- 30 GB multimedia center holds tens of thousands of photos, up to 120 hours of videos, and 15,000 songs
- Stunning visuals with the 3.7-inch SharpPix high resolution 262,144 color screen with transflective technology
- Plug&View CompactFlash card slot lets you quickly transfer and view photos from your digital cameras in crisp thumbnail galleries
- Built-in FM radio and Recorder
- Supports MPEG-1/2/4-SP, Windows Media Video (WMV) 9, Motion-JPEG, DivX 4 and 53, Xvid-SP3 video formats, and MP3, WMA and WMA with DRM autio formats
OK, I did too much research on these devices ... so I am here to share :
I will break down Pros / Cons / General Advice / Why Creative over an IPOD.
OK ... giving this 5 stars, not because it is perfect ... only because *all things being equal*** it is best in its class.
Pros
SMART drag / drop (which is HUGE if you were an 'old time original napster dude, where you downloaded everyone song you ever wanted, and still have the collection). SMART means this ... if you drag / drop music, pictures and video in one folder, it will ask you if you want Creative to put the files into the appropriate folders. And it does this well. Nice feature, if you have digital pics, and digital movie footage (from the same camera, in the same folder) ... you don't have to do the sorting yourself ... as it handles it for you.
long battery life
nice little speaker for 'preview' without having to block out the rest of the world with your headphones (useful if you
are sharing family pics w/ your kids and don't want to depend on the headset)
nice HD screen BIG screen
nice wow factor
beautiful design
HUGE format replay support (like AVI, which none of the other players support, even the Vision M). AVI for me is huge, because I take a lot of digital camera movie clips, which are in AVI format. I wanted to be able to play these back, without having to convert, and this unit handles it.
removable battery
option for EXTENDED 28 hour battery life
fm, voice recorder
tv outputs
Can manage with what ever software you so desire ... (see cons on IPOD below).
Cons
had to reset unit (remove battery, put battery back in) as the unit froze on me within 72 hour period (however, it is
possible that I had a corrupt MP3 that caused this ... and I did fill it up to 30% capacity and did a lot of moving of files
around. Like any hard drive file system, this can cause some confusion to the underlying OS, so I am less concerned about
the freeze problem ... but will be keeping an eye on it)
headset does not make sense ... should have come with a right angle plug (minor, and a $20 fix ... just buy a pair of nice
headphones). The plug and its location is prone to become damaged (as it is right by the finger controls, and sticks
straight out ... very annoying). I replaced with a nice pair of Philips right angle plug headphones, which comes with a wind
case, for easy travel (without the tangle).
like everyone said about the screen ... it is tough to view with 2 eyes ... let me explain ... (which by the way ... if
you change the underlying skin to SILVER, versus the standard DARK BLUE, you will be in much better shape). Now, for the
explaination ...
If you look with your left eye only ... you will notice a sweet spot when viewing. At that sweet spot, the picture will look
like a picture ... when out of that sweet spot, the black becomes 'shiny'. Now, when you are infocus with your left eye,
close it, and open your right eye ... you will notice that your right eye sees the pic a bit shiny. If you adjust the view
angle with your right eye, your left eye will see that bit of shinyness ... and so, on. I am NOT sure what the folks of
creative were smoking when they designed this screen, but it is tough on the eyes. NOT NOT NOT designed to watch a move, but
definately has the WOW factor, because when you look at it, at a glance, the screen is NICE, almost HD.
If you use polarized lenses, when you are driving, don't even think of looking at the screen, because you wont see
ANYTHING. Somehow, the polarization cancels out the view ENTIRELY. Not sure why, but it does. (Despite the screen flaws,
expensive (but only $80 more then the Vision M, which is a nice alternative, but does not have the replay speaker, the bigger screen or the extensive format repaly support.
General Advice
Don't rely on MP3 tagging, because your songs will always be out of order. Create Playlists ... this way you can go to your
group of songs and can pinpoint any song you want in SECONDS, versus having to sort through incorrect Genre, mislabeled album
titles, etc. It comes down to this ... label your songs yourself, don't depend on these unreliable MP3 tagging services,
which will completely destroy the existing tags on you songset. I have a huge collection of howard stern comedy clips, and
mp3 autotagging had these songs in ballet, soul, etc. And the funny thing is that these services claimed to have completed
100% accurate tagging to my songs. B*&&S%$!. Stick to your own labeleing, and use playlists. I had over 1300 songs
organized in about 1 hour.
