Still More Praise for The Creative Zen Vision:M

[Chris Gohlke]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.everythingusb.com/creative_zen_vision:m_30gb.html' target='_blank'>http://www.everythingusb.com/creative_zen_vision:m_30gb.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"The Creative Zen Vision:M is the first formidable opponent that the video iPod faces. It is very feature-rich, yet some functions are not very well executed. The button layout is logical, but not very intuitive. The most praised area is its stellar DivX/XviD performance as well as the beautiful screen. The video battery life (twice that of 30GB video iPod) is also a fair tradeoff for the large casing. In the end, Microsoft support for PlayforSure stores will ensure a variety of content to fill up your Zen Vision:M. "</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/creativevisionsize.jpg" /> <br /><br />We've posted a few reviews giving praise to the Vision: M for actually competing with the iPod video. This review steps it up a notch with lots of pics comparing the screens of the two head to head as well as the size of the units.

[Kent Pribbernow]

Ok, this completely baffles me. The Vision:M's screen is clearly gorgeous...even better than the iPod's. So why the hell did Ryan Block and Peter Rojas from Engadget dis the screen so much, even calling it a huge disappointment? I'm totally confused how these opinions could be so diametrically opposed.

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

Because it is very likely they made the comment without even seeing the screen. :P

[jeffd]

Id dis the screen for its size. My pocket PC's 3.5inch is allready pretty cramped, especialy on widescreen movies and shows. 2.5 really wouldn't cut it as a media player.

Also id like to know what maximum bitrates for divx and xvid it can handel (If its the 800kbit that WMV3 is, then you can forget it. The tv shows I download alone have bitrates around 800kbit and can jump to 1400k in some scenes). I think, unless I was replacing my broken pocket pc, I wouldn't consider buying a new media player unless there was sufficent performance room for both current and future encode methods (I dont meannew codecs like h264, but higher bitrates, and higher resolutions. As HDTV content becomes more available and bandwidth increases, so will the sizes people are willing to let their videos grow to.