Creative Zen Vision: M review

The fact that no one seems to knows whether portable video players are a gadget that anyone actually wants isn't stopping manufacturers from releasing them.

We reviewed Apple's new video-capable iPod last month, and now Creative is joining the club with its Zen Vision: M.

According to Creative, the M doesn't stand for anything in particular, but it might as well stand for 'media' as the Vision: M can play a wide range of the stuff. It's essentially a smaller version of the Zen Vision media player that Creative launched in late 2005, although it only has a 2.5in screen rather than the Vision's generous 3.7in display. It's about the size and shape of the new iPod, but it's almost twice as thick and those publicity shots you may have seen online don't quite show the fat white back that sits behind one of five coloured fascias. It's still a compact little player though, and only those people with a penchant for tight trousers will have a problem slipping it into a pocket.

Creative tends to use a different button layout on each new media player it produces and it's all change with the M. Unfortunately, it still hasn't figured out how to make its players anywhere near as user-friendly as the iPod and most people will need to consult the manual to figure out just what the M's six buttons are for. There's also a large touch-sensitive pad in the middle of the player that's used for scrolling through menus and lists of music. This works well, but it's extremely sensitive and even on the 'low sensitivity' setting, it has a tendency to select something when you're trying to scroll past it.

While the colour display on the M is the same size and resolution as that on the iPod, it can display far more colours - 256,000, compared to the iPod's 65,000. The screen is also noticeably more vibrant than the iPod's, although it doesn't make much difference in practice and video is just as watchable on both players.

The M does score more highly than the iPod when it comes to the video formats it supports, though. Where the iPod is limited to bought-from-iTunes or converted-yourself QuickTime video, the M can play MPEG-1, 2, DivX, XviD and WMV files, which accounts for just about every type of video file that you might encounter, legal or otherwise. Better still, while the iPod can only play video at either 320x320 or 480x480 (depending on its format), the M has no such restriction and you can just copy files across from your PC and have them play with no further fuss.

You can transfer content to the M simply by plugging it into a USB 2 port, opening the player in My Computer and dragging music and photos files or folders into its Media folder. Unfortunately, this doesn't work for video - Windows displays an 'unsupported file format' error, even for files that the Zen supports. To get around this you can use Windows Media Player 10 or Creative's own convoluted MediaSource Organizer application to keep the M in sync with your PC. There's also a third option, in the form of Creative Media Explorer. This runs in an Explorer-like window and while its range of media management options aren't quite as comprehensive as those in MediaSource or WMP, they're far simpler to use.

We've long thought that Creative's media players have had the edge over the iPod sound-wise, and that's certainly the case with the M. You'll need to ditch the atrocious bundled headphones though. Given the wide codec support and more vibrant screen, it has to be said that video support is better too. Throw in a mains charger (a £19 extra for the iPod), an FM tuner and a built-in mic, and the M starts to look like a serious iPod challenger, particularly since it has the same capacity and a similar price to Apple's 30GB model. The only downside is that it lacks an online music store on a par with iTunes, but that's no fault of Creative's and it's a non-issue if you rip your music from CD