Why Creative over an IPOD :
OK, here is why. IN MY LIFE, I purchased 5 songs through IPOD. Notice the workd PURCHASED, meaning I OWN THEM. Would you
believe that when I went to play those songs on another computer, I WAS REQUIRED TO LOG INTO ITUNES, to ACTIVATE THE APPROVAL
OF THOSE SONGS BEING PLAYED!!!!! Is that insane? Talk about big brother keeping tabs on the S&#! I purchased. I hate to
say this, but APPLE is for people that don't have brains. They are for people that don't want to think, and don't care to
ask questions, and don't care to understand. For those ... there is apple. For everyone else, CREATIVE understands your
personal needs, and also has a talented bunch of engineers that understand what an enthusiast REALLY wants. The CON however
to buying the Creative is that you will have to use 5% of your brain. If that is OK with you, then this is the device for
you. If you don't want to use your brain, and want APPLE to do all of the thinking for you, buy an IPOD ...but beware when
you 'upgrade your computer', and APPLE says there is a limit on how many computers you can play your 'PURCHASED' songs on.
ALSO, why this over an IPOD :
built in speaker
nice HD screen, especially if you are a PROUD parent, and want to keep every digital picture of your kids in your shirt
pocket, as well as your full MP3 list.
TV output, to share slideshows with your family
EXCELLENT support : Creative picked up the phone BEFORE I purchased the product, as well as after I purchased the product.
BOTH times, I was treated fairly, respectfully, and was helped. STELLAR.
bad replay support on the IPOD, as it isn't a generic multimedia device.
IPOD doesn't have FM tuner, doesn't have voice recorder (which is awesome by the way), doesn't have TV output, doesn't have removable battery
With IPOD, you better love ITUNES, because you have no choice but to be married to it. Not very American, is it?? Kind of like a fixed marriage. With the Creative unit, you can use what ever you desire (its own software, drag / drop within windows, Mozilla firefox, Windows Media Player, etc.)
Got to go folks, there are probably more items, but my fingers hurt from too much typing.
Buy Creative Zen Vision 30 GB Multimedia Player Black Now
Creative nearly hit bullseye with this device. It's perfectly sized, easy to use, and has plenty of capacity. Images are crisp and colors rich, but the unit falls just short with a narrow viewing angle and sluggish navigation.
First, the bad. The screen is uncomfortable to watch head on. The left tilt helps but it's still not satisfactory. In addition, my unit has several tiny starlike specs that distract me from my movie. Compared to my HP iPaq, the unit takes time to boot and navigation is much slower. Finally, I don't understand their claim to support a variety of formats. For some of my movie clips, like from my digital camera, I can play them right away on my PC on Windows Media Player 10 but have to go through a conversion process to play them on the Creative. And the conversion lowers the quality of the file.
Now for the good. 30GB holds a lot of portable movies. Navigation is a breeze. The sound is wonderful and the screen displays color beautifully, with sharp clean images. The file management software is straightforward. The unit is well constructed and feels good in the hand.
Now for a word about getting content onto your portable video player.
There's always CinemaNow. But if you want to watch the DVDs you own, you've got to rip. Creative includes Video Vault demo software to help get your movies portable, and it's pretty good. I prefer it to the software called "DVD to Pocket PC" because it's more stable. The downside is it creates much larger files (an average movie is 600MB rather than 300MB).
To get DVDs onto the Creative using the demo software, you have to
(1) rip the DVD into a file format the demo software will accept (I use DVD Shrink freeware)
(2) use the demo software to convert that ripped file (2-5GB) into a portable movie file (400-800MB) to put onto the Creative. This step takes 1-3 hours per movie, so I run it overnight.
To get TV onto the Creative, it's helpful to have a Media Center PC with a DVR. This way you can move recorded TV shows to the Creative and watch them on the go.
Yes, this is all very time consuming work, but no different than ripping your CDs to create an mp3 music library. Using this process, one snag I haven't figured out yet is how to get my 16x9 (and wider) movies to play in the correct aspect ratio on the Creative Zen Vision. It ends up being slightly stretched top to bottom. Thankfully, the stretch isn't so bad.
For me the results of all this digital transfer are worth the effort. It's a blast to have this on a trip. The Creative Zen Vision is a pioneer product and a fun toy for the electronics enthusiast.
update: I solved my 16x9 problem. The full version of Video Vault software (whose demo is included with the Zen Vision) has an option for 4:3 or 16:9. This is the best program I've found for converting movies into portable-sized files.
