Creative Zen Vision:M MP3 player

Posted by T3 Online on Mon 29 Oct 2007

Creative squares up to Apple with a nifty video-playing jukebox.

Trying to take on Apple at the jukebox game is a thankless task, but it's one that Creative hasn't shied away from over the years. This time it's offering a player with better battery life and better support for video than the iPod.

The Vision:M looks a lot more stylish than Creative's previous efforts, but it's still quite bulky at 19mm thick. For the most part the interface follows the familiar Creative pattern, but two new buttons on the side of the touchpad do speed up navigation. When scrolling through a long list, for example, you can use the buttons to call up a sidebar that lets you skip alphabetically through the list. Despite these new additions, though, it's still not as user-friendly as the iPod.

The sound quality, however, can't be faulted. It brings out an amazing level of detail on a track such as Wires by Athlete, while Insomia by Faithless boasts a truly beefy low end. It also works a treat with subscription services like Napster to Go.

Where this player really surpasses the iPod is on video playback. It happily plays plenty of formats, including WMV and DivX, on its quality screen. Even when showing tricky darker scenes from an episode of Lost, there is still plenty of detail. What's more, there's a TV output so you can view photos and videos on a big screen, and unlike the iPod, there's more than enough battery life for a full movie. We got four hours 23 mins of playback using XviD files and 14 hours when working with audio only.

Although Creative hasn't trumped the iPod in terms of ease of use, it has come up with a player that's got great sound quality and excellent video support.