Monday, January 23, 2006
Early Thoughts on the Creative Zen Vision:M
Posted by Jason Dunn in "THOUGHT" @ 09:00 AM
A couple of weeks ago when I was in Las Vegas for CES, I had some spare time after I arrived, so I went down to Fry's to look for electronic goodies. I was hoping to see a Zen Vision:M in person, but I wasn't optimistic since it was just released a few weeks ago. Much to my delight, they had just received a shipment of black Vision:M's, so I eagerly purchased one. Here are my first thoughts about it - I'm hoping to do a full review later (perhaps a video review if I'm feeling up for the challenge).
The build quality is fantastic, and it looks great. Having had some hands-on time with an iPod video before, I was a little leery of the Vision:M being twice as thick, but it feels great in the hand. The back of the unit has a hard white enameled metal of some sort, while the front seems to be made of...butter. In trying to compete with Apple, Creative seems to read a little too much from their playbook - the screen is very prone to scratching. I treat my electronics very gently, and the screen had minor scratches (quite visible) after only 48 hours. Frankly, I'm not pleased at all with this part of the player. The screen quality, though, is stunning. Images area bright, crisp, and well-saturated without looking too "hot". Photos look excellent on it, and videos look fantastic if you're starting with a high-quality source. A 320 x 240, 800 kbps DivX 6 file looks crisp and is fluid with fast action sequences.
30 GB seemed like a lot to me at first, but once I started tossing all my media on there, it filled up fast. A 60 GB model would really be cool. I've struggled with video conversion - the bundled software isn't great, and can't transcode DVR-MS files or straight VOB files from DVDs. Worse, on three different computers, Windows Media Player 10 wouldn't properly transcode the video, leaving me with weeks of trying to go from DVR-MS to MPEG to WMV. It was a nightmare. I was convinced they screwed up the MTP protocol, but when I tried connecting on a fourth computer, it worked and I was able to get all my TV shows onto the device. Rather bizarre, no?
The price is $329 USD retail, but already some vendors are dropping their prices. More from me later, but overall I'm still very pleased with the Vision:M!
The build quality is fantastic, and it looks great. Having had some hands-on time with an iPod video before, I was a little leery of the Vision:M being twice as thick, but it feels great in the hand. The back of the unit has a hard white enameled metal of some sort, while the front seems to be made of...butter. In trying to compete with Apple, Creative seems to read a little too much from their playbook - the screen is very prone to scratching. I treat my electronics very gently, and the screen had minor scratches (quite visible) after only 48 hours. Frankly, I'm not pleased at all with this part of the player. The screen quality, though, is stunning. Images area bright, crisp, and well-saturated without looking too "hot". Photos look excellent on it, and videos look fantastic if you're starting with a high-quality source. A 320 x 240, 800 kbps DivX 6 file looks crisp and is fluid with fast action sequences.
30 GB seemed like a lot to me at first, but once I started tossing all my media on there, it filled up fast. A 60 GB model would really be cool. I've struggled with video conversion - the bundled software isn't great, and can't transcode DVR-MS files or straight VOB files from DVDs. Worse, on three different computers, Windows Media Player 10 wouldn't properly transcode the video, leaving me with weeks of trying to go from DVR-MS to MPEG to WMV. It was a nightmare. I was convinced they screwed up the MTP protocol, but when I tried connecting on a fourth computer, it worked and I was able to get all my TV shows onto the device. Rather bizarre, no?
The price is $329 USD retail, but already some vendors are dropping their prices. More from me later, but overall I'm still very pleased with the Vision:M!
