Creative's New Zen Vision: Back in Black

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=213&subcategory=214&product=16999' target='_blank'>http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=213&subcategory=214&product=16999</a><br /><br /></div><i>"A huge array of features packaged in one tiny design. This is the new Creative ZEN™ at a glance. Decked out in an all-black suit, the Creative ZEN is smaller than your average credit card and sits snugly right in your palm. With an attractive 11.3mm thickness, this sleek player weighs a mere 65g, allowing you to carry it around easily. It is also one of the lightest players around that is able to boast a capacity of up to 16GB while supporting different popular media formats. What's more, you can add as much capacity as you want with its SD memory expansion slot. With its patented ZEN user interface which offers more information to be viewed on the screen, navigating through mass content is simply a breeze. You can even accessorize this pint-sized dynamo with optional accessories such as the ZEN Leather Case or the ZEN Skin Pack. Celebrate the arrival of the latest revolution on the portable player scene. Welcome the Creative ZEN. "</i><br /><br /><a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/jd-aug29-hires_zen.jpg"><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/jd-aug29-lowres_zen.jpg" /></a><br />[click image above for high-res photo]<br /><br />I've always liked Creative products, especially once they hit upon their Zen line. I remained a big fan of my Zen Vision:M, and in some ways I prefer it to my Zune. This new Zen Vision from Creative looks quite impressive - small, thin, light, Flash-memory based, and expandable via SD cards (you could have 24 GB of storage right off the bat with an 8 GB SD card). The 320 x 240 resolution isn't super impressive, but on a 2.5" screen that's not bad at all - I'm more excited to see them supporting 16.7 million colours. Photos and movies would look excellent on this thing - much better than all those other devices that are stuck at 65K colours (yeah, I'm looking at your Zune). Round that out with <a href="http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=213&subcategory=214&product=16999&nav=1">WMV, Divx, Xvid, and MPEP4 codec support</a>, and you have a nice device. What's up with the only colour being black though? Come on Creative, I know you can do better than that.<br /><br />Pricing wise, these look quite good - the <a href="http://astore.amazon.com/digitalmediathoughts-20/detail/B000UV4EU6/104-5494781-3858369">4GB model is $149 USD</a>, the <a href="http://astore.amazon.com/digitalmediathoughts-20/detail/B000UV4EUG/104-5494781-3858369">8GB model is $199</a>, and the <a href="http://astore.amazon.com/digitalmediathoughts-20/detail/B000UVBDRS/104-5494781-3858369">16GB model is $299</a> [Affiliate]. I'm definitely tempted...what about you?

[randalllewis]

The new Vision is on my list of gadgets I want. I have the original Zen Vision; before it acquired that snooty W. This new model drops the superfluous letter as well. The Visions have fantastic screens and are a pleasure to view. This is one of several Creative products that are as eye catching and easy to use as anything Apple has produced. No one markets like Apple, but sometimes it seems to me that Creative doesn't even try. If it did, there would be lots more Zens around and maybe we would have been spared the Zune altogether.

There are several other differences between the original Vision, the Vision W and the new Vision besides the use of flash rather than a hard drive and the subsequent change in capacity. The new Vision is much smaller, the screen is 2.5 inches rather than 3.7, the new Vision has an SD slot rather than CF, the original Vision had a port for a dock that held the device at a good viewing angle when watching movies and it also had a AV out port so you could plug the Vision into a TV. The new Vision has neither of these features. I still want it.

[Jeremy Charette]

This is the form factor I'm hoping the new iPod Nano takes on, rather than that short &amp; fat vertical layout we've seen floating around. Give it a widescreen, and turn it on its side. Perfect.

[Jason Dunn]

Give it a widescreen, and turn it on its side. Perfect.

Yeah, I was a bit surprised Creative stuck with the 320 x 240 resolution, meaning it's not wide-screen. But they might have figured people would use it more for photos than video, so 3:2 is a better aspect ratio.

[Tom W.M.]

I'd find this quite tempting but for the miserable codec support. No OGG Vorbis? Come on. I can understand the lack of FLAC support (that's the nice thing about lossless--transcoding is always an option), but Vorbis is essential. I like the form factor, but I'm staying with my Rio Karma for now. That also supports volume normalization--required, really, for playback through a car stereo. Why don't any of these new MP3 players have any features?