DVD Josh

That's funny. I've never seen an open box Zen, yet always see open box iPods.

I've owned the DJ, the iPod and now the Zen. Hands down, the Zen is the best. Navigation goes to the iPod, but in terms of everything else, Zen is the winner.

Josh H

Good to hear.

I wonder if a lot of the defects are people that are dropping them, using them while running/working out etc.

HDD players aren't good to use while in vigorous motion, and it could be that the Vision are a bit more sensitive to this than other players.

In which case I wouldn't care as I have a creative flash player for working out, and just use my HD player at work and when traveling.

svrasputin

My brother researched the Vision M for weeks before finally purchasing. He really enjoyed it, until one day he updated the firmware and the thing would never connect correctly to any computer (or X-Box 360). Therefore, he could not change his songs again. He sent it off to Creative, and got it back a few weeks later. It came back totally scratched to hell. It was the same machine, not a refurb, that was sent back to him. It does work again though.

Without the problem, it seemed like an excellent machine. Good features, nice screen.

lxl

Creative made best mp3 players and I absolutely love my Zen Xtra 60GB.

However they sometimes released bad firmware on the official site... I almost destroyed my player. So before you upgrade the firmware, always go to Creative's forum and read comments.

Josh H

Good to know. I've generally never bothered with firmware updates anyway, unless I was having a problem and the update was said to fix it.

I figure if it ain't broke don't fix it.

sracer

It's a great player! Just don't jog or go slamdancing in the moshpit with it.
IMO, it's the only iPod-formfactor player where video support is every bit as good as audio support. And with support for xVid and Divx, converting DVDs for playback on it is a piece of cake.

griz

Just got the 60gb version. I'm still learning how to use it, but it's pretty slick.

RayChuang

I would seriously consider a Zen Vision if Creative allows for the type of gapless song playback that the current 2G iPod nano and 5.5G iPod can do.

DVD Josh

This is more of a gimmick than anything else, and certainly no reason not to buy one.

keys88

I understand where Ray is coming from but it only bothers me on rare occasions. If you are listening to a CD that has one track leading into another like:

Alan Parsons - Sirius/Eye In The Sky
Leon Russell - ...Intro To Rita.../Straight Brother

There is that 1/1000sec. pause that kinda interupts the flow that you are familiar with.
I am not sure if it is a problem with Creative or a problem with a Hard Drive Player. I previously used a Zen Micro 5GB and the above were close to seamless. I would be curious to hear if the Apple 30/60GB performs like the players Ray stated.

amped

Since there was a rebate for this as well as the majority of positive reviews at most sites, I went ahead and ordered one. I noticed no pwer adapter is included and just the usb cable, would I be able to charge it via my ipod's usb charger?

namja

How does this compare with the Archos 604? I'm thinking about getting the 30GB one with WiFi (to browse the web also).

Josh H

Got mine today, haven't played with it much yet.

Got it mostly charged and moved all my music over (13 gigs or so).

Put a couple video clips on it to check out and was amazed at the quality.

My only dissapointments are that the shiny surface shows finger prints and the lack of an AC adapter (USB charging is pretty slow and inconvenient). But I remedied those with ordering a clear case and an ac adapter for $20 total shipped (e-bay for the case, random PC store for the charger).

namja

I was leaning heavily towards the Archos 604 WiFi, mostly for WiFi, but my friend who has it is constantly complaining about the battery life when the WiFi is on. According to him, it doesn't even last two hours with WiFi, which is unacceptable to me. I tried to get more reviews, but not too many people have them (maybe that's a sign?). So, I am conflicted yet once again. The Archos is nice because of it's large 4.3" screen, but it costs twice as much as the Zen.

Josh (and anyone else), ignoring the price for now, how does the Zen compare with the Archos or the iPod? Would you get the Archos or the iPod instead of the Zen if they were all the same price? Does one stand out over the other two (besides the screen size)?

lxl

WiFi (802.11b/g) devices are notorious for battery drain, my WiFi VoIP phone has to sit in cradle when not in use. I guess it keeps scanning just for stay in wireless connection...

sracer

I had seriously considered an iPod and an Archos before deciding on buying a ZV:M. But I'll start right off by saying that it is a highly subjective decision. I wanted a player that out-of-the-box wasn't tied to a single desktop piece of software, offered a wide variety of a/v codecs that are natively supported (not "supported" by their conversion software), and had video support that was on-par with audio support.

The ZV:M won out. Video playback on the ZV:M (and through an a/v cable to a tv) is amazing for a device of that size. IIRC, the ZV:M supports something like 264,000 colors while the iPod supports 64,000...or something like that.

I'm absolutely delighted with it... no complaints.

Josh H

I've not used the Archos so I can't compare.

With the iPod, I probably would have got one if it was the same price just to have the added iTunes functionality. The better screen on the Vision M isn't a huge deal as I probably won't watch videos on it all that often anyway as it's fairly time consuming to get videos on it other than stuff you just download that is already in the right format as it takes a while to rip and/or convert video for any of these portable media players.

One annoyance I had with video last night was even when downloading a video podcast (The 1up Show) from the Zen Cast software you can get it wasn't in a format the player supported and had to be converted (which took a LONG time as it was a 491 MB file).

But other than that (and the lack of an AC adapter which is also a problem with the iPod--though vision M is a bit worse since USB port isn't on player and is on a little dongle with it the ac adapter port and the video out port) I am very happy with the Zen Vision M so far, but I'll post again when I've used it for a week or so.

namja

Thanks sracer & Josh.

I'll be using it mainly for video. Is the screen really big enough for extended use? I haven't played with the Zen, but I've played with the iPods plenty, and the 2.5" screen seemed a bit small (another reason why I was leaning on the Archos). Any of you (with Zen) have issues with screen size after extended use?

Josh, when you update your review next week, I'd appreciate it if you would give extra attention on the video playback.

Kal-El

I don't have a problem with the video size. Since I have 2 jobs, I usually "acquire" my missed tv shows overnight and load them on the Vision before I go to the office where I watch them in the morning.

sracer

I have used my Zen Vision:M on 6 hour cross-country flights. The crisp, vibrant, and smooth playing display makes viewing on the small screen more enjoyable than I anticipated... I was hoping for it to play as well as my Windows Mobile smartphone (which plays videos amazingly well), and the ZV:M greatly exceeded my expectations.

So much so, that I have been working through my DVD collection and re-encoding my TV show sets for playback on the ZV:M. It's nice to lay in bed and watch an episode or two.

X

Due to a couple posts I had to remove in lieu of closing the thread, it appears I need to remind you to not discuss ripping of DVDs at DVD Talk.

Josh H

That's pretty lame.

I thought you just weren't allowed to ask for or provide info on how to rip dvds?

Guess I missed a rule change somewhere along the line.


At any rate, to repost without any mention of ripping for namja, the screen size is big enough even for widescreen videos which I was afraid would be a bit small. Thus I'm totally satisfied with the video playback and will definitely throw some vids on it when traveling etc.

X

Any more discussion of ripping and this thread will be closed.

Josh H

Yeah, you made that clear above and I don't see how I mentioned ripping again.

Wake up on the wrong side of bed today?

X

I deleted your first sentence where you continued to talk about ripping and the quality of it. Cute.