrolling pad, i like many people cant make a perfect circle (good band)... its a pain in the ass when they say "ipod alternative" and say a lot of features (mostly the MAIN ONES) that beat out the ipod, plus the added fm tuner, recorder, voice recorder, IMO its no contest the zen is much better than the ipod, but this is from some1 whos never owned either. i hope it lives up to creatives name, and im sure it will be better than the ipod..

 

[plasmar]

well I guess its my job then... bought my Zen Vision:M just 2 days ago.....
first thing I noticed is it has great sound quality, again I cannot compair it to iPod cause I haven't quite used one that much(my sister had her boyfriends one and she asked me to put it charging on my comp)... bad side of it is the idea that its clearly a big rip off of ipod as far as its visual style goes...
handling..... um I have yet to get use to the scroll, that I figure is a one thing that ipod probably has in its advantage... I must admit thats the one thing I did try out on the ipod, and like quite a bit was the wheel....
as you've probably found out by now the damn thing has support for a crap load of different media files and travels threw time.... I found that divx files didn't always work.... however xvid worked fine... note that blascreenerfromp2p_divxdvdrip.avi may actually not be divx but some other format so I give it credit for not playing all that I tried putting on it....

one big possitive thing I like about Zen vs Ipod.... is no need to convert the video to some obscure resolution thats otherwise useless...... in some forced apon format.... the zen just scales the picture down to size which rocks... correct me but I was gonna originally buy a iPod Video 60gb and in researching I found that it only worked with specific file resolutions....

um.... as said the fm tuner isn't 100%.... though don't get me wrong.... it does get 99% of the signals just saying that I didn't get 107.9fm to work inside my house with 0 interference instead I heard a slight bit of static.... but woopdidoo...

I haven't tried voice recording but I suppose it can't be any worse then my previouse mp3 player(PNY 1gb Vide)....

one thing I'm disapointed with all these damn large scale hd style mp3 players is why can't I just add the files and just plainly not have to sync the damn things I hate sync'ing.... go be with the titanic if you want to sink....

for those of you wondering yes you can access the thing as a flashdrive type deal apparently..... but it will only set aside specifically up to 16gb's
I believe.... its in one options somewhere, sadly it specifically asks you how much you want to set aside for this... it gives you option of something like 512, 1gb, 2, xgb so on so forth.... its nothing like the ipods flash drive access type deal when you unlock your ipod

volume.... I hope there will be some uncapping firmware mod... but then again most you people I think won't care, it itself has a good volume.... but not if you want to blow your ears off...

what else.... if you people want ask specific questions and I'll try and answer.... email me on djpc47@gmail.com or message here.... hopefully I'll notice...

also don't mind the crazyness to this... I'm half asleep as I'm writing this

 

[parlee]

well my dell broke, so i guess its forcing to me ugrade to the creative (although im not aganist it, i love that thing, used it at best buy)... but i just got a 7800gs with the money id use for the creative (got the oblivion bug) so i guess i wont be seeing the creative for a bit, oh well... back to cd's for a lil... ill tel u how it goes once i get it! thanks for the review/opinions..

 

[Cartman0123]

If I had to choose between The Zen Vision M and the IPOD Video it would definitely be the Zen because of the longer video batterly life, more support for other video file types, and has an fm tuner.

However, who really wants to watch a video on a tiny screen? Go with a high capacity regular mp3 player like the Iriver h140 or Zen Touch and leave the video to a better player with a larger screen. Or get a free IPOD by clicking on the link below.

 

[parlee]

maybe ill consider a non video playing mp3 player, its jsut that since these are newer i was thinking theyd be more reliable than my old one... my dell jukebox died within 3 months, and the replacement died in another 3... i dont want my beautiful new mp3 player dying like that.

 

[r0x0r]

Zen Vision has a removable battery, twice the screen resolution of iPod video (iPod video = 320x240 compared to ZV = 640x480). The screen is also 1.5 times bigger (iPod video = 2.5" compared to ZV = 3.75"), but the unit isn't much bigger than iPod video because there isn't a giant bloody circle taking up all the space. Is a bit bulkier though but since it's a Creative it should be a bit more reliable and if it freezes you can always reset it rather than take it to the dealer.

I remember reading that it also has twice the colour bit depth (i.e. it has a larger colour palette).

If you want a Zen Vision alternative try Topfield; apparently has a better colour bit depth (less resolution though; 472x240 or thereabouts. Same as PSP anyway), but has even less storage space at 20Gb. If you want storage get an Archos; they go up to 100Gb and have 7" screeens. Try fitting them in your pocket!

 

[bumcake1702]

HELP!! I got my Zen Vision M second hand from a friend as I lost my previous MP3. It worked perfectly when it was given to me...It played video, songs and radio. I installed all of the software but the computer wouldn't recognise the Zen, so I uninstallled everything and reinstalled it several times, to no avail =( I defragmented my computer and cleaned it up and it still wasnt being recognised by the PC - I tried my moms laptop and my laptop aswell and it still doesnt work. I thought it might be something to do with the Firmware so I kind of deleted it. I bought a new sunc adapter and the Zen charges, but wont sync to my computer AND I CANT DO ANYTHING...when I switch the Zen on it just starts up in recovery mode and won't do anything.

If anyone has any suggestions on what to do, please could you share your ideas??

Thank you, XxXxX

 

[gigman]

http/www.anythingbutipod.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=19


This is a forum just for Visions M users. try this one, only be careful cus there are some darn cranky mods