Creative Zen Vision.M 30 GB MP3 and Video Player Black

Editorial Review
In its own right, the Creative Zen Vision:M is a very capable digital audio player, video player, photo viewer, FM radio, and more. Indeed, one could go on and on about how it has the right specifications to make it a constant companion for entertainment on the go. The really big news about this device, though, is that it's the first device to boast complete compatibility with Amazon Unbox, the new digital video and music download service from Amazon.com.

The Zen Vision:M has the features, ease-of-use, and power to become your constant media companion. See the Vison:M interactive demo.

Design
Let's get things out in the open. The Apple iPod is the 800-pound gorilla when it comes to the digital media player business and, unavoidably, every other device is measured against it. In most respects, the Vision:M 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 Vision:M beat; the Vision:M is .7 inches thick, while the iPod measures .4 inches. The Vision:M is slightly heavier, too. These details aside, the 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 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. Creative could have made the buttons a bit more sensitive--they require a firm press that gives an overall feeling of clunkiness to an otherwise well-designed user interface. Another annoyance is the touch pad's over-sensitivity; it's easy to make selections unintentionally, sending you on a wild ride through the user interface.

The 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. Our only nitpick was the screen's less than stellar viewing angle, especially when compared side-by-side with a video iPod. While this can be good for maintaining privacy, the narrow viewing angle also means that friends beside you will struggle to see anything other than a black screen.

Music, Videos, Photos, and More
The 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 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 Vision:M.

Playback of Windows Media DRM'd video files (WMV9) was also hassle-free. Purchased videos delivered crisp colors and detail, with no frame drops. Video playback consumes a lot of power, bringing Creative's claim of four hours of video playback into serious doubt. Expect under three hours when watching videos continuously. Thankfully, if you need to come back to your video later the Vision:M's software remembers the timecode of where you left off--unless you power the device down between viewing sessions. In addition to protected and unprotected WMV files, the Vision:M can play MPEG 1/2/4, Motion-JPEG, DivX 4 and 5, and XviD formats, making it a very flexible device with respect to encoding options.

The 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 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 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 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 Vision:M was, barring a few curious click-through boxes, pretty seamless. The 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 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 Vision:M was tested using a beta version of Amazon Unbox, things are looking good already. Amazon Unbox and the Vision:M go together like peas in a pod, making the process of purchasing, downloading, and enjoying content on the go a real cinch. The Amazon Unbox Video Player, which queues, downloads, organizes, and plays your purchased movies and TV shows, recognized the Vision:M right off the bat. An icon for the Vision:M appears in the devices panel of the application, and you can immediately begin transferring downloaded content to the device. Once you're all loaded up, the Vision:M offers a great way to bring Amazon Unbox entertainment along for the ride.

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

What's in the Box
Creative ZEN Vision:M, earphones, Sync Adapter, USB 2.0 cable, pouch, user's guide, and installation CD that includes Creative MediaSource and Creative Media Explorer software. Note: As of July 2006 Creative no longer ships the Zen M with the AC power adapter.
Cached date: AWS Called=true

Customer Reviews

Great MP3 Player

2008-04-28
I've had my Vision for about two years. I've had no problems with it at all.

You can choose between Windows Media Player and the provided software to put songs on the player. Both are very easy and fast.

It is possible to create a playlist on the player, but it's much easier to use the Zen software to do this.

The middle scroll button may be a little difficult for users accustomed to the iPod, but I've never had an iPod, so it was not an issue for me.

It holds a lot of photos, music, and videos. I love using Amazon Unbox to get movies. You can connect your player to the computer and transfer the video from the download screen to the player.

I'm completely satisfied with my purchase and would definitely buy this brand again.

The Vision You've Been Waiting For..........

2008-04-25
The player comes with a disc, helping users organize all files. Zen users can find their loaded media by artist, album, genre,and videos easily with their menus.
The deejay option gives you the ability to play your music on repeat, random play, and random play all. Listen to the most played tracks, or review the lesser played tracks. Rate your favorites, or design your own playlist.
Video picture is good quality, but is sometimes altered, if the media needs to be converted, to a lesser quality. I've run into the video on playback being upside down. Depending on a file's format to converse may take, awhile.
In pictures you'll see folders typically,unless your images weren't in a folder on your computer. With any of the files you can create slide shows,only for your device.
An Extra feature gives you a calendar,date reminders, contact finder.
The FM Radio comes in decent in large cities, but not so well in small towns, and the record feature is easy to use when recording radio.
The built in mic is sensitive to the slightest sound! Recorded audio can be relabeled,and found easily in the recorded content file! You can add these to your playlist,or slide presentations!
My regret is Creative doesn't provide instructions on 90% of their features. The touch screen takes some time to get used too. If you have a crazy life, and don't have time to figure out music, and video files, this may not be right for you.

