You Can Never Be Too Rich Or Have Too Many Gadgets

Geez. Do I look like a geek!? I look normal enough, don't I? I think I do. So what is it? Do I act like a geek!? Ok, maybe a little, but you know a real geek is someone who goes down to the store to pick up a gallon of milk and comes back with a brand new 82" Liquid Plasma Display (it looked so cool I just had to have it). C'mon, I'm not like that. My house isn't packed from floor to ceiling with all the latest fancy-dancy electronics gear. So how come at christmas time everyone is always getting me these gift certificates for one of the local geek megastores. It's crazy. I'm just a normal guy and I don't know why I keep getting these gift certficates every year. Not that I'm not grateful, mind you, but, honestly, if you're thinking about giving me free money to spend at the local electronics superstore then all I have to say is...

WOW!!! Thanks man, and hey I'm sorry that all I got you was that lame fondu set. I kept the receipt if you want to return it.

Anyways, I got the gift certificates and this year instead of waiting till June to spend them on something I really need, I just decided to head down to the store and spend them on something cool. Like an IPod. 30 Gigs. With video. Yeah, and even though I've already got 2 MP3 players as it is, who cares. I'll take one of those.

So off I went to Fry's with gift certificates in hand and visions of IPods dancing in my head and wouldn't you know it...they were all sold out. Damn things are popular I guess. But as luck would have it something else happened to catch my eye.
























Ain't she a beauty. That, folks, is the brand new Creative Zen Vision M, a supposed IPod killer that has just came out here in the U.S. You know there is an old saying that goes "In love, there is always one who does the kissing and one who offers the cheek", and all I can say is that when I saw that little beauty sitting in the display case it made my lips pucker. So tonight I thought I'd share a few first impressions.

I guess I should start with the features. Like the IPod the 'M' is a 30 GB combination music and video player retailing for around $300.00. Actually, the 'M' sells for $30.00 more than the IPod but the extra money buys you a few additional features like a FM radio, voice recorder, and AC power adaptor. Both have 2.5" LCD screens, although the IPod's screen resolution is only 320 x 240, or half the 640 x 480 resolution of the 'M', which is also capable of displaying a whopping 262,144 colors. The IPod can play protected music and video purchased from the ITunes Music Store, the 'M' cannot play those files. It can, however, play unprotected IPod files (more on that later). Instead, the 'M' plays just about every other common file format out there including WMV, Divx, Xvid, and Microsoft's own WMA music files, including protected music sold through subscription sites such as Napster, Rhapsody and Yahoo Music. Both the IPod and 'M' can play MP3 files, of course, but at this time the 'M' does not support audiobooks sold through the Audible service. The IPod's battery is good for around 2 hours of video playback and 20 hours of audio playback, the 'M' gives you about 4 hours of video playback and about 15 hours of audio playback.

So much for the stats.

My experience with the 'M' so far has been a mixed one. Before I begin I should probably give you the perfunctory razor blade warning. Although the manual makes no mention of it it's been my experience that razor blades should not be kept closer that 50 feet to the Creative Zen Vision 'M' because, believe me, spending an hour or two working with the various video formats out there will make you want to bang your head against the wall and slash your wrists. Firearms and high balconies should probably be avoided too.

That said, the 'M' will play most types of video. However, unlike the IPod, it is not a simple Plug 'N Play experience. For the most part you don't just plug in your 'M', transfer the video, and go skipping merrily on your way. Usually there is a conversion process involved, and if you've ever spent time converting video you know what kind of process that can be. If, on the other hand, you've never spent time converting video then imagine a sleepy barge lumbering slowly up the Mississippi River and you'll have some idea what I'm talking about.

Fortunately, Creative realized that differing video formats (or codecs, as the geeks would say) would present a problem and they had the forsight to include a video converter with their software bundle. The process is pretty transparent. You just sync your files over using the included sync manager and the conversion is done automatically. It's not a brisk process, mind you, but it does work and I've had no problem transferring over XVid, WMV and even M4v files (unprotected) to my 'M'. In fact, the XVid transfer was completely painless and the transfer took place with no conversion necessary.

And once you get the files on your 'M' and play them back the experience is unbelievable. The video is just plain beautiful, much better than I ever could have expected from a 2.5" LCD and superior to the IPods, at least according to some of the reviews I've read on the Internet. Whether one is better than the other is really beside the point, though, because the real question is "Can you really watch TV on a little itty-bitty screen like that"? Well, all I can say is that I downloaded a full season of a TV show called Firefly off of the net and so far I haven't had any problems watching it on my little screen. Of course it would look better on a big 42" HDTV, but the answer is "yes, you can watch TV on a little itty-bitty screen". Provided, of course, that it's a high quality screen.

The big problem with the 'M' is that it won't work with those $1.99 downloads you get from the ITunes Music Store. And that's a big problem. If you plan on watching those then you're gonna have to get an IPod because that's the only player that's gonna work. That wasn't a big issue for me. I'm much more interested in watching these video podcasts that are starting to become available and the 'M' works just fine for those. Further down the road there may be TV shows available in the Windows format, but right now if you want to watch Lost on your 'M' then you're going to have to use BitTorrent.

As for some of the other features, the 'M' is an excellent music player, it does fine with photos, the FM radio is very good (much better than my IRiver), the voice recorder works ok but I don't know if you'll be able to record lectures or anything like that with it (there is no line-in jack), and the somewhat limited organizer function does what it's supposed to do. One thing I should mention is a program called Zencast that should have been included with the software bundle but wasn't. Zencast is a podcatcher that is specifically made for the Zen Vision and Zen Vision M and provides automatic synchronization of your podcasts, a la ITunes. It's no better or worse than the other podcatchers out there as far as I can tell, but it does integrate nicely with the player. If you want it don't expect Creative to tell you about it though. I had to dig around the forums to find it at www.zencast.com.

Well, that's it for now. I'm sure I'll have more to say about my 'M' in the future but I'm just going to enjoy it for now. It needs to get a lot easier to use before I can call it an "IPod killer", but it's still a helluva player. Of course, as soon as I bought it Toshiba announced another "IPod killer" at the Consumer Electronics Show, and, from I've seen and read, it looks like a helluva machine too. And 30 bucks cheaper than the 'M' to boot. Oh well, when's the last time anyone bought a new gadget and the next day someone announces something newer and cooler. That's just part of being a geek.