'Widescreen Entertainment'. Review on Creative Zen Vision W

Creative's Zen Vision W was something that I came across accidentally while I was searching for some gadgets on a premier gadget-deals' site. The player definitely grabbed my attention, as it was a video player too - a widescreen one at that. It was something that I yearned to buy, but was waybeyond my budget. Then, the wait began - the wait for the prices to come down. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the prices didn't come down, but the dollar rate nose-dived, which made this player just within my reach. I requested my cousin to get it for me from the US and it cost me around 11, 000 INR(rate converted from USD). It was a steal at that price, specially when 4GB(flash memory based) players cost around the same here in India.

Enough about my adventures in getting hold of this player - lets get to the main review. On taking it out of the box, one thing stuck me more than anything else - the screen. It was a really H-U-G-E screen which looked simply awesome. The next thing I noticed was the weight. Lets be fair - this thing really gives you a feel of its weight when you hold it in your hand. But, that is accounted for, as it is a hard-drive based player and not a flash based one.

The player needs a good 3-4 hour initial charge before one can start using this. The charge time varies with the mode of charging. Standard charging using the AC adapter provided takes 3 hours while charging through USB takes a little more than 6 hours. The good thing is that the player comes with a detachable Li-Ion battery which means you can buy a spare one, in case you need more'entertainment time'. Let me now come to the individual aspects of the player now.

The Sound:The player delivers a rich all round performance with good sound clarity. There is no noticeable hiss while playback and it handles all frequencies with ease. The player comes bundled with sub-standard earphones which really don't reproduce all frequencies well. Like all other players, the bundled earphones don't do justice to what the player is actually capable of.  I had to use my Sony MDR-V250 monitor headphones to get a feel of the sound quality. The sound is great, but I feel the player lacks the'punch'. The sound output is loud, at a maximum volume of 25(scale of 0-25 with increments of 1 unit) . It wont tear your ears apart at the maximum volume. This said, it is important to note that the output one hears is also based on the Impedance rating of the headphone / earphone. Enhancements to sound are available in the form of Bass Boost, 5 Band Equalizer, and smart sound(or something synonymous. I forgot what its called). One needs to play around with each setting to get the right balance in all frequencies. The player also comes with a Mono external speaker for those who don't wish to use headphones. I would give the sound quality a 4/5.

The Display:** The Creative Zen Vision W(referred to as CZVW in future) comes with an impressive widescreen display unit, providing an excellent cinematic experience in your palm. I was impressed with the screen quality and the crispness of the images onscreen. Black /dark tones are displayed well and the contrast is brilliant. The response time is decent with very rare / almost no ghosting or trailing of fast moving pictures. Display rating: 5/5

The User Interface: Creative does best in this segment with a clean and familiar user Interface. Four directional keys and one confirm/OK key is used for navigating through the menus, apart from a "back" button to move back to the main menu. An alternate select button provides other media/file options. This is somewhat similar to the right mouse click. Navigating through the menus is very straightforward and simple. The buttons are made of clear plastic with a blue back light, that makes it easy to handle them in the dark. Funnily, the OK/Confirm button does not have a back light. the buttons feel good, but one does have to put in some conscious effort to click them. Volume control buttons are well placed on the top and the power button is placed a little to the left of the volume controls. The power button also acts as a hold-release switch that ensures that the player isn't turned on accidentally while traveling.

Playback Support: The player handles all standard video formats like WMV and DivX with ease. It does not support some newer formats / versions of video codecs. A very important handicap is that the player supports only the WAV, MWA and MP3 audio codecs. There is no support for AAC / AC3 codecs - Bad news for all you'iEnthuziasts'. The bundled software allows for conversion of files which can be done on the fly during a transfer, or independently. The player uses the ID3v2.2 version for tagging and the audio files are stored based on the ID3 information and not based on the filename. This allows users to add album art, etc. into the tags, and save the metadata within the audio file. Tagged information is displayed onscreen during playback and track rating, etc. is also possible.

The other stuff:The player comes with a CF card slot which is very handy if you wish to store photos and you have run out of space on the card. One can use various CF adapters available in the market to enable moving files from other card formats like SD, MMC, etc. The player also comes with the PIM - Organizer, Contacts manager, and a Calendar. It syncs well with Outlook and you can have all your contact and appointment details backed up in the player. The player has a built in mic which does well to record ambient vocals. You can carry it around and record conferences, etc. The CZVW also comes with FM radio, which is a good feature. The reception quality is just above average and good for places around towns / cities, where there is a strong signal. One needs to plug in the bundled earphones for the radio to work, as they act as the antenna. The player has an A/V jack which allows you to connect the player to your TV, using the bundled cable. With a good TV and audio equipment, one can enjoy a theater like experience. The final feature is that the player can also be used as a portable

storage device. The user can define the storage size and this is a

fantastic feature for those who with to transfer large amounts of data

in one shot.

The verdict:The CZVW is a fantastic PMP with an awesome 4.3 inch widescreen display which allows you to view movies in the original'wide' format. The audio quality is great with a decent set of enhancement features. The storage size of 30G and 60G make it a complete media-library for all your videos / audio tracks. The battery life is decent for a hard drive based widescreen player. One gets around 5 hours of video and 12 hours of audio. Batteries are replaceable and this is a great feature. The bundled earphones are a letdown and the FM radio could have been better. Creative could also have improved on the playback support by adding a wider variety of media formats. To conclude, its a great buy, specially at a price of about 275$ and it wont let you down.