We wrote about this starfish-shaped all-in-one entertainment system from Cambridge SoundWorks only days ago. Now, it’s the turn of its mother company, Creative (NASDAQ: CREAF), to be in the spotlight all over the planet when unveiling their answer to Apple’s iPod, dubbed Zen Vision:M –well what stands the “M” for? And from what we gathered all around, it IS an answer… since there’s a Master of the game, it is all but normal that everyone compares to, and challenges the said Master of ceremonies. So what does it have in stock?
It looks like it has impressed all sorts of bloggers all around, since this is a “war” machine (so says Creative). It has some muscle to show, and it should if it really wants to stay in the game, since the respective sales show a two-fold factor: 16 million of iPods shipped this year, 8 million MP3 units by sold by Creative …. Gasp, it’s a gap. How can they fill that?
Well, it is a 30GB device –although iPod goes up to 60GB. Next, the Creative people claim that it’s impressively engineered to provide technological superiority over iPod’s fifth generation. OK, so what? Even an astounding technology is no guarantee for breakthrough sales.
On the display side, they both come with a 2.5-in (6.35 cm) display, and 320X240 resolution, so we’re on familiar ground here, however Zen Vision:M is capable of 262,144 colours, vs. 65,536 for the iPod. Point taken. and indeed, the Zen screen is very colorful, brisk.
Sharp, brisk pictures
Then, Zen comes with a 4 hours video playback capacity, that is the double of Apple’s in the video segment of the device. The audio playback goes up to 11 hours.
They’re almost identical in size, but the Zen Vision:M is physically thicker (2 cm) than its contender, although Creative people used a trick: the rear panel is less wide than the front one, so you don’t actually view this extra thickness. In addition, it feels quite solid and well built when you hold it in your hand. All connectivity is the bottom of the player: USB 2.0, power, audio. At the top is the earphone jack, the mike is on the left side. A “dual” button is near there, to switch On/Off and lock all controls on the device. The –very capable, as we said- display invades the upper part of the front panel and the lower is booked for the navigation plate, very similar to the iPod.
The Zen Vision:M is delivered in various colours (see picture) and you can customize this. Vision:M allows for photo transfer up to 8 mega-pixels, at full size. One can stretch the picture to fit the size of the screen, or move in the details easily, thanks to a smart guide on the lower left side, which is very useful. Slideshow with audio is available as well.
neat colours...
The FM tuner, with 32 radio pre-sets and auto-tune, can record aired programmes into MP3 format. Ther’s also a keypad (virtual, obviously) with which one can customize the names of stations or rename recorded songs. The music sounds good (Creative has earned a good reputation at that) and the album artistic view makes you “see” what you’re listening.
Video-playing is easy, with a progress bar. There are a number of pre-set equalizer schemes, bass-boost (as on any walkman). As for formats supported, well, there’s quite a choice: MP3, WMA, WAV, MPEG1, MPEG2, and MPEG4-SP, Motion-JPEG, DivX 4 and DivX 5, WMV9.
Last, Zen Vision:M is capable of synch with Outlook. There are still some mysteries around the space allowed for data, as well as its use as an external drive, but these capacities exist.
It’s a nice beast, undoubtedly, priced in the US at $330 (£190 approx.)