Digital Trends

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

When you get right down to it, the Creative Labs Zen Portable Media Center was a terrible product. However, most first attempts usually are. It had a bulky design, poor battery performance and the Microsoft Portable Media Center OS it used, left a lot to be desired. Fortunately the Zen Vision seems to be a completely new and innovative product. Available in both white and black, the Zen Vision is a very attractive unit. Our white review unit looks very similar to the Mobinote DVX-POD 7010 we wrote about over a year ago. There are of course several differences between the two units. First of all, the Mobinote comes with 20GB of storage space, compared to 30GB on the Zen Vision. Secondly the Mobinote has a higher resolution at 720x480 pixels and a larger screen; 7-inches versus the Zen Vision’s 3.7-inch screen. Of course, the Mobinote is not only larger, but costs more – a lot more; $599 to $699. 

The 3.7-inch LCD color display on the Zen Vision, supports a 640x480 resolution and 262,144 colors, great for playing video and displaying pictures. Video playback includes support for MPEG 1/2/4, WMV 9, JPEG, DivX 4/5 and Xvid. On the audio side, the Zen Vision supports MP3, WMA and WMA with DRM (Digital Rights Management). Creative Labs clearly thought ahead when working on the video side, by including support for DivX and Xvid codecs, but it boggles us as to why there is a complete lack of compatibility for OGG, FLAC, AAC or other low compression formats on the audio side. Perhaps a future firmware update will fix this, but don’t keep your fingers crossed. The Zen Vision also has a built in microphone for voice and FM recording, and an FM radio tuner.

The Zen Vision measures in at 4.9” x 2.9” x 0.79” and weighs only 8.4 oz with the standard battery installed. The unit is larger than your typical MP3 player, but not too much larger, and rests in your hands quite comfortably. Button layout is very intuitive and easy to use - If you are right handed. You have your typical audio/video controls like play/pause/track skip etc, as well as your “back” and “menu” buttons. Lastly, there is a built in control pad for navigating the systems menu. Simply press in the area you want to go and push “ok” to make your selection. It’s rather simple. Speaking of navigation, the operating system GUI is extremely easy to use. It looks simple, is not cluttered and yet gives you plenty of control options, from changing the equalizer, and clock settings, to changing the wallpaper. In fact, the GUI is so good looking and easy to use, we could have sworn it was written by Apple. 

Volume controls and the power/hold buttons are located on the top of the unit. The headphone jack, audio/video output jack and AC power connector are on the right side of the unit, protected by a rubber cover. The left side, has a compact flash slot (why no SD/MMC though!?) for expanded storage, whilst the mini USB 2.0 jack and docking cradle connector are on the bottom. The docking cradle costs an extra $39.99 for the Zen Vision, whilst an extra battery will run you $69.99 and a Zen Vision IR remote goes for $29.99. If you use the docking cradle and remote, you can basically use this device as part of your home theater, it’s a very cool concept. 

Creative Zen Vision, iRiver H10, Creative Zen Micro, Cowon iAudio X5