Creative Labs ZEN Vision:M (30 GB) (Green) Digital Media Player

Creative labs have been known best for their sound systems, sound cards, etc.

Comparing the Zen vision m with the ipod video, the size is relatively the same but the Zen is a little bit thicker and heavier. But for its thickness, you also get more useful features!

Featuring a built in FM transmitter, voice recorder (yes with the built in mic) and better battery life on the videos, why not spend the money on a Zen? The color quality is better, and it includes a sync adapter which also has an a/v out port so you can hook it up to your TV! YES you got that right, hook t up to your TV (cables for that is not included but it’s just an a/v out cable you can pick up for no more than 5-10 bucks).

Videos you have in your computer, (almost any format) can be directly placed into your Zen and be viewed on the TV with GREAT quality. (I tried it on my 67inch and worked perfectly fine) Share photos on the big screen, and also play music while you are sharing those photos.

The battery life on video playback mode is doubled the ipod. Charging the Zen could be a hassle though as it doesn’t include the wall charger. The Zen charges through the USB, and the sync has a port for the wall which is not included.

Comes with a nice leather scratch protection case, and great headphones.

What more can you ask for?

Through my experiences with the ipod, I find the Zen to be MORE user friendly! Accepts a variety of different formats in both video, audio, and pictures.


Jin

I had an ipod for about a year and it rarely worked. i had taken it in to get it fixed after it locked up on me 3 times. the zen i have in place of my ipod is a zillion times better than my old ipod because it actually works. i have had it for about a month, and it still works perfectly. by this time with my ipod i had already taken it in to get it fixed. the zen has a built in FM radio where you can even record the songs you are listening to off the radio. additionally, the zen is easy to use and a hair cheaper than an ipod. ipods suck, zen rules.
greg

The Creative Zen Vision 30 gig MP3 player is a great product that is very durable. It offers an alternative to the ever-popular iPod and is a lot easier on the wallet. The Zen Vision can play movies, view pictures and listen to MP3's and is great for anyone to use. It is totally user friendly. After owning one for a bit over 2 years, I have had NO problems with anything... highly recommended product.

The Creative Zen works and looks great. Would buy it again. If your looking for something other than an IPOD, this is a great option. More and more options becoming available.

Pros: Love the features. Really like the multiple file format options. FM is a nice feature for those times when you would rather just listen to the radio.

Cons: Don't drop it, hard drives don't handle shock very well. Having the screen crack is not the end of the world, as long as it is still under warranty. If the warranty period is over or you bought it used... I'm sorry, You're sorry, Creative Labs is sorry. If you don't mind forking over the $85-$120 to get it repaired, Creative will fix it. You cannot get replacement parts anywhere, including Creative so don't even consider trying to repair it yourself.

I bought this here on ebay as a malfunctioning player for $65. Just to see what I could do with it. I've found that, on some of these players, there is a freezing problem that seems to go away if you lightly squeeze the player near the play button. So I took mine apart and inserted a folded piece of paper between the front of the player and the mother board at that location. This put a constant slight pressure there holding whichever little solder joint that is bad in place. If I had the skills I would find the spot and re-solder it but this will do.

The player works perfectly now. The screen is bright and very watchable. The controls are easy to use and intuitive. (maybe that's because I owned a Zen Touch prior to this) I found many of the little features I wanted the touch to have have been included in this player! Just little things like when listening to random play all and you come across an artist you want to hear more of, you can hit the menu button and with one selection change to listening to that artists songs. With the touch you had to go to settings to change the play mode back to normal and then search your library for that artist in order to listen to them.
Anyway, Videos and pictures are clear and bright and the number of supported formats is impressive. The audio sounds excellent. I love this player as much if not more than my Touch. Which I carried with me everywhere!

I see no reason to spend the extra $$ on an IPod. This is all you need!

Available in five colors, the Creative Zen Vision:M has an incredible screen, a simple interface, excellent video battery life, an FM tuner and recorder, and a voice recorder. It features a customizable Shortcut button, and it supports a wide range of online music stores and subscription services, as well as video formats. It has excellent audio and video quality. The dazzling, DRM-friendly Creative Zen Vision:M gives the iPod a run for the money as the current high-capacity champ. Best in class everything. Absolutely amazing device.

I personally like technology and this is one of the Gadgets that is more complete it comes with a: MP3 player, built in radio, movie player, built in recorder, storage disk, all in one peace.. It has great quality, excellent display and easy to use.. I found it excellent... Defenetly I recomend the product.

