Broken MP3 Player

My mp3 player is a tangle of wires
A mixture of pain and unaccomplished desires
Who boasted about all the features it brought
But its buttons broke a couple months after was bought
And the headphones that it came with later envisioned
To only utilize the left ear-bud to listen
Which leaves me a brick in a vegetative state
That when neglecting its size, still embodies `dead weight'
As a box that can store a considerable amount of music
With less than an adequate means of access to use it

I started off really liking this product. Then the problems started. The player would hang, then freeze completely and wouldn't even let me turn it off. I had to use a bent paper clip to press the reset button over and over again. After about eight months of use, the player wouldn't turn on unless you charged it overnight, and God forbid if you let it go to sleep mode. Eventually, after about 11 months, it died completely.

And forget getting assistance from Creative Labs. They won't even speak to you over the phone; you have to run the gauntlet of their unintuitive web site, and they won't deal with you at all if the product is out of warranty.

11 months isn't long enough for a product even one-eighth the cost of this piece of garbage. Save your money and don't buy Creative.

This is the best purchase I have ever made. You can put all your MP3, WAV & other files on the MP3 player. What I like most is that you don't have to subscribe to a specific web site to download music. You can put your own on there, buy music or audio books from any web site and put them on your player! It even has a FM Radio and I can put pictures, movies, etc on there. No more CD players for me on road trips!

Greetings to all potential Creative customers,
I was greatly disturbed today when I found out the lack of help provided by the Creative Labs Company to my wife when her 30 GB Zen MP3 player failed to run properly. In my opinion, it's actions like this that are ruining companies and our country's economy. Due to this company's inaction today, they have lost a once satisfied customer. Once being more than happy to promote this product, now we will be sure to divulge to our friends and relatives of this company's lack of helpfulness. My wife asked specific questions of the technical advisors in the e-mail form which were ignored; she was given a form letter, was referred to the website, and was told that she would be charged by the company for further help. She expressly requested the guidance of upper management from the technical support specialist, and this request was ignored, proving that Creative Labs is unwilling to provide any kind of meaningful help and does not value customer service. The menial help that the highly flawed website provided was a firmware application that caused the device to completely fail, and then the last piece of friendly advice that we received was that we should purchase a new one from the company's website. We were given an application that made our expensive device inoperable, and for that, I will never purchase another Creative product again. We have both been faithful Creative Labs buyers for years, and my wife had multiple friends and relatives buy their products based on her recommendations. It is with deep regret that I inform all that Creative Labs customer service has proven to be a bitter disappointment and for this, they have lost my family's business.

I bought this little wonder when it was considered the best mp3/video player on the market. This was and is Creative's best attempt at gaining some room against Apple and the multitude of other companies out there.

Even after three years, the Vision M has the best video support in the market when you compare it to other players except for Cowon's and Archo's tablets which support virtually every codec format. (an excellent exception would be the cowon D2)

I use the Vision M for three hours daily and I recharge it every four, five days. Of course the player is always on the hold position, meaning that the screen is always off. This has been its routine for the past two years and a half. It has never failed, except for a few frozen experiences where I've had to reset the player and wait 5 minutes for the library to be rebuilt. (I've come to believe my battery will last forever since my IPOD died after only one year and three months and had to be replaced.)

The sound quality when compared to my IPOD is stellar. It is comfortable and precise all around. I've spent as much money on my headphones as I have for my 6 mp3 players, so I know a little bit about what sounds good.

The reason why i won't give the Vision M a five star rating is simple: Creative does not support products which they have discontinued, which means that this player will probably never get a new firmware update. Don't get me wrong. The firmware on this player is phenomenal. The player works flawlessly and it offers many things the competition even after 3 years does not; however, the audio codec support is poor.

WMA, MP3, WAV, and audible are supported, but it is widely known that the player has the hardware needed to support every other codec on the planet. Creative just won't implement it. Now that apple's ACC and podcast videos are omnipresent, it is just a dumb move from Creative's part not to allow its costumers to use their hardware to the extreme. Not to mention the 30 GB's could well be used for Ogg and flac audio formats.

Overall this little wonder is still an impressive piece of equipment. I can't find a better replacement, so I will probably buy another one when mine finally gives in.

