Creative Zen Vision M: Review
The Creative Zen Vision:M comes packaged nicely in a solid box packed tightly full of accessories. Included is a USB cable, sync adaptor, AC charger, pouch, manuals and software. And of course, the actual unit is also found neatly placed in the box. And I've got to say, after getting my hands on the Creative Zen Vision:M, it wasn't hard to see why it was voted best of CES for "Mp3 and Portable Video", as well as Best of CES for "Best in Show" for 2006. The unit itself is sleek and shiny with a glossy black front and a pearly white back with the rather attractive and hypnotising trademark ripple design on the back. However, the unit is a bit on the portly side and measures around 18mm in thickness which is a considerable bit thicker than Apple's iPod Video and the Toshiba Gigabeat S30.
What's apparent though upon powering up the unit is the absolute depth and clarity of the colours on the fantastic screen. The Creative M's best asset is the picture and colour quality that totally blows the competition out of the water. The display looks crisp and detailed, and the 6 customisable backgrounds are positively stunning. Video playback is absolutely astonishing and is unrivalled in its splendour. Audio playback is also of a high quality, but I found the maximum volume still somewhat lacking, especially in noisy environments like riding on public transport. Luckily, the Zen has other great redeeming features such as its ability to sync with Windows Media Player thus doing away with the need to install the third party software. Creative have also thoughtfully included great features such as FM radio, FM recording as well as voice recording which makes the Zen a brilliant all-round package.
Given all these great qualities, the main downfall of the Creative M is the difficulty of navigation. Creative's touch sensitive vertical strip was a little too sensitive at times and had me making wrong selections quite frequently, or accidentally adjusting the volume. It also made scrolling through long lists of songs quite a chore. The positioning of the skip track keys were also unfortunately placed right next to the touch sensitive strip which also added to frequent accidental selections and added more confusion. Compared with the user-friendliness of the Apple iPod click wheel, the navigation system of the Creative M is sorely lacking.
Another feature I found irritating about the Creative M is the sync adaptor unit that must be attached to the Zen before performing tasks such as connecting the USB to the PC, charging the unit through the AC adapter or using the AV out function. Yes, it's a only a minor annoyance and I can learn to live with this, but Creative have just made it extremely fiddly when it seriously doesn't need to be.
All in all, the Creative M is definitely deserves the CNET crown of being the best portable media player, however note there is an emphasis on the word "media" in portable media player. What do I mean? Well, no offence to the Zen, the Creative M is great but that's only if you want to upload your video collection onto it as well as your music. If you're not interested in video playback, then the bulkiness of the player and difficult navigation make the Zen a less than optimal choice. At the risk of sounding like an Apple fanboy, if listening to music is your primary purpose for a portable device, then I still believe that the iPod and it's ultra user-friendly navigation and slim dimensions is still the best choice.
