Creative Labs Creative Zen Vision M White MP3 Player

" A must have gadget for any mp3/mp4 maniac ... "

By Yahoo! Shopping User  Aug 13, 2006 | 3 out of 3 found this Creative Labs Creative Zen Vision M White MP3 Player review helpful

Pros: Sound quality is excellent, Better features comparing to iPod videos, Excellent product overall

Cons: Kinda heavy that makes it less portable, And that "dongle" to charge and to connect to your computer

I bought this Vision:M about 6 months ago and I am quite happy with it. I even once accidentally dropped it from a table when running and it's still working!! How wonderful ^^ (P/S: Please don't test this on purpose for obvious reasons =P)

The controls were a snap to learn but the touchpad was very sensitive. Fortunately, you can set the sensitivity.

The picture and the sound quality is excellent. Except that the bundled ear buds doesn't show the player's true powers. So if you have the money, replace it with some better ones and you can enjoy the sound quality of this player. The player accepts all but one type of my videos so far but I'm not complaining anyway.

There are plenty of options in this player. You can even set a sleep timer if you want to fall asleep when listening to it =P. The shortcut button near the touchpad is also very useful if you want to jump to any menu. You can even record radios. The player can also be used as an external memory and the size of the external memory can be set at 512mb, 1gb, 1.5gb, 2gb, 4gb, 8gb and 16gb. There is even a microphone embedded into the player but I didn't even use or test it out yet.

One can even change the theme of the player from the 5 themes that comes with the player. You can also schedule events or anything using a 3rd party program ... Not sure what is it again -.-" ...

Time for the bad parts, oh-uh. After a few months, the scratches will show up. However, the scratches are not as bad as the iPod's. But I still recommend you to get a case for it.

The reception of the radio is not very clear if you're in indoors but it's not much of a problem for me.

The software that comes with the player to transfer songs, pictures and videos is not very ergonomically designed but still functionable nevertheless.

There is a small adapter that comes with the player to connect it with the usb port, the charger and the a/v output to the player itself can be lost quite easily if you're not careful with it. I'm not sure if you can get a replacement one too.

The battery life is just so-so. It lasts about 5 hours on 1 charge for me with playing mp3 files at 160kbps and watching about 30 minutes of videos. This is probably because that I was impatient to play with it and didn't charge it to max when I first got it, bad mistake I made =P.

The manual that comes along in the box is also not very informative so you have to learn some stuff yourself. But doesn't take long anyway haha ...

The biggest complaint of mine is that the Vision:M is also quite heavy. I've found it quite uncomfortable carrying it in my pocket due to its weight when I'm shopping or moving around a lot.

However, Vision:M feels very solid in my hands and to sum it all, it is a must have gadget for any mp3/mp4 maniac ... or just someone who ones to enjoy music =P