Creative ZEN Vision W 4.3" Black 60GB MP3 / MP4 Player

Pros: I'm going to review this strictly as a comparison to the non-widescreen version (production now discontinued).

Viewing angles are EXCELLENT. get a boostaroo or other audio booster and splitter and three kids in the back seat would most likely all be able to watch the video.

the brightness is excellent, definitely not a dim player.

the bass is definitely strong, I had it hooked up in my car and i was startled when the HBO "splash intro" clip played.

a standard USB mini jack is used for data transfers! keep it up, media player industry!

Screen is huge.

Cons: compared to the Vision 30GB model, the resolution on this device is SIGNIFICANTLY lower. even when a 16:9 (widescreen) video was letterboxed (black bars on the top and bottom, because a widescreen video is being displayed in a 4:3 screen) on the old device, it still had a much higher resolution than on this device. The drop in resolution is definitely noticeable, but you may not know what you're missing if you never see a higher resolution player in action.

the LCD display either features a lower color depth than the Vision 30GB or they used an inferior decoder in this model. there are definite blocks in darker color gradients. in some darker movies/videos it is VERY noticeable and annoying/distracting. maybe you'd get used to it, but this was never the case on the Vision 30GB.

it doesn't decode AC3/dolby digital.

the transcoding software only encodes to 320x240 and is generally weak (but what did you expect?). Get PocketDivxEncoder instead, it's grea

Other Thoughts: all in all a great player, but room for improvement.

oh and if you have a Mac/Macintosh or use OSX, you can use the program XNJB to load your player up, it works without a hitch. I use it on a Macbook Pro, but anything with a USB jack should work.

I originally bought the Vision 30GB from newegg, but the player displayed "Hard Disk Problem" after about two months. I sent it back to creative for an RMA no problem. unfortunately I received the Vision:W model back (which is inferior, for my uses, in my opinion). after a bit of arguing, I was contacted by a manager and was told they couldn't give me the Vision 30GB, only the Vision W, as the Vision 30GB was out of production and they had none. I would have enjoyed some sort of extra thrown in because of the inconvenience, but they offered nothing. oh well, not a huge deal.

Pros: This is the one I bought after several weeks of research. I am upgrading from my Creative Zen MP3 player that I have had for over 3 years. Since the MP3 player has served me well, I felt that Creative was worth considering again. I bought the 60 GB model. I am going to use it to watch a lot of videos and movies at work on my breaks and wanted as much storage as possible. There was one other brand that had 160 GB, and I was tempted to buy it, but the reviews were less than acceptable. I have used it for two days already, and let me say the screen is incredible. The resolution is great, and I have watched several short video clips already. The software that comes with it works excellent and makes your job of syncing it with files on your computer a snap. Although the speaker is a little small, it actually puts out sufficient volume to listen to a video or song in a quiet area. The built in menu is pretty easy to understand, and it charges off the charger or the USB port.

Cons: First is of course the cost. What sold me was the sale price at Newegg. The FM radio sounds like a cool feature, but I haven't tried it yet because the earphones act as the antennae. That means no radio on the speaker. Lastly, the little manual that comes with it is useless. Make sure you read the manual that is on the CD for basics like how the on/off switch works!

Other Thoughts: This is a terrific 16:9 media player. Don't buy the black skin (rubber cover) that Newegg has. It only works on the 30GB unit, and I didn't realize the 60GB unit is one tenth of an inch thicker. Just enough to through off the alignment of the openings . They are usable, but not real classy.

Pros: I did a ton of research before buying this and I am sure that it is really the best on the market. It has a great screen, and even though it is small you can still watch movies on it with no problems. Having the large hard drive is great and the TV output is a really nice feature. Very well built and is pretty rugged for an mp3 player. Compactflash slot is great for use with my digital camera and the built in radio is really nice.

Cons: The built in speaker is a bit weak, but it still works alright and is great to have. Scrolling through lists of files is kind of slow. Also it is kind of big as mp3 players go so if you want something that fits in your pocket you might want to look elsewhere.

Other Thoughts: I also got a screen protector and rubber case for it which I would really suggest. I am really careful with my stuff but in a freak accident it fell about three feet onto a hard floor with a thin carpet on it, and it didn't mind a bit, there was no damage to the inside or the exterior, very well built and super solid.

Pros: The Zen Vision 60gig is another steller product from Creative. It offers an amazing screen, menu options, and versatility. One of its key features is the fact that it supports so many video codec's. Another nice feature was the addition of a speaker. The FM radio is also a Plus.

