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General discussion

Creative Zen Vision M....An iPod Killer?... I think not!

by tjt620 Dec 9, 2005 4:01AM PST

a.k.a. Suthringurl (South Carolina)

The news is everywhere that David is about to slay Goliath. I'll believe it when I see I, but personally compared side by side I might buy the Zen, with the list price of $330 it cost a little more than the iPod of the same size but, with multiple audio and video formats, voice recorder and fm tuner for the 30 GB I might replace the iPod on my wish list. Especially since my old iPod died while traveling over the Thanksgiving holidays.

Technical Specifications From Creative.com

Size WxHxD: 4.1" x 2.4" x 0.7"
Weight: 5.7 oz
Display: 2.5" High Resolution Color Screen (320 x 240 pixels, 262,144 colors)
Storage Capacity1: 30GB (15,000 songs)

Battery Life2: Up to 14 hours of continuous audio playback
Up to 4 hours of continuous video playback

Battery Charge Time: USB 6.5 hours
Power Adapter 2.5 hours
Audio Playback Format: MP3, WMA and WAV
Photo Format: JPEG (GIF, TIFF, PNG and BMP)3
Video Playback Format4: MPEG1/2/4-SP, WMV9, Motion-JPEG, compatible DivX

Discussion is locked

9 Posts
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Creative Has No Compelling Additional Features
by pkscout Dec 9, 2005 5:00AM PST

For me the creative doesn't have any compelling additional features. I don't listen to music or watch video in any of the extra formats, and, since I have all my music with me I sure don't need an FM tuner. The voice recorder is nice (in theory, who knows about the quality), but for $30 you can get a Griffin iTalk (OK, not for the 5G yet), so then the two units cost the same and the only difference is FM and a couple more media formats.

Yawn. Wake me when Creative does something, well, creative.

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Other formats is something creative
by ucffool Dec 9, 2005 5:24AM PST

Some of us don't live in an h.263/4 world 24/7, and love that open source formats such as XviD are available, not restricting your portable video to videos that would also be included in iTunes. Surprise, some of us choose not to install iTunes, and podcast/vidcast search through other things.

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Divx and Xvid support is awesome
by Wilf_Brim Dec 9, 2005 9:39AM PST

Agree that Divx and Xvid support is excellent. Given that a good amount of the video content I have is in these two formats, native support is great.

That having been said, I don't see why Creative thinks they can charge MORE than the iPod. Hey, Creative? You are way, way behind in this race. In order to get market share you need to make a better product for less (or at least the same price). The vision is marginally better, but the computer interface isn't going to be very good, and it costs more. Not going to help.

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Can you listen to photos AND music
by Dilbert278 Dec 9, 2005 3:23PM PST

The main problem that plagues the Creative Zen Micro Photo is the lack of being able to view photos AND listen to music at the same time. Can you do that with this?

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listen to music + view photos and also it has a wall charger
by iamasabaka Dec 10, 2005 12:11PM PST

The reason they are charging more is because there is also a wall charger, not only a usb charger. The charger for the ipod costs an extra 20 something dollars extra anyway. Also you can listen to music and view photos at the same time.

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cool
by Dilbert278 Dec 10, 2005 8:07PM PST

I had a Creative Zen Micro for a while, before I switched to the ipod nano.

I don't like Creative's legal strategy (if you sue us, we will sue you for something that you had first) from a moral standpoint, although it will probably work, as I doubt Apple will sue.

I think Creative's biggest problem is marketing, and being able to get this device into the mainstream will make make it more popular, though never a ligitimate competitor to the ipod.

The best chance of de-throning the ipod is to make innovative mp3 players, like, yes, Sony, instead of the 'plagorise and sue and sue back' technique.

But really, Apple will always have the market for mp3 players (unless they severly stuff up) until mp3 players as we know them become obsolete.
End of story.

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The ipod 5g supoprts MPEG 4 too
by sibod Dec 12, 2005 1:02AM PST

though not the DIVX variety - and DIVX is NOT open source - it is a licenced, proprietry format.

XVID is open source however.

Given that you have to downconvert the videos ont he 5G ipod regardless of format, to a screen size and bit -rate compatible with it, converting using one of the many freely and shareware available utilities is not at all bothersome.

Besides, it reduces the storage needed by halving the video size - which is a good thing especially on the 30gb model that would see space disappear in no time.

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does not compare
by anson667 Dec 12, 2005 7:47AM PST

Firstly, you're not gonna just dump ALL your video onto either device. The Zen definitely wins, where you can just toss your divx video onto it, as opposed to "converting" it, which is bound to be a longer task. and you also could re-size the video for the zen as well, if you so desired and had the time.

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Ummm
by shantanubala Dec 12, 2005 10:00AM PST

I own a Creatice, and iPods seem to be over rated. They are just the "in" thing, so they're popular

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