Does anyone have any experiences with this? My brother-in-law seems to like his and it seems on the surface to be better than the iPod Video in almost every way.. I just havn't been able to get my hands on one to play with to see if the interface is nice or not.

http://www.engadget.com/2005/12/07/creatives-new-zen-vision-m-with-video/

damn thing looks just like an iPod. but thicker. Sorry I don't have any experience with it though.

Nice review site for it:

http://www.everythingusb.com/creative_zen_vision:m_30gb.html

More fun reading... thanks!

Dapreview Has been holding it out as their top pic for awhile. See rt. column.

Their review.

The fact it comes from Creative should be reason enough to stay away from it. They just don't have a long-term strategy and have a very poor track record for supporting older products in my opinion. I looked at it as well, but it was totally weak on the Photo side. The iPod wasn't suitable either for this either mind you. But at least Apple doesn't have the same longevity issues Creative has.

Bruno

Software support for one. If you're going to have something that's somewhat proprietary then we can at least hope for a software release plan with some longevity.

Platform longevity. Creative (Rio had the same problem) completely re-invent the wheel each time they come out with a new product. This leads to brand confusion and doesn't do anything to foster third party support in terms of accessories and enhancements. At the most basic level it also means support for previous products starts to fade. They don't seem to offer incremental product releases. With the iPod, it's almost safe to assume that every new release bests the old one in every way. And certainly since the introduction of the dock connector, forward compatibility has been a huge concern for Apple.

The Zen:M is positioned as a Silver Bullet, do-all. But it doesn't do any one thing extremely well. Storage is also light for a product that is supposed to be so multi-media oriented.

Specific and recent example of the first point: Soundblaster Wireless Music. I think they released a total of 1 software update. Completely proprietary and still buggy - enough to not be able to use the product full-time.

Bruno

Well, he ended up getting one anyway after reading the reviews... and he (along with my in-laws) ended up getting me one too! It's a pretty niffty device I must say!

Already I have a list of things I wish would be improved/changed but I'm not holding my breath. The video performance on this thing is steller though.