Read Best Reviews of Creative Zen Vision 30 GB Multimedia Player Black Here
I started looking at items like this one because I wanted a device I could use to store my photos while traveling without lugging a notebook computer around. When I picked this one, I think I made a great choice.
Mainly, in this review, I want to address some misconceptions found in other reviews. First, the screen: The viewing angle is not an issue at all. I was amazed to see what is said in some of the reviews. It is a one-person device, but I can move my head several inches in any direction without problems. The screen is amazingly sharp and clear, and easily visible even in bright sunlight.
Second, you CAN use this as a removable drive. You simple set that up under the extras menu, make sure you have navigated to the removable drive screen on the Vision, and then plug it into a computer. It will come up as a removable drive under My Computer. It works fine. All I had to do to find out about this was read the manual.
It also works fine to store my photos. It's easy, fast, and SMALL, being about the size of a deck of cards. The 30 gigs is enough space for even a pretty long trip, and I take a LOT of photos with a 7 MP camera.
I had no trouble transferring my movies to this, either. I have a very large collection of DVDs, and I wanted to be able to watch them while traveling. I am using a program called Magic DVD Ripper to convert them, and it is easy. It does take about an hour for my computer to do the conversion.
The battery is removable, so you can, if you like, carry a second one. Try that with an Ipod.
All in all, I haven't found much of anything to complain about.
Want Creative Zen Vision 30 GB Multimedia Player Black Discount?
Negatives:
Three hours with video and nine with audio, about 30% less than Creative claims.
Microsoft Windows XP is required; while Creative wisely chose to stop using Microsoft Media Center, they added the XP requirement...a bad move.
Creative software is required for installation AND all file transfers, this cannot be used as an external USB harddrive.
Viewer is required to look directly at the video screen, the viewing angles are extremely narrow. Also there is no color adjustment or antireflective coating.
Positives:
Large screen in a small magnesium-encased unit weighing only 8.3 oz
FM radio and recording, mp3 playback is excellent. (No line-in audio or video recording.)
VGA Video looks great on the display (if angled correctly) and through the tv output.
Removable Lithium-Ion (Double-life battery available)
Customizable EQ Equalizer settings include eight presets as well as custom 5-band EQ sliders and a bass booster.
Overall:
The best for now, but limited by its requirements.
Excellent buy. It's easily my favorite electronic device. Some thoughts on the various features:
I tend to travel a lot. I usually lug around my digital Rebel and take a lot of pictures. A 6.3 megapixel camera tends to fill up memory cards quickly. On my last trip I brought along my Zen Vision and used it to back up my digital pics right from the CF card. I didn't need to carry around my laptop to download the pictures, and I only had to bring two memory cards with me. My back appreciated this change.
The built-in screen far surpasses my expectations. It will not replace a laptop screen for some applications, but the resolution is FANTASTIC.
I already used the Creative MediaSource Organizer to manage my music collection, because I had a Zen mp3 player. This software is superior to the offerings of any other vendor I am aware of. It's neat, fast and powerful. It's multiple panes and intuitive interface make it easy to organize and transfer content.
The Media Explorer is used to transfer pictures and video. The transfer is amazingly quick and painless. When viewed on the Vision's screen, the video is bright and clear. The pictures have excellent contrast. I wish there was a rotate feature so that portrait-oriented photos could take up the whole screen. Then again, I haven't read the manual yet so maybe that feature is there somewhere.
The interface used to navigate between the photo, video, music features is ridiculously easy to figure out (like I said, I haven't read the manual yet and I have used all the features successfully).
One previous reviewer implied that you cannot charge the Vision with a USB plug only. This is not the case. The unit comes with a charger that can be plugged in to a standard wall outlet. However, the Vision will also charge while connected to your computer with the included USB cable, even if if is not plugged in to the charger. If you travel with a laptop, you don't need to carry your charger. I find that plugging in the Vision to a USB port will fully charge the device in a few hours a bit slower than if you plug it in to the charger.
When at home I plug the Vision in to a Bose Wave Music System. The combo is absolutely amazing. It fills my apartment with fantastic sound, and there is no need to mess around with CD's. It's nice not having to have my computer connected to the speaker system to listen to MP3's.
One reqret I purchased a white unit. In retrospect I would have chosen the darker color. The white unit tends to stand out while watching movies in dark environments like an overnight flight.
