Creative Zen Vision W 60 GB Widescreen Multimedia Player (Black)

Other products by Creative Labs

Product Details

• Item Weight: 5 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000IHBZHC
• Item model number: 70PF201100003
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (99 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #26,607 in Electronics (See Bestsellers in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 13, 2006

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description The Creative Zen Vision W Multimedia Player lets you take all your movies, music and photos in a light, pocket-sized device that is loaded with 30 or 60 GB of memory. At this capacity you can carry tens of thousands of photos, 240 hours of movies (500 Kbps MPEG4-SP), or up to 30,000 songs (WMA encoded at 64 Kbps), all in the palm of your hand. You can also tune in the radio (32 station presets), record your favorite talk show, or make personal voice memos with the built-in microphone. And the big news about the Vision W is that it displays your media in a widescreen, 16:9 format.

The Zen Vision W brings widescreen enjoyment to your pocket. View a product demo (flash).

Multimedia Powerhouse in Your Pocket
Today's big screen blockbuster, yesterday's picnic home video, and even your favorite TV shows--they all now fit in your pocket and are ready to be shared. Zen Vision W supports many video formats, such as AVI, DivX 4 and 53, XviD4, MPEG-1, -2, -SP, WMV9, and Motion-JPEG, which simply means you have more choices and less restrictions. Instead of busting out your wallet to show snapshots of your kids, you can enlist the Zen Vision W to give viewers a glimpse of your precious memories--tens of thousands of them. Complete with a thumbnail gallery, the device makes it easy to scroll through your entire photo collection. Of course, music files are a big portion of anyone's digital canvas. Perfect for taking with you on the road or just around the house, this device makes all your music sound as good as the Zen Vision W looks. And with eight preset EQ settings and 97 dB signal-to-noise ratio, you can fine-tune your listening experience for any musical genre.

Great Connectivity
You can also connect the Zen Vision W to a projector or TV with the included AV cable, and put on a big show from this little device. Synchronize music files with photo or video montages for a taste of spectacular, personalized big screen magic. You can also transfer pictures from your camera to the Zen Vision W in no time flat. Simply slip in your camera's Compact Flash (CF) memory card, and let Zen Vision W do the rest. The optional CF card adaptor also lets you use other popular memory card formats, such as SD, MMC, Memory Stick and more.

Widescreen Machine
Viewing images and video on this device is a pleasant experience. The SharpPix 4.3-inch, high-resolution LCD screen features a 480x271 resolution, and hundreds of thousands of colors. What all this means is you see crisp, clear detail in every movie and photo, even under bright light. Creative didn't scrimp on design, either. The Zen Vision W features a lightweight magnesium casing that is both elegant and protective, and it sports a simple, intuitive keypad that makes navigation a breeze. And you'll get loads more playback time with the included removable, and rechargeable, battery. Enjoy up to 13 hours of music or 4.5 hours of movies on a single charge.

Other features include a personal organizer that you sync with Microsoft Outlook, and an integrated voice recorder that can store hundreds of hours worth of recordings. The Zen Vision W Multimedia Player uses PlaysForSure technology. Look for the PlaysForSure logo if you're shopping for a portable music or video device and you want to make sure the digital music and video you purchase will play back on it every time. Match the PlaysForSure logo on a large selection of leading devices and online music stores. If you see the logo, you'll know your digital music will play for sure. Choose from a large number of digital music and video stores, including MTV's Urge, Rhapsody, Yahoo!, MSN Music, MusicMatch, MusicNow, Napster, Wal-Mart Music Downloads, and many more.

What's in the Box
Creative Zen Vision W, earphones, power adapter, USB cable, AV cable, pouch, installation CD, and quick start guide.

Product Description

Creative's Zen Vision W is the widescreen multimedia MP3 player for movies, music and photos. Its high-gloss, scratch-resistant 16: 9 display with adjustment makes all content fit the entire screen, and its large hard disk stores up to 120 hours of movies, 15000 songs or many thousands of photos. The player has a Compact Flash slot for the transfer of stills from digital cameras, and it supports popular movie and audio formats as well as Album Art and customized wallpapers. Additional features include a built-in FM radio, a microphone for live recording, and connectivity to external TVs and speakers.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

199 of 202 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Device but not perfect, October 5, 2006

By	D. Truong "Duke of New Mexico" (New Mexico) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