I originally bought my husband the 2GB ZEN V Plus. But I was jealous and wanted an MP3 player of my own, ha ha! So I bought him the 30GB Creative Vision M. I got to play with it, until he sent me the smaller one. I loved it, and was sorry to give it up. By a stroke of luck, or perhaps dishonesty, my ZEN was swiped! But now I get to get a Vision of my own! I can't wait, I'm so excited! They're awesome. The screen is big. The controls are easy to use, once you read your manual. It could hold everything I ever dreamed of putting on it, plus some! I think this MP3 player is definitely worth every single penny!

I compared this to the similar IPOD, and based on the specs/reviews I read, this was the best bang for the buck. The monitor beats the IPOD, hands down. Both pictures and videos are unbelievably clear and sharp. Color is amazing! For my purpose, 30GB is plenty of space. While the 60GB is tempting, I cannot justify the expense.

The major dislike I have for this device is getting the software installed, upgraded, and working properly, then getting the device to be recognized by a PC. What a pain! Once it works, its fine, but it was a major hassle to get everything working properly.

All in all, I'm glad of the choice I made. I've actually bought 3 of these, so that will confirm it.

Really love it. Easy to use, more options then the i-pod. The screen is large and very colorfull. This is thicker then the i-pod video version but I think it probably has more features and it's not locked into the i-pod format for all things you download.

Decent product and I'm not disapointed at all.

Great item! It is definitely an iPod killer. The video quality is far superior to the ipod and the music quality is equal, if not better. The controls are very smooth, and the tactile buttons really make a difference. The only negative is that the USB-Charger-A/V Out converter is on a seperate connector, forces you to take it with you if you travel. Recommended.

The color, pics,play videos,lots of songs very user friendly. highly recommended for future buyers. Very pleased.

I bought this mp3 player for my girlfriend who used to have a Sony Vaio (not the laptop) before. The Vaio boasted 40GB of space, but it had quite a few drawbacks. The worst, and of course, knowing Sony should not come as a surprise, was the DRM system. Even if the songs were already in mp3 format, the Sony software would convert them to a proprietary format and then take forever even with USB 2.0 to get them on the player. If your computer crashed and you had to reinstall the operating system, you were doomed. You could not get your songs off the player unless you had previously gone through the process of creating certificates which had to be validated online for the computer that you were storing the songs on. Being the more technical person, I must have ended up transferring about 40 cds on the player over 5 times, and it became very frustrating.

When the battery died on the Vaio, I decided to look for a Christmas present for her. I do a lot of research and read through a lot of reviews when it comes to buying electronics. I was interested on hard-drive based players only. I was not a fan of the iPod to begin with since everyone and their mom has it nowadays but I wanted to be thorough and give it the benefit of the doubt. My friends have iPods too so I considered that as well and in the end I decided to go for the 30GB Creative Zen M. Here are some of the pros and cons:

Pros:
*Zen M has plenty of storage space. Perhaps not 80 GBs or more like the ipod, but you can go up to 60 GB. That is a LOT of space. If you're lying down in a hospital with every bone in your body broken and you're wrapped in gauze like a mummy while watching movies on an mp3 player suspended from the ceiling for hours, chances are you will not end up using all the space. So why pay for it.

*The screen quality on the Zen (over 220k colors) is superior to that of the ipod (64k). The Zen can play MP3, WAV, WMA, ADPCM, Protected WMA (DRM) audio formats whereas the ipod can play AAC, MP3, WAV, AIFF, Audible and Apple Lossless. The Zen screen is bigger too. As far as video formats go, the Zen is amazing. It can play DivX 4, DivX 5, XviD5, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, WMV9 and MPEG. Compare that to just being able to play MPEG-4 on the iPod. No need for transcoding either.

*With the Zen M you don't need software like iTunes. Actually, you don't need any software to transfer the files. Just plug it in a usb port and it will show up as a removable drive. It's all drag and drop from there. I have also found out to my amazement, that Windows Media Player 11 does a great job in finding the album art. I was surprised since some of the third party software I tried out, cost $ and cannot even find half the albums correctly.

*The Zen has a built in FM tuner. iPod does not.

*The Zen M has a customizable wallpaper. iPod does not.

*You can record voice on the Zen directly without the need for third party accessories as is the case with the iPod.

*You can search for songs on the Zen a bit easier than on the iPod. You do a text search or browse by first letter of the artist's name.

Cons:

*A little bit bulkier than the iPod. Whatever. More bang for the buck that way.

