Creative Zen Vision:M portable video player unveiled - tasty!

[Bob Crabtree]

Creative has introduced the Zen Vision:M, a cutting-edge 30GB video player, photo viewer and MP3 player. Designed with a stunning, 2.5-inch, high-resolution 262,144 colour LCD screen, the Zen Vision:M displays rich, vibrant digital video and photos, full-colour menus and album art. The Zen Vision:M will be available in gorgeous high-gloss black, white, blue, green or pink.

The market, of course, will decide, but if function, rather than form is what you're looking for in a portable player that can do video, this clearly has the edge over Apple's recently launched video-capable iPod.

It just does so many more good things and, when you look closely, is actually cheaper than the iPod, even though your target price (£249) is £30 more than for the 30GB iPod.

That's cos it comes with a bunch of goodies that are chargeable extras for the iPod.

Below are some of the key features lifted from the release but, to me, the real killer is the fact that the Zen natively supports a whole bunch of video Codecs - allowing you to watch most of the footage that you can on a PC without converting it for use on the Zen - and has a better-res screen and the ability to output at good quality to a TV set.

The list of Codecs includes DivX 4&5, plus V6 soon (said the boss man, but not how soon); Xvid; MPEG-4/2/1; and WMV 9 (HD as well as lower resolutions).

DV AVI, I think, is not supported, though I haven't yet been able to check this yet for sure.

Anyway, here is the bullet-list of features from the release:

* FM radio and recording – with 32 preset options
* Intuitive Vertical Touch Pad and Tactile Buttons on the face of the player - including the new programmable Short Cut Button for quick access to favourite functions
* Content password protection – Protects any content stored on the player
* Built-in Microphone – shows volume levels on screen for optimum voice recording quality
* Customisable themes, including Vibrant, Earth, Cool, Peace, Romantic, Pastel, Jungle and Fire to match the colour scheme of the player menus to any mood
* Organizer – Provides calendar, tasks and contact lists, and syncs with Microsoft Outlook
* Extras – Enables setting of Date & Time, plus allocation of Removable Disk space for dedicated storage
* A clock with wake-to-any-music alarm, colour themes and different languages for further customisation
* Album Art displayed on the screen

I'll try to write an in-depth news story tomorrow but, in the interim, check out the full release which, despite the flowery language, probably undersells the product to some extent.

[autopilot]

Sheep-tastic

[csl]

Looks great as far as I'm concerned. Nice to see companies putting more effort into the design. Good AV codecs too. Will it record in .wav through the mic, at at least 44/16bit wav?

[autopilot]

Looks great as far as I'm concerned. Nice to see companies putting more effort into the design.

And just blatantly copying their biggest rival?

[Jonny M]

Hey guys, we can copy an interface!

[kapowaz]

I'm sure it's very good feature-wise, and probably does a lot of things the iPod doesn't, but whereas Creative try to address the features of the player itself, they largely ignore the far more important aspects of what makes the iPod successful. If you need a clue as to what this is, go to apple.com and see what the label for the section of the site dedicated to the iPod is says.

Until Creative can offer a true full solution for everything the iPod does with iTunes, it's still the poor-man's alternative.

[menthel]

Underwhelmed tbh. Also, when will we start to see DAB radio rather than cruddy FM built into these things. Now that would be more interesting and may drag me away from my iPod.

[csl]

And just blatantly copying their biggest rival?

Absolutely true. But if I want a HD mp3 player in the future with iPod looks and generous PC codecs for audio/video, plus radio, I'd consider this. Creative took the iPod's strengths and expanded on its feature set.

[Bob Crabtree]

And just blatantly copying their biggest rival?

Why do you think it's a copy?

Do you really believe it's possible to design, engineer, test, build and get on sale a product in the short amount of time between the video iPod's launch and the Zen's launch?

I would judge it is absolutely certain that this product has been in development for a very considerable period of time.

Also as the BBC has pointed out in a recent news story - see this lifestyle.news posting - Creative was one of the first to market digital music players in 2000, and is likely to be chasing Apple about copying its patented interface!



Bob

[Bob Crabtree]

menthel,

You are right about DAB being highly desirable but not, I reckon, about it being offered as an alternative to FM - it has to be as well as FM.

Why?

Well, DAB reception is all or nothing, so imagine how totally hacked off someone would be if they bought a unit that had only DAB and found that they couldn't get reception.

