Simmessa blog

Mine died some time ago, and I decided to switch to a different vendor, to check out a couple of things.

I got this creative zen vision M 60gb, and I’m amazed at how good this player is.

Why?

The screen rules, you won’t see a better screen in any portable MP3 player right now, it’s simply gorgeous. Then you have a smooth interface, where you can delete songs or albums, protect content with a password, change your wallpaper, setup a custom EQ, watch videos (divX, Xvid, wmv, mpg if it’s 640×480 or smaller it’s quite probable you’ll be able to watch it without converting).

I also dumped iTunes (version 7 is a pain in the ass, I’m quite glad I finally got rid of it) for WMP11, which is not that bad, actually (surprisingly enough, it’s from M$).

I can attach a cable to the player and watch the videos on my TV set, which is amazing! (you can use a non proprietary stereo to 2 RCA cable to watch video and mono audio)

The only ‘cheap’ thing about this player is the ease of installation, it can be very painful if not handled the right way, so here’s a couple of Zen Vision M installation notes:

1)If the PC refuses to recognize the player even after installation of creative bundled apps and drivers (even on XPSP2) then you might be lacking the UMDF (User Mode Driver Framework). I found a fix on this page (on the creative forums).
Click here if you want to go straight to the package download

2)Being european sucks sometimes…like when you have to stick to volume recommendations (volume is limited on EU players because of this crap). But you will be able to install a US firmware by following these instructions (a big thanks to EpiZenter), it’s slightly more difficult than a normal firmware upgrade, but it shouldn’t be a big problem.

I can say that this is probably the best prosumer MP3 player on the market now (med to small form factor), so, if you’re looking for an alternative to the ipoD look no further and give it a try!