*The navigational pad is sensitive and takes a little bit getting used to. The iPod seems to be slightly better.

*Also, iTunes has a wider selection of downloadable music.

My girlfriend loves her new mp3 player and so do I. We love discovering new features on it. And was a bit cheaper than an iPod.

It is easy to operate, and the battery life is great. I downloaded some movies and played the back on my television. I have loaded most of my CD collection on it. I have also loaded my pictures, and important documents from my computer.

Yes, I did own one, for 2 days, then I returned it.

NAVIGATION
The most frustrating thing about the Creative Zen Vision M is navigation. This is not something you can simply feel your way through. There is no positive click or report when you use the main center navigation panel. You will have to carefully manipulate the thump button and watch the screen to make sure you did not go past, or come short of, the menu item or file you meant to select.

Must highly recommend that you play with one in the store before you commit to buying this unit.

The battery is not user replaceable so if your battery stops taking a charge you will have to send it in to Creative for a battery replacement - for a fee, (I've heard $80 to $110 is the going rate for both Creative and Apple).

ANY HARD DRIVE BASED HAND HELD
Any hard-drive based hand held multimedia player will give you a slight pause between song selections as it finds that next song on the HD. You will typically get some clicking noise coming from the unit as it does this. Shuffle play will likely get you the longest silent interval. Only FLASH drive based players will deliver instant switching from song to song or menu changes.

GREAT FEATURES
The Creative Zen Vision M has great features and packs an FM receiver over the other main competition (some fruit company). It has a great screen and is good sized for a hand held. It is just slightly bigger and heavier than the competition everyone has heard of but the FM radio feature may be the cause of the added bulk. Can play music and video and display photos in addition to the FM radio.

Have tried the Creative mentioned here and an ipod and a Sansa e280. The ipod actually ranked worst by me for its software needs, (the ZUNE also does this) and inability to let let user change battery and lack of FM radio. The Sansa bested everything I've tested or read about current to July 2007.

BOTTOM LINE:
Try before you buy. Navigation too sensitive and yet not sensitive enough (gotta try this to understand). Great features and feels good in hand and nice looking but not fun to use.

When I received this player, it did not work properly. I contacted the seller to request directions on how to get a new player. The seller advised me to send player back and they would send out a new player that worked. I did this and confirmed the player was received by the seller. Once this happened the run around started. The seller continued to ask questions on what was wrong with the player, if the player was sent back to her, and if I had confirmation of this. All of this was in the email chains in ebay and I continued to give the seller the benefit of the doubt by reminding her the information to answer and satisfy her questions. It was almost 90 days and I still had not recieved a refund or new player. I was extremely disappointed and DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS SELLER FOR ANY TRANSACTIONS.

The Vision M is a great player to watch movies on while on family vacations or just bored outside of home. Each of my children have their own playlist of music, audio, and pictures on my Vision M and there is still plenty of room left. My first one failed to turn on after having it for almost 5 years so I knew I HAD to get an identical replacement. I am so glad to have it back!!

We needed a new MP3 player, this is perfect and I was very happy to find it!! This creative zen came with some music, it can hold lots of music and it has all connectors needed for everything

I've used the Creative Zen Vision M 30Gb for almost two years and am very happy with it's performance and capabilities. I have 7000+ Mp3 tracks and my photo album stored on it and still have about 8Gb of open space left. One of the coolest things about my Zen is I have yet to see anyone else carrying a green one like mine... I wonder if the Ipod guys can say that. The only negative I normally see is it takes about 30 seconds for the Zen to load up and start playing music when you turn it on. I've had really great luck with Creative Mp3 players and have bought a couple for my family. I hope Creative releases an updated Vision M that is thinner and has more storage; that would be awesome. I don't know what else I'll buy when my Zen eventually quits.

Likes:
1)Price! Much easier to handle than an IPod.
2)Size is nearly ideal, very sturdy and well-made.
3)Enjoy the extra features like FM radio, Outlook syncing, voice recorder.
4)Definitely more bang for the buck!
5)Color screen is beautiful
6)Sound is superb
Dislikes:
1)Touch pad takes getting use to

Love this player, paid low price for 30G that's more I can use. Would certainly recommend it to someone who is interested for a non-IPod MP3 player.

My Husband loves it! He has had a Creative MP3 player before. 30GB is plenty of space to store albums of our favorite music.

This is the second Zen Vision M that I have bought. It is so easy to use, has great sound quality, holds a ton of media and is durable. I would recommend it to anyone.