What has a 4.3 inch TFT-LCD widescreen, full video format playback support, cased in an impressive magnesium alloy body, and is ready to challenge an iPod Video? That’s right, it is the souped-up heir to Creative’s latest line of portable video players – the ZEN Vision:W.



Construction (9/10)

The Zen Vision W is solidly built. Unlike its predecessor, the Vision M, the W does not have a touchpad. The controls are built to a more conservative design with easy-to-access buttons that give loud affirmative clicks. The buttons do, however, light up in the dark. The highlight of the Zen W is its large gorgeous screen that showcases vibrant colors and sharp images. In fact, it is one of the best screens we’ve seen on a PVP to date. The connections and ports are also well laid out, exposing ports that require frequent connections (Headphone out, USB 2). Overall, although it can be a bit large for extreme portable uses, the unit feels sleek and holds great in the hand.


Video (9.5/10)

The Zen W’s picture quality is top-notch. Vivacious colors, coupled with sharp contrast and adjustable brightness provide a stunning cinematic experience on a handheld device. During the various testing of AVI/DivX files, videos show no sign of stuttering or getting out-of-sync. Unlike some PVPs on the market, fast-forwarding/rewinding proves that the Vision W has more than enough power to handle the various frame rates and numerous playback formats (AVI, WMV9, MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4-SP, MJPEG, DivX 4.x/ 5.x, XviD-SP). There is really nothing I can think of that I can use to criticize Vision W’s handling of videos with. Maybe incorporating more support formats, such as RMVB?


Audio (7.5/10)

Creative has integrated a small internal speaker into the unit. The speaker is able to accomplish a competent level of volume, but it is nothing that you would desire in the subway or loud public areas. For outdoor use, a pair of headphones or earbuds is definitely necessary. The sound quality from the headphone jack stands as an above-average representation of Creative’s standards in sound. The headphone out is extremely competent. The sound is neither bass-oriented nor trebly bright. It is natural, refined, and the treble, mids, and bass are all well-defined. Nonetheless, the mids do sound a bit recessed and the extensions to both ends seem somewhat lacking. Enabling the Bass-Boost is not recommended as it highly muddles the sound. This calls for using a good pair of headphones or IEMs, as using standard earbuds not only distort the true quality of sound , but also degrades the player's full potential. It is definitel not wise to pay for something that expensive and not getting the full out of it. The score for this section is lowered due to the limited audio support formats. It can truly trouble some audio fanatics as the player does not support lossless FLAC.


Ease of Use (10/10)

I must say, the Creative Zen Vision W seems like one of the easiest-to-use PVPs out there. Astonishingly, a simple cut-and-paste in Windows will enable you to utilize the major functions of this unit. Before installing any software from the CD that came with, I plugged the player into the computer via USB. Similar to a normal Flash Drive, the ZEN immediately got detected. I simply dragged the AVI and MP3 files into the Video and Audio folders of the unit respectively. After disconnecting it from the computer, the Vision W instantly detected all of those contents and was ready for playback. Comparing to the hassle of getting songs onto the iPod (installing iTunes, syncing and such…), for example, the Zen Vision W proves itself to be much more user-friendly.


Conclusion ( 9 /10 )



Creative’s Zen Vision W is a pleasure to play with. Coupling a screen to die for, sturdy built quality, various video and audio format support, and the most important of all, highly user-friendly interface, the Vision W stands proud as Creative’s flagship portable media player. The sound quality of the headphone out is more than decent, as the frequency and tone are all well-defined. Lastly, despite having a big screen, the battery life is on par with rest of the smaller PVPs on the market, averaging in about 14 hours for music and 4.5 hours for videos. So, if you want a small average video player with average sound quality, then go ahead and get an iPod. But if you want a slightly larger, top-notch video player with above-average sound quality for the same price, then you should definitely consider looking into the ZEN Vision: W.

*The "HOT" icon is the highest symbolic award given to a product by the Editors of Compudio Gadget Reviews.

This review is written by Cecil L, on the published date.