* Forgot to mention the Vision M looks great when connected to a TV. I've had fun times with friends and family looking at pictures and watching movies on a big screen.

I loved this Zen, i have been using it for a year and half and it feels like i just bought it, its refreshing to play this everytime,either video or music or radio. I am so glad i got this.

Thanks creative!

Great product all around. It finally broke last week, but that is because I leaned up against a table, and the corner of said table destroyed the screen. The MP3 player still works, but the screen is deceased. Great buy, though. Thanks again!

I purchased my Zen Vision M shortly after I bought one for my son for a birthday present 2 years ago. Although I've had to replace my sons twice due to mishandling, mine is still going strong. My Zen has been very reliable. I leave it in my car overnight during the winter months (western Massachusetts) and never have had any problems with the screen cracking or anything else. I have a leather case on it and have dropped it in my driveway and in my work parking garage several times. It still works. Maybe I'm lucky. I know putting it in a duffel bag or a back pack is not a wise idea, for those things tend to get thrown around without consideration as to the contents (see my son's luck with Zen). I use it everyday and update the play lists at least once a week. The touch pad is a little sensitive for my liking, even after configuring it for the least sensitive setting. But I can live with that.

Works great with Windows XP and Windows Vista. There are some software "glitches" that can be worked around if you are a little computer savvy. The software that comes with it has an "Vision M Explorer" which does seem a little slow to respond at times, so I don't use it and instead use Windows Explorer to browse and manage the folders on the player. I use Media Player to Sync or get music from My PC to the Zen and Syncing is only as fast as your computer, so don't blame Creative: it's the PC. Along those lines, the video quality of the Zen is only as good as the video quality of the video file you are trying to play. If it looks good on your Pc, there is a good bet it will look good on the Zen; if it looks grainy on your PC, don't expect something better on the Zen.

FM radio is fine. Stations I get are within 30 to 50 miles, but I don't know their wattage. I think with radio's reception is subject to where you are.

There is still plenty of space on it even with having many videos on it.

As far as the extended warranties are concerned, that is a separate review unto itself, but I will tell you READ THE FINE PRINT. Some companies like Square Trade will not cover accidental damage unless you purchase that as an added on expense. And then that type of coverage is buried in their literature on page whatever, so you never get to it before going blind or falling asleep. NEW however covered one of my son's replacements no questions asked and it had a cracked screen, however it did take over a month to get the process going (I have a review for them it was not good). However it was worth it even though it took a lot of time and frustration to get the replacement. And of course once they replaced it, the original warranty was no longer valid, so when he broke it again, I had to buy another one on EBAY where I was offered the Square Trade warranty. The warranty differences really were the only negative things I could say, and since that is not Creative's problem it gets 5 starts from me.

It's bigger and heavier, and not as elegant as most iPods. However, the bigger screen and more storage was what made the choice for me, at the time. I can store a few movies on this thing, in addition to podcasts and music and audiobooks.

The touchpad needs to be slowed down (and can be, from the settings).

Another point to keep in mind is that there are umpteen accessories made for iPod, and almost none made especially for the Zen. If that's not an issue, this is a great little player.

You can have your Apple Ipod. I love my Creative player. I take it with me everywhere! So much of my life is in that little player. Pictures, movies, videos, music, books, old radio shows, you name it probably on there!

I bought mine off of ebay for a lot less than most other places. Much less than $200 USD. The sound and the video screens are so crisp and clear. The sound can be customized to your ears very easily. My boyfriend wants one even though I have given him a Philips 30 gb player.

A very easy product to get used to. May be a bit bigger and slightly heavier than an iPod but I wouldn't want this to be smaller.

I highly recommend this product. You won't be sorry.

I have had this player for several years and I could not be happier with it. The sound is excellent, and when I put videos and photos on it I was amazed by the quality of the picture. The storage is virtually unlimited- I have several thousand songs and many videos and have only used 7 of the 30 GB. The software it comes with makes it very easy to add media and keep files synchronized. I love that I can put wma and m4a files on it as well. The idle shut-off is great if you're like me and listen to music when you're going to sleep. It's also very customizable. It has good battery life, and with a wall charger it charges in less than an hour. All in all I find it to be an excellent player that does everything I could want and more.