The first thing you'll probably notice about this player is it's gorgeous widescreen. How big is it? Well, technically speaking it's 480 x 272 resolution, 4.3 inches wide diagionally, and capable of displaying about 262,000 colors(same as Zen M). For those of you who now own a Zen M, to illustrate how big the screen is on the Zen W: You can lay an entire Zen M on the Zen W, and the entire area of the Zen M is about the size of the screen of the Zen W. For you Psp owners out there, the Zen W screen is exactly the same resolution and size as the screen on the PSP. Although, the PSP screen is actually more advanced and can display over 16 million colors. Though both of these screens are much better than the screen on the video Ipods(which is only 320 x 240, and only display 65,000 colors). The screen on the Zen W does the job very well, and you can adjust the brightness levels. Even at %50 brightness, it's adequate. Though it outshines the Zen M in screen size, I noticed that it's not quite as sharp and the colors are not as vivid as on the Zen M. Also, I noticed that while playing Divx video, the Zen W doesn't play the video as smoothly as on a computer. The video frame-rate seems to look more jerky and less smooth. Although the pre-installed videos looked fine in Xvid, so this may only apply to Divx videos. Some other great features about the player are it's built in FM radio, voice recorder, custom sound equalizer, built in speaker, and Compact Flash slot. The built-in speaker can get surprisingly loud and is adequate for watching videos... But if you're an Audiophile, it's not good for listening to your music. It's sounds quite tinny and is only a single speaker. One huge improvement over the Zen M is that you no longer need to carry a stupid adapter to charge or upload songs or media. The mini-usb power, and A/V out ports are already built in to this player. Also the magnesium casing seems much sturdier than the Zen M's plastic casing... and probably not as prone to scratches. The thing looks and feels very solidly built. The interface is also simple and easy to figure out and very similar to the Zen M interface.

The only big difference is that the Zen W uses buttons instead of the touch thumb-pad on the Zen M. I think they should have tried to integrate the thumb-pad somehow because it worked so well on the Zen M. In this respect, the Zen W buttons seem like a step backward in progress. However, I do like the fact that they made all the buttons on the right side so you can effectively use the player with only your right hand. (sorry lefties).

The built in Compact Flash slot is also a very cool idea. You can backup your compact flash or microdrive photos onto the player with the slot. The only thing is that you can't use the compact flash as a secondary hard-drive... meaning you can't just slip a compact flash card with video on it and watch it straight from the card. You must import it onto the player first before you can play the media. You can't play mp3s or browse photos straight from the CF card either. All the files must be imported onto the hard-drive of the Zen W first. This seems pretty lame to me because you're not using the slot to it's full potiental. Hopefully there will be firmware upgrades that will let you do this in the future. Another thing about the player that needs to be improved is it's thickness. The second thing you'll notice (after the lovely huge screen) is how thick this thing is. I mean, it's barely pocketable. So it's not quite as portable as the Zen M. How think is it? Well, it's nearly an inche thick... a little less thick than a PSP. If they could cut the thickness in half, it would make this player much more portable.(not to mention sleek and sexy). Here's a quick run-down on Pros and Cons.

Pros:

-Gorgeous 4.3 inche (480x272 resolution) screen that displays up to 262,000 colors. Movies look so much better than on a 320x240 (Ipod)screen. And if you like to watch Anime, you'll have no more problems reading subtitles.

-Built in mini-usb port, power, and Audio/Video out port(for tv output).
-Sturdy magnesium casing and solid feel.
-Lots of extras like FM radio, organizer, calendar, voice recorder -Audio/Video cable included, plays Xvid and Divx files.
-Built in compact flash/microdrive slot for photo backup.
-Removable battery (yes, finally!)
-Optional wireless Remote control available (built in IR reciever)
-ZenCast organizer (allows you to download/organize Podcasts to Zen W)

Cons:
- Pretty thick at almost an inche thick. (barely pocketable)
- Divx playback (Frame-rate) a bit jerky. Screen not as sharp-looking and colors not as vibrant as Zen M. (I'm nit-picking, you may not even notice the difference...especially if you don't have a Zen M)
- No video line-in for video recording. It would be great if they had this built in and you could record from any video source... don't know why they don't.
- When viewing files on Compact Flash using CF slot, you must first import/upload files over to the Zen W drive first to view.

