So here it is, a little review of my new Zen Vision:M.

First let’s take a look at the packaging… here’s the outer box. It’s black… like the player inside.

If we slide the inner box out and open it up we see the earphones (why did they have to be white?) and the Zen itself in a little protective plastic sleeve.

If we remove the top layer of foam then we see the charger underneath, also encased in foam, which supports 100 to 240 volts so you can travel with it. Very handy!

Also in the box are 2 connectors for the charger with a UK 3-pin and a European 2-pin plug; there’s also a USB cable which is a good length if you have to plug it into your PC at the back. In the little bit of bubble wrap is the “mini dock”. This is for connecting your Zen to the charger, USB cable and has an AV output so you can connect it to a TV – but the wire for that is sold separately.

Of course no product like this is complete without the manual and software CD. The manual looks pretty big but that’s because it’s got 5 other languages after the English instructions. The yellow piece of paper with “READ ME FIRST” on it is a warning that if you have QuickTime 7.0.2 or below you need to upgrade to 7.0.3 or later otherwise the installer on the CD will crash. This is definitely required as it crashed on me as I only had QuickTime 7.0.2 installed. Also included in this pack is a little suede bag to keep your Zen in to stop it getting scratched.

You need to install the software to be able to use Explorer to transfer data to and from your Zen, otherwise you’d be stuck using Windows Media Player 10 only. It doesn’t appear as a drive letter like a USB flash drive, but as a separate “device”.

OK, that’s the end of my own photos, I tried to get some close ups but my camera is useless, so the rest of the photos are taken by other people.

The controls are pretty simple, there are 4 main buttons and the touchpad. There are another 2 buttons either side of the touchpad itself for left and right commands. The 4 buttons are (anti-clockwise from top left): Shortcut, Back, Options, Play/Pause. The touchpad takes quite a bit of getting used to, as it’s pretty sensitive and you may end up tapping by mistake as you move your finger around on it. Scrolling up and down is very simple, just run your finger down to go down or up to go up. The volume is changed this way. You can adjust the sensitivity of the touchpad, although I’ve not actually noticed much difference between the 3 options.

The display is very bright and clear, and perfect for displaying any photos you may have stored on it. You can adjust the brightness if it’s too dark or light for your tastes.

Here’s a shot of the little suede bag with the player inside. It’s very soft inside and out and should protect the Zen Vision:M from most of the scratches you’d normally get if you kept it in your pocket. It won’t stop you damaging it by other means though! So no dropping it on the floor.

There aren’t many controls around the edges of the Vision:M, on the top there is just a power switch (which also doubles as a hold button, to stop the buttons from getting pressed when it’s enabled), and the headphone socket.

Then on the bottom there is the dock port connector and the reset button. On the right side of the unit near the top is the microphone, but that’s all that is on the sides.

A view of the bottom of the Vision:M with the connector fitted so you can see the 3 sockets (USB, power, AV out).

The Creative Zen Vision:M is quite heavy, I suppose that a lot of the weight is taken up by the battery, which makes it thicker than the iPod, but quite frankly the fact that it supports so many different codecs makes up for this in my mind. After using it for a couple of days I am still getting used to the touchpad, although I am tapping by accident a lot less now.

My brother has an iRiver H320, which also supports video, has an FM tuner and can record audio; but I don’t think it looks as nice as the Vision:M. His also has a 20GB drive compared to the 30GB one in the Zen. The Zen doesn’t support the OGG format unlike the H320 but since I only have 2 or 3 of them it doesn’t really matter.

I’ve only had the Vision:M for 4 days and I’m already in love with it. It does everything I need and want. So, I’d say that was £250 well spent.