Creative's new iPod killer video baby

Bard

Look out Apple, here comes the Creative Zen Vision:M !

TG Daily wrote:

Taken from http://www.tgdaily.com/2005/12/08/creative_zen_visionm_feature/

Creative launches new Zen video player

Aaron McKenna
8 Dec 2005 22:11


London (England) - Creative today launched the latest incarnation of its burgeoning Video iPod-beater, the Zen Vision:M in London. The event, which had the entertaining founder and CEO of Creative Mr. Sim Wong Hoo in attendance to lead the cheer, showed off the video player, which the company hopes will give Apple's 5G iPod a run for its money.
Weighing in with a 30GByte harddrive, a 2.5 inch screen with a native resolution of 320 x 240 pixel and a promised four hours of video playback battery time (compared to Apple's rather stingy two) the Vision M certainly looks the part.


Not skimping on the other all-important features expected in a player of its class the Vision M promises 11 hours of audio playback, a high-quality picture viewer, FM Radio and a voice and radio recorder.
The new Vision also promises extremely high-quality TV-out feeds, and certainly from the demos we were shown on a projector and LCD screens the Vision M will have no problem doubling up as a portable media player, with Creative's Geraldine de Bonis - Business Development Manager of the MP3 division - commenting that the Vision M is a viable alternative to people going on holiday, for example, when local TV is not to ones taste and dragging along the DVD collection is not an option.



Another feature that Creative was quick to laud was the inclusion of an A/C adapter with the player. Despite the fact that this will add to the cost of the player, which stands at $330, Creative is justifying the decision by way of saying that the general consumer is "far more used to A/C compared to USB chargers" and that "with a battery life of four hours A/C is far more convenient than plugging the player into your laptop or computer constantly", said de Bonis.
The player is also thicker than recent video-playing examples we've seen from Apple, but again Creative was quick to come up with an explanation for this, with the CEO pointing out that a thicker design is more robust and allows for the inclusion of more features, a better battery and (presumably) a sturdier design.
On top of the usual audio-codec suspects the player comes with a decent range of video-codec support out of the box, with MPEG-4, WMV, Motion JPEG, DivX, and XviD all included in the package.
Creative expects to have the video player on shop shelves in the US, UK & Ireland before Christmas, though the rest of Europe can't expect to see much until January 2006 and the company wasn't clear what kind of volumes we can expect in those shops lucky enough to get the Vision M before December 20.
Meanwhil, everyone we spoke to, from the CEO through to the European General Manager Jean-Marc Dupuis, told us that while MP3 players and the likes are pushing Creative's brand, Creative is still very much pushing its other range of products.
Top on the list is the firm's recently released X-Fi soundcard, much lauded as the most powerful thing to have ever been released into the consumer soundcard market, which Creative wants to push into living rooms as well as desktop computers.
They also alluded to integrating the X-Fi audio technology into their MP3 players in the near future, with de Bonis stressing to the fact that the Next Big Thing that Creative had in store for its audio playing market would be integration of a scaled-down X-Fi chip into their audio players.
Considering the power of the X-Fi this presents some exciting prospects for dramatically enhancing the sound quality from the company's audio players, though as always the proof will be in the eating, and much may depend on how much Creative engineers have to cut down in order to get X-Fi to work in an audio player almost the same size as the actual full-scale soundcard.

We expect to have a hands-on review of the Creative Zen Vision:M soon.

It's expected to hit retail stores here around December 23rd with a price tag of around €340 - possibly less.

Looks good, eh?

muckwarrior

Old news Bard :v:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054860374

honru

The fact that it works with a wide range of video codecs out of the box is a huge plus. I'd like to test drive the interface before considering a purchase though. Still, it looks promising.

Bard

muckwarrior wrote:

Old news Bard :v:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054860374

Oops... sorry !

byte

I should look into getting some of these in stock at work then.

I think the release date of 23 December is a bit late though, missing a lot of Xmas present purchases.

rugbug86

byte wrote:

I should look into getting some of these in stock at work then.

I think the release date of 23 December is a bit late though, missing a lot of Xmas present purchases.

but catching the people who got money for christmas!

byte

rugbug86 wrote:

but catching the people who got money for christmas!

Perhaps, though the biggest selling time for mp3 players is during December.

swingking

I was in Peats in Dame St. yesterday and I noticed the Creative Zen Vision. THe price was about 400-450; not cheap.

Tusky

youch...out of my price range.

byte

Indeed, that price is quite restrictive!

Bard

swingking wrote:

I was in Peats in Dame St. yesterday and I noticed the Creative Zen Vision. THe price was about 400-450; not cheap.

The Zen Vision isn't the same as the Zen Vision:M.

Bard

Update: I was on to the supplier for Creative products today. The Zen Vision:M won't be available in time for Christmas. In Harvey Norman, we're looking at having it in stock in mid-January 2006. Shame really.

Ruskie4Rent

I really want one. Would you need a pre-order?

Bard

Ruskie4Rent wrote:

I really want one. Would you need a pre-order?

No, you should be able to walk into a store and buy one.

In January, that is.

Nephew

bard, do you have any idea what it will cost in ireland?

Bard

Nephew wrote:

bard, do you have any idea what it will cost in ireland?

We've been given an expected retail price of around €340. It may be less than that, although nothing is confirmed yet.

Tusky

Think im gonna get one of these babies.

Ruskie4Rent

Peats said they'd are bein distributed by creative on the 19th. They didn't tell me when they'd have them though.

Bard

From my information they're due to be distributed in Ireland on the 20th (Tuesday) for release on the 23rd, - which is a bit tight to say the least - to hit the Christmas market. However, my supplier (the main Creative supplier in Ireland) has told me that they won't have enough stock of them to get enough to stores in time for Christmas and they're looking at mid-January as a more realistic time for having them on the shelves. I'll talk to them today and post here if there's been any change in this.

[edit]: of course, I won't actually be talking to them today now that I think of it... they don't open weekends (dammit)...

Kintarō Hattori

I dunno about Creative and their expectations and promises. I sell their MP3/MP4 players on a daily basis and they just aren't great. Their flash players are very good, but anything more complicated than that tends to be very average. I most definetly will wait and see with the new Vision M, but I'm not expecting much.

Ruskie4Rent

Is there a creative shop around castleknock/blanchardstown? my friend said there was.

Would they have it there before christmas?

Kintarō Hattori

I don't believe there is a Creative shop around there. I think you may be thinking of Creative themselves who are actually based in Blanchardstown. They have their European headquarters there.

Ruskie4Rent

oh, so there's no creative store there? i must have misunderstood my friend.