Customer Reviews

ZVUE! Full Color Personal Video Player

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This player does live up to it's claims in that it will play music and video. But a word of warning. UPDATE YOUR FIRMWARE!!!! The updated firmware will make this player fully functional, offer an improved menu, and eliminate bugs and lockups. I've formated severval divx videos using the zorg software to run on the ZVUE and it works very well. If the player only had an organizable playlist, I would have given it 5 stars. However that issue can be augmented with adding folders and proper numbering of files. Again, if you are going to be lazy and not update the firmware, which only takes about 10 minutes, you are not going to be happy with the ZVUES performance. UPDATE YOUR FIRMWARE!!!!

The ZVUE also is expandable with SD and MMC cards which can give you pretty much an almost unlimited amount of storage capacity. SD cards are pushing 4 gigs in size and are getting cheaper by the month. A 4 gig SD card goes for about 75 bucks from sites such as newegg and tigerdirect, with smaller cards going as cheap as 16 dollars. Order from there and they'll be on you doorstep in 3 days. Buy retail from a place like bestbuy and you'll get raked over the coals for over $100 for the same brand cards. Use your brain a little and you can take this little media player very far.

Recently picked up a ZVUE at Sprawl-Mart. $90 bucks get you a very reasonable little pmp. I also picked up a 1GB SD card as the unit has no internal memory. Physically, the construction is a bit thin but the manufacturing tolerances are good. Once you put the four AA batteries inside, the unit has a nice amount of "heft." Screen size and resolution is pretty good and is very dependent upon the quality of the files to begin with. As far as Ogg music file quality, I'd say it's really good. There are no EQ settings, but the output is flat and transparent sounding.

The video function is the exciting part. I encode TV and movies with another device (Cowon A2) into asf files and then use Riverpast's Video Cleaner software ($30.) to resize the video for the ZVUE. It works excellent and have had no trouble. I have downloaded several google vids intended for ipod and converted them with the same software to avi and had great results. Since good feature films are not really easily found for mobile devices, I have been steadily builing my own library by recording them with my Cowon. I use the ZVUE to take with me because it's inexpensive and I would not be horrified if something happened to it or it was stolen. I am very pleased with the ZVUE. I hope the ZVUE people obtain more licensing for their site to support the distribution of actual current films and shows.

Shuffle mode and windows media support (and the fast forward works now)! And I am not seeing lockups anymore either... If it wasn't for the cover problem, this unit would be almost perfect. I use "FortyTwo" to upload videos on the mac side and it works well (this is a shareware program)

Overall it's a great player for the kids who lust after my iPod+Video and only 1/3 the price.

IF YOUR LOOKING FOR THE BEST OVERALL PORTABLE VIDEO, MP3 PLAYER, PHOTO VIEWER, LOOK NO MORE. ENTER ZVUE. A FEW CONS, NO SHUFFLE, NO PLAYLIST, NO EQUALIZER, NO PRESETS, NO FAST FORWARD ON MUSIC. OTHER THAN THAT VERY EASY TO OPERATE, ONE THING DON'T USE THE SOFTWARE THAT COMES WITH IT, ENCODE YOUR VIDEOS WITH A READELY AVAILABLE POCKET ENCODER, WWW.DIVX.COM. VIDEOS LOOK VERY GOOD. MUSIC SOUND PRETTY GOOD AT 64BPS (WMA). JUST UPGRADE TO THE LATEST FIRMWARE AND

THAT SHOULD TAKE CARE OF ALL THE PROBLEMS THAT THE LAST REVIEWER ENCOUNTER. VERY SIMPLE TO DO. USE 15 MINUTE RECHARGABLES, AND YOUR SET TO GO FOR HOURS OF PLAYTIME. ( I KEEP EXTRA ONES IN MY CAR). ONE THING, YOU SHOULD PROTECT THE SCREEN WITH ONE OF THOSE CLEAR COVERS FOR PDA'S I'VE HAD MINE FOR ALMOST TWO MONTHS AND NOT A SINGLE SCRATCH ON IT, BELIVE YOU ME IT IS WORTH IT. IF YOU LIKE CHEAP, DURABLE AND VERY EASY TO OPERATE GADGETS THIS IS IT.

IF YOU ARE FANCY AND LIKE LOT OF STORAGE BUY THE OUTRAGEOUSLY EXPENSIVE ARCHOS GMINI. JUST REMEMBER HARD DRIVES TEND TO SKIPP AT THE SLIGHTEST OF MOVEMENT, THE ZVUE HAS YET TO SKIP ONCE, AND I USE FOR JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING.

I hadn't even really been in the market for an MP3 player, much less a personal video player, when I tumbled across this little unit marked down in a Discovery store -- $50. For a video player before the video iPod hit the market, and a quarter the price? That's worth a $50 bet.

It's a bet I won.

That was three years ago, and I have no need to replace it. I like its heft -- this is no flimsy wafer that's going to get lost in a crack in the couch, or crushed when accidentally sat upon. Memory cards are cheap and plentiful -- maybe a 1G chip cost $60-100 in 2005, but those days are long over.

The ZVUE has exactly one weakness: it eats batteries. However, the bottom USB port is for USB power, so you can plug it in there when sitting at your computer.

Highly recommended over the overpriced and overhyped competition.

i bought this almost a year ago. when i first started i had a hard time putting stuff on it but i got the hang of it.the bad part of it is you have to use mp4s you have to use the software that comes whith it to change it to an mp4. the sceen is very big.i like that it has two head phone jacks. hope i helped you buy this

I am posting the same review I did for the version two for this one as I purchased v1, had the same problems, then exchanged with v2 and had the exact same problems. The market for Portable Media Players is getting vaster as technology improves. Of course, some products are stuck behind in the stone age, like this one. I bought a Zvue about a year ago, and after a week returned it. I had so many problems with it.

Pro: Shiny?

Con: Media Cards (a 1Gb can set you back $100+.)

The media card that came with it is so small in memory space.

Extremely bad screen quality

Small Screen

Converter for Zvue is EXTREMELY slow

Plastic cover for screen breaks easily

Freezes on a regular basis.

I only had this product for a week, and I had all the problems above. Save your money and go buy an ice-cream, as the pleasure you will get from an ice cream far surpasses the pleasure gained from this product.