After putting up with my old Dell Pocket DJ for years, the Zen is like a breath of fresh air. I still can't believe I was able to purchase it for only $125.00. Apparently, it was a closeout because one week later there were none left. The sound quality and ease of operation is outstanding and the volume balancing between songs actually works!
The only criticism I have is that the software that comes loaded is quite prone to lockups, especially when dealing with large volumes of music. Once I downloaded the latest software form their web site, the Zen has not locked up once. I have a large collection of MP3 and WMA files and they work like a charm. Once I realized what an excellent player this was, I went back to Yahoo to purchase another but they were gone. If you can still find one, buy it!

I have had the ZEN Vision M for over 2 years. On a couple occassions it froze up. I quickly realized when you drain the battery down too low, it is more likely to cause the ZEN M to freeze up, especially when you are watching videos/tv/movies. Also, if you let it sit for a couple months, fully charge it because the battery probably drained.

We just went on a trip to Yellowstone, and on the flight my daughter watched some TV shows and it worked great. The sound and visual is as good as the day I bought it. I purchased a wall charger & video output to TV, which is nice to view your pictures on a large screen. Keep a charger handy when the battery gets low or when you haven't used it for a long time. You'll be pleasantly suprised to see it will work much better. I have only had to reset the unit a few times. It was usually from clicking too much out of video mode; it's just like a mini computer, the hard drive can get overworked by clicking too much. If it happens to freeze during a video and you haven't clicked any of the touch pad controls, perhaps the battery is getting low, or the video is a bad download!

I have purchased 2 Creative products so far, and they work great:
Zen Vision M (Family Trips), Zen Plus (pocket portable).

I am now eagerly awaiting the NEW Creative Zen X-Fi 16GB that I just ordered.Creative Zen X-Fi 16 GB Video MP3 Player with Wireless LAN and Built-In Speaker (Black)

My brother has one that I borrowed. That's how I knew that I would like it. His advice to me when I bought mine was to never let the battery go completely dead and that you can look online for some special feature commands. (like there is a way to turn the screen off while playing to save the battery.)

There is a defect with this model that once the battery goes completely dead it wouldn't charge again. This is covered by the warrenty, but you will have to mail your player to Creative Labs and they will replace it with a fixed one. The repaired one that they sent my brother had scratches on the screen. So if you buy one of these, it's better to NEVER let the battery get completely drained.

Also the player only comes with a usb charger. So you need a computer to keep it charged. You can easily go to some place like Radio Shack with the player (and the white cord thing you use to plug the ubs cord into it, to connect it to the computer) and they can help you find a charger that will fit it. Or you can use a charger that workers with/came with an old Creative MP3 player.

Another benefit of using this player (or any player made by Creative)is that you can use it to listen to library books. iPods can't play Overdrive books... even those really nice shuffles that are just perfect for running with :( .

So (summing up)as long as you have a charger and keep the player charged it a great product!

So I bought my Zen in March of 07. It was amazing, I loved it! Easy interface and program. Until a few weeks ago when it stopped connecting to my computer. It would charge and not do anything else. Couldnt get music on or off of it. Of course my warrenty was expired, so customer service was very unhelpful especially when they told me they couldnt fix it becaue they didnt make the Vision M or its parts anymore and told me i had to buy a new one. So, now I'm thinking Ipod but I don't want one. I loved my zen and i miss it. it was a little too bulky but oh well.

I have had my 30GB Zen for a few years now, and I still love it. It has more features than an Ipod: FM Radio and ability to connect to a TV to view movies just by buying a cord. An important feature to me is that you don't have to have Itunes to add music. You can drag files to it like you do any other file on your computer without having to open up a specialized program, so you can visit friends and put their music files on your Zen very easily. There was a period about a year ago that it was acting glitchy, but I think it was just going through its adolescence. It's been fine for a long time now, and if this one ever gives out, I will absolutely buy another. True, there aren't as many accessories designed especially for the Zen as for the Ipod, but there are plenty of generic mp3-compatible accessories that fit the bill: cases, portable mini speakers, stereo systems, etc.