In my house, DAB reception is patchy - and varies greatly from room to room. FM doesn't vary to this extent but even at its best isn't a patch on DAB for quality. And of course, it lacks all the other great features of DAB.

Bob

[Bob Crabtree]

I'm sure it's very good feature-wise, and probably does a lot of things the iPod doesn't, but whereas Creative try to address the features of the player itself, they largely ignore the far more important aspects of what makes the iPod successful. If you need a clue as to what this is, go to apple.com and see what the label for the section of the site dedicated to the iPod is says.

Cut out the ambiguity, please, and just tell us why you think the iPod is superior.


Bob

[kapowaz]

Cut out the ambiguity, please, and just tell us why you think the iPod is superior.

Well, seeing as you couldn't be bothered to go to apple.com and see what I was talking about I'll explain; the link says "iPod+iTunes". The two go hand-in-hand. The iPod is a fantastic music player, yes - but without the seamless integration with iTunes, it wouldn't be nearly as significant. iTunes wins because it has an extremely easy to use interface, lets you organise and import music logically and simply, and has the most popular online music store on the planet built-in.

As with most Apple products, it can be summarised in a sentence: it just works.

[divinemadness]

Why do you think it's a copy?

Do you really believe it's possible to design, engineer, test, build and get on sale a product in the short amount of time between the video iPod's launch and the Zen's launch?

I would judge it is absolutely certain that this product has been in development for a very considerable period of time.

Also as the BBC has pointed out in a recent news story - see this lifestyle.news posting - Creative was one of the first to market digital music players in 2000, and is likely to be chasing Apple about copying its patented interface!



Bob

It's not neccesarily a copy of the iPod Video specifically, the Video is exactly the same shape and style as the Photo before it, and the B+W version before that.

Just look at it - can you honestly say that looks nothing like an iPod? Even the damn software running on it looks the same as my iPod Photo does, the battery indicator, the photo thumbs, even the scroll bar!

I think most people are aware that Creative had one of the first HD players on the market, but so what? Apple did it better, marketed it better, more people bought it and hey ho, whaddya know the latest Creative looks almost indentical to the most recent iPod shape!

[autopilot]

If even just for the fact that its white. Fair enough, give people white as an option. But using white for promotional purposes? IMO, that's a bit sheepy.

[Bob Crabtree]

Well, seeing as you couldn't be bothered to go to apple.com and see what I was talking about I'll explain; the link says "iPod+iTunes". The two go hand-in-hand. The iPod is a fantastic music player, yes - but without the seamless integration with iTunes, it wouldn't be nearly as significant. iTunes wins because it has an extremely easy to use interface, lets you organise and import music logically and simply, and has the most popular online music store on the planet built-in.

As with most Apple products, it can be summarised in a sentence: it just works.

Thanks.

All I wanted was for you tell us why YOU think the iPod is superior and you've done that, as well as let us know that you are completely open-minded about Apple and its products.

[Bob Crabtree]

It's not neccesarily a copy of the iPod Video specifically, the Video is exactly the same shape and style as the Photo before it, and the B+W version before that.

Just look at it - can you honestly say that looks nothing like an iPod? Even the damn software running on it looks the same as my iPod Photo does, the battery indicator, the photo thumbs, even the scroll bar!

I think most people are aware that Creative had one of the first HD players on the market, but so what? Apple did it better, marketed it better, more people bought it and hey ho, whaddya know the latest Creative looks almost indentical to the most recent iPod shape!

The questions I'd like answered here - because I don't know the answers - are:

* Which company (Apple, Creative or someone else) had that body shape first?
* Which company (Apple, Creative or someone else) came up with the interface first?
* Which feature set would most objective observers say is better - the video iPod's or the new Zen's.

If we knew the answers, then we'd be able to see your product-related comments in a better context - and the first and second questions may be answerable by someone with better background knowledge than my own.

As for marketing - I think it's indisputable that Apple has marketed its iPod range very well, including putting in place key stuff like the iTunes store (more recently with video downloads) and the iTunes software itself.

But none of this means, surely, that Creative should lay down and die and not come out with attractive products of its own?

And, I would point out, again, that the new Zen does in most ways, look to be far superior to the video iPod in terms of its video capabilities - as well as offering lots of useful features not available on the iPod.

I'd also point out that my original posting said that the market would decide on the success or otherwise of the Zen.