Cons: From my experience with creative products, the Zen Vision W has only two slight draw backs. The First, is the shorter battery life. However, due to the quility of the screen, and the user interface, I'm amazed that creative makes the battery last as long as it does. The second draw back in my oppinion is the lack of a touch pad. Coming from using a Zen Touch 40gig since its release, i've become use to have one around. While navigation keys are perfect the way they are, a touch pad, say on the left of the screen could have been nice.

Other Thoughts: Over all, I'd say this is still a great product. The software works well, the video transfer, and compression is excellent. The USB, and Serial data ports was a nice add in. If your going to get a video media player, get one from creative; and if you're getting creative, get Zen Vision W.

Pros: I am an extreme non-conformist. So, since so many other lemmings have iPods I was glad to see that several of my tech mags rated this product so highly. I bought one from the Mecca of Tech Products - Newegg.com - and have been extremely satisfied with it. The widescreen is fantastic. It's very easy to view from almost any angle. The sound is fine. I take it with me on planes so if I don't like the movies that are playing, I can watch video of my own.

Cons: If I had to cite cons I would say that headphones are mandatory. Yes, the unit has an external speaker, but you won't want to use it.

Converting video takes a long, long time.

Pros: Very user friendly, it did not take long to understand this unit. It does everything, and more, of what I expected. Video is flawless and sound is clear.

Cons: They should have consolidated all the programs into one ! An extra speaker on the front would have been nice, making it it stereo without headphones. But it still sounds good.

Other Thoughts: I never seen this advertised anywhere, I found it searching newegg for an MP3 player. Always a good experience dealing with newegg !!!

Pros: The Screen is very clear w/ high saturation, lots of room to grow, has lots of little options and features that many reviews don't mention, I like the fact that you can view pictures and browse for a video while listening to music.

Cons: Since the screen is so glossy the smallest dirt and dust show on it, but it's not as noticeable when its on.

The four way directional pad seems small and hard to use but after a day or so you become use to it and dosen't seem like such a big problem.

Slow transfering Speed when sending alot of files at once (aka Music), but not when sending large single files (Videos).

Firmware support seems decent at best.

Other Thoughts: I thought at first that not having the DVR would be a big deal, but its been two months and I havent missed it once.

Some of those small features and options are like, themes, viewing details, applying names to stations, etc... The little things that can make a big diffrence.

Pros: Beautiful screen, large hard drive, excellent audio/video quality. Plays just about anything! I have several full-length DVDs on mine at only 1.4GB each, and even when projected onto a TV set, you can hardly tell the difference!

Cons: Only decent firmware. There's a good amount of lag when viewing pictures, because the player needs to generate thumbs for them.

Other Thoughts: This is the ultimate entertainment system! It's great to bring over friends' houses, parties, etc... You have an entire library of DVDs, music and photos in your hand!

Pros: lots of space to store songs movies and pics. automatically converts unsupported file types, external speaker comes in handy now and again, nice big screen, good battery life

Cons: big and heavy. cant move songs around within your play lists, no attachment point for a wrist strap

Other Thoughts: if you have enough stuff to fill up 60 gigs and you travel a lot, you probably wont mind carrying the extra weight in you pocket. yes it does still fit in a pocket.

Pros: * The screen is gorgeus, and you don't have to squint at it
* 60GB lets you store a ton of stuff
* AV out lets you plug it into your TV / projector
* Nice UI / buttons
* Creative software is much easier to deal with than media player for loading media onto the device, and allows you to batch convert videos without uploading
* AC Adapter allows you to swap plugs with international ones (which cost more, but it's a nice feature)
* Respectable battery life
* Very price competitive vs the "defacto standard competition", yet so many more features
* FM Radio

Cons: * No UMS support, only MTP
* A little chubby (wish it was thinner, but no biggie)
* Wish there were more accessories for it
* Extra battery is expensive
* A built in stand would be great (I just made one anyways)
* It should really come with the remote instead of charging more for it
* No dock available (yet?)

Other Thoughts: I got this before I left on a 14 hour (one way) international flight, and it really was worth it's weight in gold during that.

Sound / Video quality was excellent, and I didn't have too many issues loading my media library onto it.

I previously owned another MTP player that didn't have it's own software so you had to use Media Player, and I absolutely hated it, so I was a bit scared when I found out this was MTP only. The Creative software was much easier to deal with than Media Player. I like how you can batch convert videos with the software without having to upload them immediately, that's a nice feature.

Re-encoding video takes a loooooooooong time, which isn't really this device's fault, it is good however that it supports most of the popular formats so most of my videos didn't need to be re-encoded.

If you want to spend more time watching videos than listening to music, then this is definitely the way to go.