I began by purchasing a 8 gb Zen, it broke within the first week and became inoperable! Luckily I returned it and was given a credit. I then took the credit and purchased a 30 gb vision, which broke within the extended warranty period, so I returned it and was told it wasn't covered under the warranty, so I was out 249. I purchased another 30 gb Vision and only used it for a handful of times, as I also had aquired a Zune and much preferred it to the Zen, well this one broke, was returned and they then sent it to an address in Buffalo, NY, instead of my home here in Florida!! What a bunch of incompetent imbeciles!!! Their product sucks and so does their customer service!!

Ok I have had this player for well over two years and I have an Ipod and Bottom line up front, it's slightly better than the Ipod as a player and more importantly it's free from the control of Apple Itunes. The Ipod has that cool wheel which is a little easier to use than the slide and the Ipod has some games, which the Zen doesn't. But the Zen has some better futures like the video play features and some better less confusing menus, which make accessing your stuff easier. Finally, the Zen has an FM radio recorder (mono only good for NPR) with an open-air recorder mic for memos and lecture recording. That all by itself trumps the Ipod all to heck! When you combine the features with the fact that you can score your movies and audio files from any source and you aren't bound to the whim of Itunes and Apple software "upgrade" scares, I know you'll find the Zen a superior product for a cheaper price.

Now if you're like me and like better rather than just what everyone else is carrying then the Zen is for you and has been for over 2 years.

But I did say its getting long in the tooth right? Yep it needs upgrading.. Blue tooth for headsets and download would be a nice start. The addition of a module that lets it use WiFi for downloads of movies and music would be cool too. Improvement to the slide would be nice but not a make or break point. However, a touch screen with a video keyboard would really help go to features and songs quicker and give some better more" custom controls. All these things that might change the size and price point of this awesome device but, they are the next logical steps.

Oh and a word about durability and quality. My Ex girlfriend could break anything! She broke 2 razors phones in 2 months, my F150, twice, her Ipod nano in a $30 plastic case in 2 weeks and the suspension on her 2 year old car... but in the last 2 years she hasn't been able to break my Zen... Scratch, dent the plastic? Yes. But not break it.

I have experienced two big problems with this player: 1) It freezes up a lot. This usually happens if you fast forward to the next song "too fast". The player will stay stuck, paused on the song you didn't want, and you are unable to use any functions. You cannot even turn it off and it will eventually drain the battery unless you Reset the player. To do this, you have to stick a paper clip or other similarly-sized object into the Reset hole. 2) The shuffle feature does not really play songs in much of a random order. You can choose to play an entire Genre in shuffle mode and still hear nearly the same songs in nearly the same order every time. It will mostly choose from a small selection, yet leave hundreds of songs unplayed. Never seen anything like it, not even from my 17-year-old Pioneer CD player which has a somewhat-predictable shuffle play mode.

Another HUGE drawback is a design flaw. To do any charging, whether it be via USB or an AC wall charger, you must first attach the "dongle", which is a small interface piece that fits on the bottom of the player. Really an annoyance to have to deal with.

I believed a lot of the hype about this player and feel now that I'm paying the price as a result. Save your money!!

when it was working it was great but these creative products don't seem to last very long. in the past 4 years i've had 4 of these creative player different ones none of the seem to last i just do not want to buy an ipod so i keep giving these people a play but not any more

I've always been against IPods, and buying a Creative has cemented that stance. I first had a Creative Zen 20gb, but unfortunately that one died from excessive exposure to static electricity. I tried to use CD Players, but after 8 months, I decided to give MP3 players another shot, and came across the Vision:M. 2 years later, it's still running like it came fresh from the factory. Battery life easily exceeds 10 hours, which is more than long enough to make it through a normal workday for me, and it can hold my present music collection, plus some videos. I can only hope that the newer Creative Zen is as reliable as this one is.

Just buy the freakin ipod. I wish I would have. Now i have a 200 dollar piece of plastic.

First unit we purchased had to be replaced, tech support STINKS. Replacement unit had to be replaced. These units lock up constantly. Creative is constantly putting recovery tools on their web site for you because they are unable to staff tech support that can help you through your unit's many problems. I would not purchase one of these units. BE SMART and don't throw your hard earned money away.

