Hey everyone, and welcome to my review. For the past years, Ipod had ruled the mp3 player market, but you all knew that. Now whether you love it or hate it, you have to admit it is a good device. Today I am going to tell you about a device that I believe hasn't gotten the recognition it deserves. I am talking about the Zen vision M from Creative. I am reviewing the 30gb version today, because that is the one that I have. It is also available in an 80gb model.
Let me start of with the style first of all. As you can see, it comes in a few different colors. White, black, blue, green, and pink are all of the available colors. The device is much thicker than the ipod, and that can be a turnoff to alot of tech savvy people. I found that it was tolerable, and don't really notice it anymore. It has a total of 6 buttons. The play/pause is the top right button, the menu is the bottom right, previous menu is the bottom left, and the top left is the shortcut button, but I will talk about that a little later. On the sides of the scroll bar are also a forward and back button. The menus are nice looking, and you can even adjust the color scheme, with six total. They have one for every style, ranging from black with a purple bar, to pink with a white bar. When you turn on the player, it will show a list of options, the main ones being music library, photos, videos, and system. The navigation is very nice, you just scroll up and down with the vertical scroll bar. The default sensitivity is a little too much at first, so you can adjust that and make it much better. When you are on the selection you want, just simply press on the middle of the scroll bar and it will choose it. Now you may be thinking, how about scrolling through a large list of songs? All you do is either hold down on the bottom of the scroll bar, or for a faster solution, press forward by the scroll bar, and scroll through the list by letter. Enough about that. The interface is great and easy to use, and the only issue is with the sensitivity.
Next I will explain the shortcut button. You can actually set this button to do a variety of things, ranging from volume control to random play all, or album of the day. This is a really cool feature, and I have mine set to volume control. Back to display. With this player, you can upload photos and use them for a background. It can be tricky though, because you may have to change the menu colors to be able to see the letters. But all in all it is pretty cool.
This device has many features that an ipod lacks. One is the background, and menu colors. This also has a FM radio. The radio has pretty good reception where I am, but it will occasionally get a little staticy. I don't use this for the radio though, so I can't go that in depth about it. It also has a microphone, so you can record your own personal messages. If you are like me then this is great, I use it all the time to get my mom on a verbal contract, and secretly record her. It is pretty fun ;) . You can sync your calendar and stuff like that, but I don't use it at all, so I won't be covering that.
Perhaps one of my favorite extra features is the removable disk. You can set this player to act like a removable disk, and you can even set the amount of memory used in the process. It ranges between 1 gig and 16 gigs. Once again, great for me because I use it to transfer games and word documents to my mom's computer.
The screen on this device whoops the ipod by far. The screen is so much clearer, and the colors are alot more vibrant. This is especially obvious while playing movies. The movies play smooth, and they look really nice. Now you may be wondering about podcast, or what the player and creative call zencasts. You can get any podcast, all you have to do is use a program called zencast organizer which you can download from zencast.com. I really like these, and have subscribed to alot of them. The process is really simple, the program automatically checks for new episodes, and will sync them easily to the player. They recently released new firmware which made the transfers faster, which I am really glad they did. Putting music on the device is simple as well. The player comes with a disc, and you have the option to install programs along with the drivers for the player. These programs are unnecessary, because it is alot easier, and even faster, to use windows media player. All you do to add music is open the sync option in WMP, and drag the songs to the list, and click synchronize . Very painless, and couldn't be easier.
Now for the package contents. Like I said earlier, the player comes with a disk, but also includes headphones, a case, and a booklet. What surprised me were the headphones. I would have expected the headphones to be similar to the ipods, but instead found the fluffly black cushion around the headphones. This was a turnoff for me, and probably will be for alot of people. Luckily I had a really good set of headphones at home, so that was no worry. The case is nice, it is simply a soft pouch to avoid scratching. You may want to purchase another case, because scratches are a problem with the black player. Fingerprints aswell.
So overall, this is a great(better for me) alternative for the ipod. The cost of this player is $199.99, which makes it nice. The screen is sexy, syncing is painless, and the interface is nice. Thanks for reading, and I hope this helped.
Guest
The screen on that thing looks nice! Not that I use my iPod for anything besides plugging it into my car for music, but that must certainly be a crisp picture for viewing movies.
How long does it take you to write one of these long reviews you seem to like writing anyways? Just curious.
Ronin
Ummmm This one took me about an hour maybe. I love writing lol. One of my hobbies. I love the screen, I watch alot of movies and video podcasts, so i really enjoy it. I still have to get something for my car though. Any recommendations for listening in a car?
SYLUXMASTER7227
Ronin wrote:
Ummmm This one took me about an hour maybe. I love writing lol. One of my hobbies. I love the screen, I watch alot of movies and video podcasts, so i really enjoy it. I still have to get something for my car though. Any recommendations for listening in a car?
niceeeeee
Guest
Ronin wrote:
Ummmm This one took me about an hour maybe. I love writing lol. One of my hobbies. I love the screen, I watch alot of movies and video podcasts, so i really enjoy it. I still have to get something for my car though. Any recommendations for listening in a car?
Honestly, I just found the cheapest CD receiver with an AUX input jack I could find at my local Circuit City and took them up on their free installation offer (with any purchase of car radio/cd receiver over $99). I ended up with some $129 JVC, and actually it works good. Google the model number KD-G420 if you want to see it, plus it has full MP3 playback or whatever it's called if you think the front auxiliary setup doesn't fullfill your needs (the MP3 player can't be controlled by the deck and won't be kept charged up with that AUX input jack).
Then again, I'm not a car tech person by any means, so you might want to get additional recommendations from someone else.
Ronin
Hmmmm I'll google that right now. I don't need anything fancy, I just want to listen to my tunes in the car lol. Thanks for the model number.
Guest
DAYUM!!!If I alreay didn't have a $400 iPod video, I might've gotten that. IT's sounds awsome!!!
I got a kit that allow me to play music from my MP3 (not iPod, every MP3 player) player in my car, T.V, and something else but I forget because I have no use for it. It cost $30.
Ronin
Hmmmm In my moms car she has a plug in to listen, but I just have to buy the adapter.
