Comments on: Creative Labs Zen Vision 30GB Review

By: Siddath

Siddath — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 06:15:01 +0000

HORRIBLE!!! Don’t waste time and energy buying this product.

By: David Barnes

David Barnes — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 22:33:48 +0000

We bought a Zen W through an authorized dealer and have yet to be able to use it. OK – we’re in our 60s and not exactly techno-savvy, but we’re not intellectually challenged. When we ordered it, we specifically told the distributor we wanted to store photos and had a USB port connection for our Nikon. "No problem – you’re good to go." NOT. We had to buy a separate adapter with the requisite postage added.

So we don’t know how to download. OK – call Creative with their 60 day free tutorial. What a waste of time. Our "tutor" talked non-stop, didn’t listen to our concerns and sent us a batch of links to articles.

This product may be great – but the company’s a complete disgrace. Save yourself a wad of cash – don’t buy from "Creative Sin."

By: Phil

Phil — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 16:09:08 +0000

I say that having being a previous owner of a crappy apple product. I had my 30gb 4th Generation iPod for just over a year when the hard drive just stopped playing music half way through. The iPod crashed quite often, forcing me to hold down the select and play/pause button till it rebooted. The Zen doesn’t need to do that, if it crashes or freezes it will reboot itself and restart back up, if anything happened to its library, it will rebuild it. You have to upgrade the Firmware? Go ahead, no fear of loosing your data, its still there. Not like on the iPod, every time you upgrade you have to copy everything back over to the iPod. Don’t do it, its not worth wasting money on an inferior working product that just looks slimmer and scratches like a shinny object.

By: Pete in NY

Pete in NY — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 13:26:54 +0000

Quick update to my previous review. First of all, I apologize for the “are find the biggest flaw” fragment; it was the result of editing and not changing several words.

Anyway, I received my new unit, which shipped with 1.20.01 and worked flawlessly – docking AND UNdocking are both detected, firmware update program worked on first try and no lock-ups.
The screen angle is not an issue. In fact, as I write this, I am watching a video, with the unit on the table in front of me and it only needs to be tilted slightly towards me ~ 80% angle (not far from perpendicular) to be crystal clear.

PS: Consider getting the black version. The blue backlit buttons look great and the unit overall looks much more elegant in black IMHO.

By: Pete in NY

Pete in NY — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 17:51:00 +0000

This thing is amazing. People who focus ont the screen angle are find the biggest flaw, which has been exaggerated as far as I’m concerned, and forgetting about the great video quality (DiVX looked wonderful!). I had trouble with mine (very early firmware it seems) and had to return it. I ordered a black one from another merchant and hope it has a later firmware; if not I’ll try to update the firmware immediately, before installing the Creative software, since that seems to be an issue, although the drivers may be needed for the firmware flashing program to detect the player. All in all very happy with audio and video quality ad feature set. Try finding another product that offers a 3.7 ” high res screen (4X iPod video’s total res 2X vertical 2X horizaontal = 4X as many pixels) in a package barely longer or wider than the screen, DiVX/ XViD support out of the box, great sound, metal case.

By: TruthMonge

TruthMonge — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 09:32:30 +0000

Well, I just got mine today, and if I can’t find the button labeled “Make screen useable,” I’m sending it back. The features on this thing are quite impressive, but unless you buy this thing to listen to the radio, or to mp3′s, you’re going to be disappointed. The screen has an extremely small viewing angle and what is even stranger than that, the viewing angle isn’t even straight on. On mine anyway, I have to close one eye and view it from about 8-10 degrees north-east of center. I don’t know if is just mine or not, but this is nearly 2006 and I can’t imagine how this $400 device passed quality control.

Also notable is the fact that there isn’t any “supported” way of getting your dvd’s on here. To view dvd content on this device, you will need to find and download software from another source.

My conclusion? Unless you are cock-eyed and do not own any dvd’s, there is probably another device out there that is better suited for you (I’m looking hard at the Archos AV700).