This is a great player for what it cost (at the time, $250). Better than an iPod, for sure. However, the LCD breaks easily, and Creative Customer Support is some of the worst in the country. At least iPod stands behind their products; Creative doesn't. I was going to get the new flash-based 32GB Zen as a replacement, but I decided on the Microsoft Zune 80GB because I'd prefer to deal with mediocre software over miserable product support.

These are my experiences so far with Creative:

1.) I had a Creative Labs Zen Vision: M that served me well up until it somehow wound up with a cracked LCD. Customer support said it was because of pressure put on the screen, although I kept my baby nowhere near anything that could have done that kind of damage, i.e. book corners, sharp objects, etc. I actually think it was the long walks in cold air . They wanted me to pay $86 to fix it because it was "customer error". However, after some research, I found that this screen cracking was a very common problem; I found a page on Google looking for a way to repair it myself, and there were a few hundred comments from people all suffering the same thing with no clue as to where it came from. There's proof everywhere, but Creative absolutely refuses to stand behind their product and admit fault in shoddy workmanship.

2.) My uncle loaned me his Creative Labs Zen Sleek Photo while I saved money to buy a new player. After suffering problems with this, too (player just suddenly wouldn't be detected by the computer after two months of working correctly, another apparently common problem, and a day and a half's worth of trying to rectify the problem did nothing), I contacted customer support. However, because it was beyond a year after the purchase date of the player, -Creative no longer offered email support for the player.- Instead they turned me to their customer support section (which I had already been through multiple times), offered a $12.99 per half hour service with an "expert" on the phone, and recommended searching for third party websites. Finally, they had the nerve to plug one of their products at the end of the email.

Buyers, heed me: Creative product support is completely and entirely useless for anyone that doesn't have a warranty, and apparently anyone that does, too. I can understand not getting a replacement or free phone service for not being under warranty, but to outright not help customers and even penalize them for Creative's own poor workmanship is just ridiculous. I have gotten far better service for far less expensive products. Even Microsoft gave me a free month of Xbox Live as an apology after my out-of-warranty Xbox 360 kicked the bucket.

Buy your Zen, but remember that the point where your money is handed to Creative is the point at which Creative's interest in you ends.

I have had mine for over a year, this thing rocks. It is better than the IPOD simply because you just plug it in to your computer and it work, it donesnt any of that rubbish Itunes software that need to sync this and that. Itunes, is basically malware that takes over your system, with numerous process. You plug you Zen into anyones computer and share your music and files. I use it every day of my life, it did lock up on my once but I just googled the fix and everything was back to normal in a matter on minutes. I also bought the Cambridge Sound works docking station, which is also nice.

I've had my Vision for about two years. I've had no problems with it at all.

You can choose between Windows Media Player and the provided software to put songs on the player. Both are very easy and fast.

It is possible to create a playlist on the player, but it's much easier to use the Zen software to do this.

The middle scroll button may be a little difficult for users accustomed to the iPod, but I've never had an iPod, so it was not an issue for me.

It holds a lot of photos, music, and videos. I love using Amazon Unbox to get movies. You can connect your player to the computer and transfer the video from the download screen to the player.

I'm completely satisfied with my purchase and would definitely buy this brand again.

The player comes with a disc, helping users organize all files. Zen users can find their loaded media by artist, album, genre,and videos easily with their menus.
The deejay option gives you the ability to play your music on repeat, random play, and random play all. Listen to the most played tracks, or review the lesser played tracks. Rate your favorites, or design your own playlist.
Video picture is good quality, but is sometimes altered, if the media needs to be converted, to a lesser quality. I've run into the video on playback being upside down. Depending on a file's format to converse may take, awhile.
In pictures you'll see folders typically,unless your images weren't in a folder on your computer. With any of the files you can create slide shows,only for your device.
An Extra feature gives you a calendar,date reminders, contact finder.
The FM Radio comes in decent in large cities, but not so well in small towns, and the record feature is easy to use when recording radio.
The built in mic is sensitive to the slightest sound! Recorded audio can be relabeled,and found easily in the recorded content file! You can add these to your playlist,or slide presentations!
My regret is Creative doesn't provide instructions on 90% of their features. The touch screen takes some time to get used too. If you have a crazy life, and don't have time to figure out music, and video files, this may not be right for you.

