Archive for February, 2006
Take your music, movies and photos with you - to wherever you need to be with just one light, sexy-looking package. Zen Vision, a gorgeous, pocket-sized portable media player, lets you do this and more. Watch your music on the go. Savor MP3 songs, MTV music videos or share TV shows with friends from a generous, ultra-wide 3.7-inch LCD screen. With Creative Zen Vision’s support for DivX and music subscription services, downloading is a cinch. View movies in crystal clear fidelity. Zen Vision’s SharpPix technology means digital photos can look even better than prints!
Available in a sleek 30 GB model, moments you cherish are now made for sharing. That’s tens of thousands of photos, 120 hours1 of movies, or 15,000 songs2. With Zen Vision, you can have it all. Free yourself to live life your way. There are even special Zen accessories to totally match this cool portable media center!
Review by infoSync World
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.
Review by Everything USB
Feature-wise, the 30GB Zen Vision:M supports JPEG, MPEG-1/2/4, WMV, DivX, and XviD with an estimated 4.5 hours of showtime - double that of the 30GB iPod. When used as an audio player, MP3, WMA (with DRM) and WAV are all supported up to 320kbps that can carry a tune for 14 hours. And like all things Creative, the Zen Vision:M has an FM Tuner and Voice Recorder.
Review by TrustedReviews
You’ve got to hand it to Creative. Or at least feel sorry for it. No sooner had it helped create the portable digital media player market with its Zen Jukebox, when Apple swept in relatively late in the game to sweep up all the plaudits with its iPod, the latest version of which I’ll be looking at tomorrow. To add insult to injury, it turns out that Creative even owns the patent on the interface that Apple used to such good effect - only Apple slapped a nifty wheel on the front of its device and the rest, as they say, is history. The sales figures speak for themselves. In the last quater of the year alone Apple sold over ten million iPods and according to some figures has a 65 per cent share on the hard drive based market. Creative, on the other hand, has around 2-4 per cent of the market. Wow, Apple must be shaking in its boots.
Review by Pocket-lint
Small and sleeker than its predecessor, the Zen Vision is a very tidy package that’s perfectly bag-able if not a little on the heavy side (it weighs 239 grams). The 124.2×74.4×20.1mm unit is dominated by a large 3.7 inch 262K colour TFT screen (640×480 pixels). It’s so dominating, that there is barely room for any additional controls on the unit.
Review by PC Magazine
The Creative Zen Vision occupies its own niche in the portable media player (PMP) market. Unlike the Archos AV and PMA series, it doesn’t record video, and it’s not as small as the fifth-generation iPod, but its gorgeous 3.7-inch screen provides a very comfortable photo- and video-viewing experience, despite some viewing-angle issues.
Review by Anything But iPod
The Zen Vision:M is an impressive personal media player. It is well deserving of the Best of Show and Best Portable Audio & Video device awards it recently won at 2006 CES. The greatest appeal of the Vision:M is its ability to playback the majority of popular video files (especially DivX and XviD), which saves you a lot of time by not having to convert all of your video. Audio and video is top notch on the player as well as on the TV. The battery allows you to get in a full movie or two while on the go. Even though the user interface can be a bit slow at times it is still extremely easy to navigate. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who is looking for a hard drive based digital audio player. The Zen Vision:M is everything the video iPod is and then some.
Read the full review here
Review by PC Advisor
While the iPod has a couple of advantage over the Vision:M – namely thinness and price – it’s beaten on almost every other score. Creative almost undoubtedly has a runaway hit on its hands.
Review by CNET
Available in five colors, the Creative Zen Vision:M has an incredible screen, a simple interface, excellent video battery life, an FM tuner and recorder, and a voice recorder. It features a customizable Shortcut button, and it supports a wide range of online music stores and subscription services, as well as video formats. It has excellent audio and video quality.
With its cool matchbox-car design, the Cowon iAudio F1 should appeal to younger music fans, but its subpar battery life, weak bass, and lack of WM DRM 10 support hold it back.
Features
Playback of MP3, MP2, OGG, WMA, ASF and WAV (up to 48khz, Stereo) files,
Listening to/Recording FM Radio, Voice Recording, Line-in Recording, Removable Disk
Built-in Flash Memory (256MB/512MB/1GB)
128 x 64 Full-graphic Organic EL Display
USB 2.0 Interface
Long Playback Time: Up to 22 hours of playback time
(based on Cowon’s test environment)
Multi-language support
(embedded fonts that can display up to 40,000 characters of international languages)
Play/Pause/Intro, Stop/Power Off, Record
Enhanced Integrated Navigator
Next Track/Previous Track, Fast Forward/Fast Rewind, SectionRepeat,
Play Speed Adjustment
Resume, Fade-In and AutoPlay features
Adjustable Scan Speed and Skip Speed
Volume (Digital 40 levels)
Various EQ and Sound Effects (JetEffect)
- Customizable 5-band EQ
- Normal, Rock, Pop, Jazz, Classic, Vocal, User
- BBE, Mach3Bass, MP Enhance, 3D Surround
Clock, Alarm, Timer Recording, Sleep Function, Power-saving Shut Down
LCD Auto Off time adjustment, Contrast adjustment
9-way Multi Button, Hold Switch
Easy Firmware Download and Upgrade, Logo Download
Support for ID3V2, ID3V1 and FileName
Device Information Display (Firmware version, Memory usage)
Software
- jetShell (File transfer, MP3/WAVE/AUDIO CD PLAY, MP3 Encoding)
- jetAudio (Integrated multimedia player software)
Review by PC Magazine
No longer a dark horse in the digital audio player space, Cowon continues to pump out solid, if not great, MP3 players, and the Cowon iAudio F1 ($159.99 list) is no exception, despite being gimmicky. Considering the interesting design and ample feature set, the price tag isn’t too unreasonable for a 1GB flash-based player. Still, it needs some improvements before it tops our list.
Review by MP3.com
Cowon’s iAudio F1 is the perfect fit for race car fans and male preteens, but lack of DRM support and lower-than-expected battery life make it only a typical choice among grown-ups.
Review by iAudiophile.NET
The GUI on the F1 is pretty slick. Cowon has done as excellent job of packing many features in a smallspace. They’ve been doing it well for some time, and it shows.
Review by CNET
The good-sounding Cowon iAudio F1 is the perfect fit for race car fans and male preteens, but lack of DRM support and lower-than-expected battery life make it only a typical choice among grown-ups.
Read the full review here