Lack of Customer Service Alone Deserves One Star

2008-04-22
I was actually pretty pleased with my player while it was working, but the atrocious customer service and product support provided by Creative are enough for me to recommend against buying it to anyone.

First, a little background about my experience--my player worked great for about three months, then all of the sudden it completely died. The player would not respond when being turned on or when plugged into my computer via the USB adapter. I went to Creative's website and tried a couple of suggestions provided in their "help" section to no avail. I then searched around for a customer support number to call, and finally found one, buried deep in the files on the software installation CD provided with the unit.

After calling customer service, I was eventually told by a recording that since my unit was past the minuscule 60 day warranty period, I was not eligible for help over the phone. I then proceeded to attempt to use the online, email based customer service. This proved to be quite a difficult task as well, as I stumbled through a series of circular links no less than five times before finally reaching the email submission page.

After sending a detailed email explaining my situation, what steps I had already tried, and so on, I received a response within a matter of hours (the one strong point of the customer service, I suppose). Unfortunately, this email was utterly useless, as all it did was provide me with links to online help pages, the majority of which I had already read. Some of the provided links even offered suggestions which were impossible to implement given the symptoms which I had clearly described in my email. In essence, my email response contained so little thought, and was written in such a formulaic manner, that I seriously wonder whether or not it was a computer-generated response. On top of that, whoever or whatever wrote my "customer support response" email actually had the audacity to close it out with an advertisement--that's right, an advertisement--for a pair of Creative headphones.

I calmly replied to the previously mentioned email, explaining that I tried all of the listed steps to no avail. I even offered my own suggestion--that the USB adapter provided with the unit had gone bad, thus leading to the lack of response when plugging the unit into the computer and making it impossible to charge the unit. The next response I received made no mention of my suggestion, and simply stated (again, in a form letter) that I should send the unit in for repairs (for a fee, of course), and if nothing was found to be wrong with it, it would be returned to me (presumably unfixed, and of course I would still be charged for the service).

I am still considering buying another USB adapter to see if my theory is correct, before sending the unit in to be "looked at," so there may still be hope. Regardless, the utter lack of respect that Creative has for its customers has been made abundantly clear to me. I am far from being someone who has a "the customer is always right, no matter what" attitude, and I completely understand that with complicated technical devices things go wrong occasionally. But Creative's policies stoop far below the level of acceptability in my opinion; they are what I would expect from a supercheap knockoff, not from a supposedly respectable company. The short warranty period should have been a tipoff, I suppose--a $300+ consumer device should last far longer than 60 days. Suffice it to say that I will never be buying another Creative product ever again, and I urge other consumers not to as well, for their own sake.

Best-kept Secret

2008-04-19
I found this through Amazon. It is the best-kept secret alternative to an Ipod. I bought it for my husband in order to get my Zune back because he kept borrowing it. He LOVES IT. The best thing about it is that there is no need to convert anything. If the screen were bigger, I'd switch from my Zune to the Zen. But my daughter watches movies on the Zune so I can't for now. We also have the cables to hook it up directly through the A/V to the widescreen and watch the movies from the ZEN on the television! How awesome is that?

He loves the touch pad ability and has decided the touch slide is superior to the click wheel in the ability to control what you are doing. And no more sore thumb!

Great product. Get one now!

Great Sound! Not So Good Reliability......

