Digital Trends

Creative Labs Zen Vision 30GB October 2nd, 2005 | by Ian Bell

The Creative Zen Vision has the potential to be a killer product, but once again, Creative blew it with their software. The Creative MediaSource program can work well, but there is so little information about it in the manual, that you will have to just explore and play with the software if you want to get it to work right. We found Windows Media Player 10 to work just as well, so you might as well use that software. The Video Vault software that Creative also includes is pretty useless in its current state, forcing you to visit the company’s website for instructions on how to use it. Plus, you have to pay even more money to get a full copy. Get with the program Creative, if you are going to want to beat Apple and others at their own game, you will need to take care of the customer instead of leaving them high and dry.

Another big fault we found with the Zen Vision is its screen. When looking at it directly, it looks gorgeous, but if you try to look at it from an angle, or in bright light, you can hardly see it. Sony does a much better job with the screen on their PSP. Creative should have taken a page from the Sony book on this one. 

Music fans that want a little video playback, should look at the Cowon Audio X5 which has amazing sound. The Creative Zen Vision will appeal to those that put video higher on the totem pole than audio. Keep in mind that transferring and converting video files to the Zen Vision is very time consuming, a big waste on Creatives part.

The bottom line is that the Zen Vision is undoubtedly, a very cool product. It’s small and supports the video formats that count, including DivX and Xvid. Audio quality is definitely not as good as you would expect from Creative Labs.  However, right now there is little that can compete with the Zen Vision in this price range. If you must have a product like this, you should be fairly happy with the Zen Vision in its current state. Otherwise, wait until some software updates and fixes have been released before buying. Creative has a long history of releasing products with problems, and our advice is to wait until everything has been ironed out.