In conclusion, this player packs alot of punch for the money. And almost everything it does, it does very well. If you love movies and music like I do, you will definately enjoy this device. It's very impressive and looks and feels sturdy. The biggest flaw/turn-offs to me is it's thickness. A device made for portability should be ... well, more portable. In a world where other mp3 competitors are sizing down their players, creative seems to be sizing their's up. If they could somehow cut the thickness of this player to half while not sacrificing any of it's other features, it would be perfect. Still with it's minor imperfections, this player is still worth every penny and outshines it's competitors. If you value portability over video capability, I'd go for the Zen M. The Zen M still plays video... but on a smaller screen.(And it's cheaper too)

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85 of 87 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wow!, October 18, 2006

By	C. Wilson "Raiderpride" (Logan, UT) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Just got my Zen Vision W a couple days ago, and I have to say I am very impressed. This is my first MP3 player purchase after shopping around to find the best one for me. My friends of course all have the IPod videos but I needed a player that works with Napster-to-go(an absolutely awesome service, you can download basically as much as you want from Napster all for the incredibly low price of 14.95 a month). I have held out of buying an MP3 player until I found one that can hold all my music, over 45 gb, and would still have room to fit my favorite tv shows and maybe a movie or to. The Zen Vision W does all this and more! They include all these great features as well as picture, radio tuner, and an organizer.

Pros:
Absolutely brilliant display. Hard to believe but the display is actually bigger than you think (display probably as big as an IPod video by itself). Put a couple videos on it and am blown away by how crisp the colors are and how good the resolution is.

Great for music. Keeps all your files organized the same way your computer does. Able to work with all types of online music using Windows Plays-For-Sure technologies as well as Audible and stuff like that. Syncs up easy with your computer. Just drag and drop your files onto it from your computer. Also has a built in speaker so you don't always have to have headphones. All sorts of EQ effects for different types of music.

Videos are a breeze. Almost too easy to put videos on it. Will play most avi, divx, and mp4, but will easily convert other types of video to make it compatible. Comes with A/V cables so you can move files off your computer onto the player and then watch them on your own tv.

Lots of options you can change on it to customize it for you. You can set up playlists easily and change most settings for other situations that come up.

No touch-pad! Sorry but I hate touchpads. Glad there are actual buttons to use, and remarkably easy and fast to find your music on it with the buttons.

Cons (yep there are some):

Pretty big: Almost too big. I don't like putting stuff in my pants pockets anyways so I don't care about the size. But beware it is about the size of a psp(about an inch thick) so I just put mine in my hoody pockets where it fits better or in a backpack or cargo pockets.

Power charger: This is based off region but mine did not come with a regular power adapter, I got the european one so I can't plug it into the wall to charge, I have to use the usb which takes about six hours to charge compared to three. Creative offers one for $35 bucks, not happy about that.

Accessories: Not a whole lot of accessories for it yet. Pretty hard to find a case for it.

Battery life: Not a great battery life. Long enough for me but still not very long.

In conclusion, absolutely amazing media player that plays almost all types of files and looks and sounds great doing it. The size will hold a lot of people back looking for a more portable device compared to the standard IPod.

36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A nice improvement over the 30GB version, December 17, 2006

By	Cheryl Carruth (Boise, ID USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Creative did it! They fixed the issues with their 30GB model and created the device I've been hoping for!

PROS
- The navigation is very easy to understand and this new model boots and navigates very fast, compared to the sluggishness of the older model.
- The audio is excellent, and the colors and video sharpness remain crisp and clean.
- The improved screen is excellent from all viewing angles.
- The 60GB capacity is a serious plus.
- The file management software is straightforward to install and use.
- The unit is well constructed and feels good in the hand, and even though it's bigger (to support the widescreen), it uses lighter-weight construction which feels only slightly heavier in the hand.

CONS
- accessories are important for this kind of gadget, and Creative doesn't seem to understand this. The 30GB model had a cradle which was very useful since the device can get heavy through a 2 hour movie. There doesn't seem to be a cradle for the new 60GB, at least not yet, and this is a big flaw. It can also be hard to find accessories like the extended battery.
- my photos don't look good in their original high res form. ipod will optimize your photos, reducing the file size so they look good on the small screen. With Creative, looks like I'll be "optimizing" myself. I guess this is no different from downsizing my movies, but since I know ipod can do it, I challenge Creative to do this next time around.

To get my DVDs onto this device, I use a two-step process:

(1) rip the DVD onto the PC hard drive (I use "DVD Shrink" freeware, takes about 20min)
(2) convert that ripped file, which is usually between 2-7GB, into a portable movie file using "Video Vault" software. This creates a small movie file of about 400-800MB. This step takes 1-3 hours per movie, so I run it overnight.

The resulting small movie file is easily transferred from the PC to the Creative device using the software that comes with the device.

To get TV onto the Creative, it's helpful to have a Media Center PC with a DVR. This way you can move recorded TV shows to the Creative and watch them on the go.

For me, the results of all this digital transfer are worth the effort. It's a blast to have this on a trip, especially when so many United Airlines movie screens are broken! Thank you, Creative, for making all the improvements. This new Creative Zen Vision is a terrific product and a fun toy for the electronics enthusiast.