2008-04-19
Well, I orginally had a sony mp3 player that worked well. They come out with great quality mp3 players with great looks. But memory wise you don't get that much bang for your buck. I had a 1 GB Sony and I decided I needed to put all of my music on a player instead of going back and fourth. I was looking at the apple ipod vision 35GB and this one. I decided to go with this one. All of my friends have the ipod vision and have had no problems with them. I have just heard that apple batteries for their players suck. Who knows. This one works pretty well. The screen has great quality and the sound is amazing. Creative really knows how to produce great sound. The only problem is that like other reviewers state is that it freezes up every now and then. I now always carry a paperclip in my pocket where ever I go with it in case I have to reset it. The other thing that bugged me is that when you first get it they do not tell you that you need a wall charger to charge it up. I thought it was like my old Sony in which the USB charged it. I got it out of the box and connected to the usb and nothing. I let it set there for hours and nothing. I contacted customer support by e-mail through creative's website which sent me an e-mail the next day stating I would probably have to send it back to them. I shipped it to them and started reading reviews on here to see if people had the same problem as me. Turns out alot of people do. No where on creative's website is the technical troubleshooting does it just tell you to try a wall charger. All the agent had to do when I contacted them was tell me to buy a wall charger instead of making me pay 7 bucks for shipping.I got it back from them and it was charged fully. And now I charge it with the wall charger. It was really easy for me to put all of my songs on the player. I don't get the other reviewers in that respect. I just went to creative's website and downloaded the software. I downloaded Creative MediaSource Player/Organizer 5.10.38 (22 Dec 06) and the Creative PlaysForSure Devices Plugin 5.00.36 (22 Dec 06). It seems pretty user friendly to me. So all together I am glad I purchased this. It does have amazing sound and is worth buying if you can put up with it's cons.

Another IPOD clone

2008-04-17
In its own right, the Creative Zen Vision:M is a very capable digital audio player, video player, photo viewer, FM radio, and more. Indeed, one could go on and on about how it has the right specifications to make it a constant companion for entertainment on the go. The really big news about this device, though, is that it's the first device to boast complete compatibility with Amazon Unbox, the new digital video and music download service from Amazon.com.

The Zen Vision:M has the features, ease-of-use, and power to become your constant media companion. See the Vison:M interactive demo.

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

2008-04-17
I purchased a Creative Zen M 4 months ago. I had it 2 weeks and had to return it because the hard drive kept freezing up. I got a new one and it wasn't any better. The company wouldn't work because I had lost the original purchase receipt (my fault). So it got dumped and I am now looking for something else. I had a creative Jukebox which ran and ran for years. This little machine however is a piece of junk. Be sure to check out the warranty before purchasing oneCreative Zen Vision:M 30 GB MP3 and Video Player (Black)

Beats the 5th gen ipod and Zune by a mile.

2008-04-07
The absolute best mp3 player I have ever purchased. Best picture clarity over 200k colors, best sound 192 kbps and beyond, microphone picks up my professors lectures easily and clearly, coverflow before ipod 6, 10 megapixel pics look like 10 megapixel pics on the zen, and finally battery life is awesome 20 hours audio 5 video. It's a little old now, but nothing new has been made that completely out shines it, if you can find this cheap don't double guess because its a little dated, buy it.

Who should I hate apple or creative?

2008-04-02
Summary: Zen good, few problems, does not work with a mac.
I got my Zen Vision M for graduation because I needed something to hold my 10GB library, pictures, etc. It worked really well with a few freezes (mostly when syncing). I really like the screen and the fact that you can have a picture as the background. I also like that unlike ipods the back doesn't scratch. Videos are hard to get on and even in the right format don't always work. But alas, after 2 years the problems start. First, my player would say the battery was dead when it said it was more than half charged. So after deleting everything and rebooting firmware it was up and running again. Then woe is me my laptop crashed (the last of many). So I gave up on Microsoft, and toshiba and bought a MacBook Pro (love it by the way) but now I have one big problem, the zen doesn't work with a mac! Creative has no software that will work with a mac and apple has no software to work with the Zen. With the help of a freeware program I can get my music on but no pictures, no videos and no cover art. I can't even update firmware. Also it was announced that Vision M is no longer going to be made, so that means there is no hope of ever solving this problem. So now do I wait to see if so freeware come up to make it work or just buy an ipod (which on a college students budget is hard to do, and they don't seem to get very good reviews either)?

Don't ever buy!!!!!!

2008-03-27
I spent $320.00 for the Zen Vision M (30GB). 14 months after purchasing (and of course after the warranty runs out) the hard drive crashes. Keep in mind, I was not an every day user. 3 times a week while working out was the max. Still, it crashes. I went thru all of Creative's online steps to try to fix the problem, to no avail. Then I try to contact Creative thru email for support. Futile effort. Never got back to me. Then a phone call. Sure, their initial call is toll free but for technical support, not toll free. Just another way they get ya. Then I get a guy telling me that it will cost $200.00 to fix this problem!!!! Of course, this is after he kept repeating that my warranty had expired. No kidding??? Isn't that how it always works with electronics these days??? So Creative wants me to spend a total of $520.00 for an MP3 player!!! I'll just go back to my reliable cd player. Should have just bought an Ipod!