I was actually pretty pleased with my player while it was working, but the atrocious customer service and product support provided by Creative are enough for me to recommend against buying it to anyone.

First, a little background about my experience--my player worked great for about three months, then all of the sudden it completely died. The player would not respond when being turned on or when plugged into my computer via the USB adapter. I went to Creative's website and tried a couple of suggestions provided in their "help" section to no avail. I then searched around for a customer support number to call, and finally found one, buried deep in the files on the software installation CD provided with the unit.

After calling customer service, I was eventually told by a recording that since my unit was past the minuscule 60 day warranty period, I was not eligible for help over the phone. I then proceeded to attempt to use the online, email based customer service. This proved to be quite a difficult task as well, as I stumbled through a series of circular links no less than five times before finally reaching the email submission page.

After sending a detailed email explaining my situation, what steps I had already tried, and so on, I received a response within a matter of hours (the one strong point of the customer service, I suppose). Unfortunately, this email was utterly useless, as all it did was provide me with links to online help pages, the majority of which I had already read. Some of the provided links even offered suggestions which were impossible to implement given the symptoms which I had clearly described in my email. In essence, my email response contained so little thought, and was written in such a formulaic manner, that I seriously wonder whether or not it was a computer-generated response. On top of that, whoever or whatever wrote my "customer support response" email actually had the audacity to close it out with an advertisement--that's right, an advertisement--for a pair of Creative headphones.

I calmly replied to the previously mentioned email, explaining that I tried all of the listed steps to no avail. I even offered my own suggestion--that the USB adapter provided with the unit had gone bad, thus leading to the lack of response when plugging the unit into the computer and making it impossible to charge the unit. The next response I received made no mention of my suggestion, and simply stated (again, in a form letter) that I should send the unit in for repairs (for a fee, of course), and if nothing was found to be wrong with it, it would be returned to me (presumably unfixed, and of course I would still be charged for the service).

I am still considering buying another USB adapter to see if my theory is correct, before sending the unit in to be "looked at," so there may still be hope. Regardless, the utter lack of respect that Creative has for its customers has been made abundantly clear to me. I am far from being someone who has a "the customer is always right, no matter what" attitude, and I completely understand that with complicated technical devices things go wrong occasionally. But Creative's policies stoop far below the level of acceptability in my opinion; they are what I would expect from a supercheap knockoff, not from a supposedly respectable company. The short warranty period should have been a tipoff, I suppose--a $300+ consumer device should last far longer than 60 days. Suffice it to say that I will never be buying another Creative product ever again, and I urge other consumers not to as well, for their own sake.

I found this through Amazon. It is the best-kept secret alternative to an Ipod. I bought it for my husband in order to get my Zune back because he kept borrowing it. He LOVES IT. The best thing about it is that there is no need to convert anything. If the screen were bigger, I'd switch from my Zune to the Zen. But my daughter watches movies on the Zune so I can't for now. We also have the cables to hook it up directly through the A/V to the widescreen and watch the movies from the ZEN on the television! How awesome is that?

He loves the touch pad ability and has decided the touch slide is superior to the click wheel in the ability to control what you are doing. And no more sore thumb!

Great product. Get one now!

