Beneath the elegant exterior of Creative's Zen Vision portable video player lurks considerable audiovisual prowess; Jørgen Sundgot picks one up and is hard pressed to put it back down.
Review summary of the Creative Zen Vision:
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 There’s no doubt about it: the Creative Zen Vision hits the sweet spot. Just small enough to easily slip into a jacket pocket, this player boasts resoundingly superior audio and video playback courtesy of a luscious, high-resolution display and support for a smorgasboard of formats. A 30 GB hard drive should easily accomodate daily needs including synchronizing recorded TV shows with a Media Center PC, which can in turn be played back anywhere courtesy of TV out. At $400 USD, US residents in particular can revel in its ability to connect to online subscription services for music and video - but at any rate, the Zen Vision is worth its asking price. Release: August 2005. Price: $400.
Pros: Stunning audio and video quality; roomy storage; extensive format support; video out
Cons: Narrow viewing angle; no onboard video recording; few content pipelines outside the US
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Full review of the Creative Zen Vision:
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With the recent introduction of Apple's
iPod Video and Toshiba's unveiling of its
gigabeat S60 Portable Media Center, portable video players are once again drawing attention - although both devices are, frankly, little more than MP3 players which happen to play video. So, what's a video afficionado who wants a screen larger than 2.5 inches and finds the 7-inch behemoth that is the Archos
AV700 to be a tad much to do? The Creative Zen Vision, that's what.
A far cry from its predecessor
Crafted from a magnesium alloy, the 124 x 74 x 20 mm frame of the Zen Vision looks quite attractive in an understated manner - and is leaps and bounds smaller than its predecessor, the
Zen PMC-120. At 240 g, it easily slips into a jacket pocket, where its 30 GB hard drive will hold a considerable amount of audio and video until it's time to pull it out and enjoy its stunning, 3.7-inch glossy display with a razor-sharp resolution of 640 x 480 pixels and 262K colour depth - which has a narrow viewing angle as its sole flaw.
With its screen joined in front by a clearly labelled and well laid out set of controls, the Zen Vision maneuvers like a charm - as long as users don't attempt navigating music with the player neatly tucked away in a jacket pocket, since recognizing keys by touch alone is an excercise in patience and the bundled headset lacks remote controls. Still, placing the 3.5 mm headphone jack on the right side of the device at least allows for use when pocketed, and the top-mounted volume up/down keys are easily distinguished.
Of course, in order to get the Zen Vision to do anything at all, its blazing USB 2.0 connectivity must be utilized to load the device with content. As a Windows Media Connect device, the Zen Vision can either synchronize with Windows Media Player 10 on a PC or be managed through Creative's own software, either of which work like a charm. Avid photographers will also favour the integrated CompactFlash Type II slot to offload their cameras, as the Zen Vision also moonlights as a brilliant JPEG photo viewer.
Ready the alphabet soup, James
Having already touched briefly on this topic, it's time to break down the extensive list of formats supported by the Zen Vision, which include MP3, WMA and WMA DRM (all up to 320 Kbps) for audio, as well as MPEG1/2/4-SP, DivX, XviD and WMV 9 for video. Courtesy of WMA DRM and WMV 9, the Zen Vision also supports all-you-can-eat music and video subscription services such as Napster, Yahoo! Unlimited and the recently-unveiled Vongo - although unfortunately, these services are all limited to US residents.
Performance, in all cases, proved admirable. Although the bundled set of earphones is best described as slightly above par for the course, audio output through the 3.5 mm jack is first-rate and deserves a high quality set of headphones to render the Zen Vision justice. Similarly, supported video formats were handled with aplomb including on-the-fly resizing for content not encoded in the native 640 x 480 pixel format of the screen, and sharing content couldn't be simpler with the inclusion of a Composite video output - smashing stuff.
We were also pleased by the Zen Vision's ability to navigate music by means of ID3 tags, and in particular its nifty vertical alphabet strip for making quick jumps within extensive music collections. Also, the Windows Media Connect nature of the device will enable a Windows XP Media Center Edition PC to automatically convert recorded TV shows for synchronization, negating to some extent its lack of onboard video recording.
Bits and bobs
In addition to its starring cast represented by audio and video, the Zen Vision also includes supporting roles such as a stereo FM radio with good signal reception and the ability to record broadcasts, as well as a voice recorder of tolerable quality. Amusingly, the device also offers the ability to synchronize Calendar, Contacts and Tasks information from Microsoft Outlook for viewing on the go, which we deem to be an odd feature for a non-handheld yet potentially useful to at least some future owners.
Lastly, a few words on the output of the Zen Vision's exchangeable battery. Claiming up to 4.5 hours of video playback, we found the Zen Vision to yield in excess of 3.5 hours on average using a real-life mix of various video foramts - which isn't bad at all. Similarly, audio battery life proved quite good for a video-centric device with the Vision nailing its claim of up to 13 hours spot on. Well done, lads.
Availability
The Creative Zen Vision is available worldwide at the time of press, selling for $400 USD and €500 EUR in the US and Europe, respectively.
Price and availability
The Creative Zen Vision will start selling for $400 () in August 2005.
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