Well, I orginally had a sony mp3 player that worked well. They come out with great quality mp3 players with great looks. But memory wise you don't get that much bang for your buck. I had a 1 GB Sony and I decided I needed to put all of my music on a player instead of going back and fourth. I was looking at the apple ipod vision 35GB and this one. I decided to go with this one. All of my friends have the ipod vision and have had no problems with them. I have just heard that apple batteries for their players suck. Who knows. This one works pretty well. The screen has great quality and the sound is amazing. Creative really knows how to produce great sound. The only problem is that like other reviewers state is that it freezes up every now and then. I now always carry a paperclip in my pocket where ever I go with it in case I have to reset it. The other thing that bugged me is that when you first get it they do not tell you that you need a wall charger to charge it up. I thought it was like my old Sony in which the USB charged it. I got it out of the box and connected to the usb and nothing. I let it set there for hours and nothing. I contacted customer support by e-mail through creative's website which sent me an e-mail the next day stating I would probably have to send it back to them. I shipped it to them and started reading reviews on here to see if people had the same problem as me. Turns out alot of people do. No where on creative's website is the technical troubleshooting does it just tell you to try a wall charger. All the agent had to do when I contacted them was tell me to buy a wall charger instead of making me pay 7 bucks for shipping.I got it back from them and it was charged fully. And now I charge it with the wall charger. It was really easy for me to put all of my songs on the player. I don't get the other reviewers in that respect. I just went to creative's website and downloaded the software. I downloaded Creative MediaSource Player/Organizer 5.10.38 (22 Dec 06) and the Creative PlaysForSure Devices Plugin 5.00.36 (22 Dec 06). It seems pretty user friendly to me. So all together I am glad I purchased this. It does have amazing sound and is worth buying if you can put up with it's cons.

The Zune's amd Zen's these days look offly close to IPOD's but lack the durability/battery life/features/fuctionailty and performance of Apple's players. This vision just looks like a twisted version of an IPOD classic, but don't be fooled it's not it's just a cheap rip off. I tried zunes and Zens before getting my IPOD classic and I will never go back, plud my IPOD lasted 3 times as long as a zune or zen and is still going perfectly. The Zen Vision died in about 6 months from light use and the track pad on these devices is terrible. The hard drives in these things need to be formatted and freeze every other day, and if you fill the hard drive even remotly close to max the Zen is very, very sluggish. Do yourself a favour with no headaches and enjoy your music not spend all your time trying to get it to work....get an IPOD. Zen or Zune cannot compare to coverflow and improved sound alone on the new IPOD classics/Touch's.

I purchased a Creative Zen M 4 months ago. I had it 2 weeks and had to return it because the hard drive kept freezing up. I got a new one and it wasn't any better. The company wouldn't work because I had lost the original purchase receipt (my fault). So it got dumped and I am now looking for something else. I had a creative Jukebox which ran and ran for years. This little machine however is a piece of junk. Be sure to check out the warranty before purchasing oneCreative Zen Vision:M 30 GB MP3 and Video Player (Black)

The absolute best mp3 player I have ever purchased. Best picture clarity over 200k colors, best sound 192 kbps and beyond, microphone picks up my professors lectures easily and clearly, coverflow before ipod 6, 10 megapixel pics look like 10 megapixel pics on the zen, and finally battery life is awesome 20 hours audio 5 video. It's a little old now, but nothing new has been made that completely out shines it, if you can find this cheap don't double guess because its a little dated, buy it.

I spent $320.00 for the Zen Vision M (30GB). 14 months after purchasing (and of course after the warranty runs out) the hard drive crashes. Keep in mind, I was not an every day user. 3 times a week while working out was the max. Still, it crashes. I went thru all of Creative's online steps to try to fix the problem, to no avail. Then I try to contact Creative thru email for support. Futile effort. Never got back to me. Then a phone call. Sure, their initial call is toll free but for technical support, not toll free. Just another way they get ya. Then I get a guy telling me that it will cost $200.00 to fix this problem!!!! Of course, this is after he kept repeating that my warranty had expired. No kidding??? Isn't that how it always works with electronics these days??? So Creative wants me to spend a total of $520.00 for an MP3 player!!! I'll just go back to my reliable cd player. Should have just bought an Ipod!

I brought this MP3 player ($160 after rebates and discounts) after looking at all the iPods and I've never looked back! I love it. I has all the features that I wanted and sounds great. It is not burdened with Apple's proprietary software. It is more PC/Windows friendly. It is very customizable like the equalizier. It comes with the usual presets, but you can also set the five bands individually. You are not locked into presets adjusted to the manufacturer's ears. This was a big plus for me. You also have bass boost and an FM tuner that you can record from. I use the player with a pair of Bose QuietComfort2 headphones for travel and a pair of Sennheiser's in the street. In the house it is hooked up to either the stereo or a portable boom box, which can be carried from room to room. Both sound great.
Now the bad news. This model has been discontinued by the manufacturer. There are still a few out there but because of the continued demand, they are going fast at higher prices. Shop around and get one before they are all gone.