Nah duh… (at the title that is…) Well, if Freehostia was working last night, I could have written about my Creative ZEN Vision:M yesterday… Anyway, I picked-up my Creative ZEN Vision:M (ZVM for short) yesterday, so thus, I now have a piece of super-chunky-mega-bulk! The ZVM is thick as! Thicker than Daniel! =P The free “Leather Case” that came with it makes it even more chunky-er! So with the case, the ZVM is, we’ll say, 3cm thick? Compared to my original Creative ZEN which is only 1.1cm thick, and the iPod 3G Nano is only 0.6cm thick… But despite it’s ultra chunkiness, the ZVM is pretty nice. I’ve got a black one, 30GB model. Right now, it’s shiny, and screen is scratchless, but I give it till the end of next week before I get a nice scratch on it! =D

So, the ZVM was first released in December 2005. It has won many awards since that time, most notably “Best in Category: Portable Media Players” at CES 2006, along with “Best in Show” for CES 2006. It’s 2009 now. The ZVM is “out-of-date” as such and Creative had ceased the production of it a while back. The ZVM is said to be Creative’s best ever selling item, and at the time, it hit Apple’s iPod rather hard. Ever since, many who have owned a ZVM have been awaiting for a newer replacement model from Creative, but so far, that has not happened. I’m still hoping Creative will release a replacement this year, possibly integrating their ZMS chip from ZiiLabs. Thinking about that, if the ZMS is ultra power saving, and if they used OLED, they could have a player with an ultra-long battery life.

I spent like 2 hours last night, trying to get my computer to recognise my ZVM but it continually refused to! It became so damn painful, then suddenly, ta da! My computer finally recognised my ZVM! Now it works fine, and I’m beginning to learn how to drive this thing. I’m a little confused with the buttons, mainly because the shortcut button and the play/pause button are the top two buttons compared to my ZEN where the back and menu buttons are at the top, and visa-versa. I tell you what, I don’t like touch pads or touch screens that much. When ever I use someone’s iPod, or go to the Apple Store in Sydney, I never am able to use the touch screens like everyone else can =P. They can get a little fiddly, and like everyone says, the touch pad on the ZVM can be a little overly sensitive. And as many others have said, if you’ve used the user-interface on a ZEN, you’ve used the interface on every other ZEN Series.

So, I’ve got a refurb player. A former “reject” as such. I wonder how long it will last given that it’s a refurb, but Creative does say that refurbs are basically new, so they should last just as long as the new ones. Which would mean 3 years. I give my player 1.5 years before it dies, but my sister gives it 5… She has a ZEN Neeon which has been around for a long time now. (I’d say something like 4 years now, nearing it’s fifth?) Although she doesn’t use it that often, and it’s in very good condition still.

I still like my ZEN better, but the Vision:M is still a very nice player, and so far, I have no regrets spending my moneys on it! =D

Well, I found this a while ago, when I was visiting Creative’s website and on their website, if you go to it, you’ll notice the main flash animation banner thing saying “Everything you know is about to change”. If you click “find out more”, it leads you to “Zii“. So what is this “Zii”? A rip off of the Wii? Creative is being rather vague… Many of those in the online community do not know what it is, nor whether or not their “stemcell computing” (which if you’ll notice, Creative have trademarked) is just a teaser. Many believe it is a “chip” of some sort, that can be integrated into many devices, and that it will do something to them. However, like I am, many are hoping it’ll be a new addition to Creative’s line of mp3 players and Portable Media Players (PMP).

Creative has been said to be “dying” amongst many people in forums and Endgadget certainly believes that this marks the end of Creative. Last year, Creative Technologies had to undertake major cost cutting measures by selling off their main building in Singapore, closing down a few factories, and having to let go almost half of their workforce. It’s hard to find Creative products here in Australia these days. They used to have a fair share of the mp3 and PMP market but now, it’s a real struggle to find one these days. With such an Apple iPod dominated market down here, it’s kinda hard to find anything else. If Microsoft released the Zune down here, I’m sure it’d hurt Apple quite a bit. but that doesn’t seem to be happening anytime soon.

So, really, what is next for Creative? Honestly, I think their next product (if that product even get’s released) is make or break for them. What they need to make is a product that is a direct competitor to the iPod/Zune. When browsing around Anythingbutipod.com’s forums, many people are looking for an updated version of the highly appreciated Creative ZEN Vison:M. Many of them seem to like it’s design (apart from the fact that it is super chunky!) it’s wide range of codecs, and it’s handling/interface etc. What I am hoping for, and what I’d like the Zii to be is a new PMP that rivals the iPod/Zune. Large screen, (3 inch? 320×240 or 480×270?) the super awesome 16,700,000 colour display, (iPod and Zune only has 64,000) the FM Radio, wide range of audio and video codecs just like all of Creative’s PMP’s, (WMV, XviD, DivX, MPEG, mp3, WMA, ogg, etc.) high capacity (60GB+) with external memory slot (a fully intigrated one, not like the ZEN’s) and the wonderous drag and drop system as with most of Creative’s products. Touch screen, and wi-fi not necessary but would be fun to have. Oh, and same awesome design as most of Creative’s products! =P

As for the Zii, who knows what it could be! epiZENter seems to know a little something about it… A lot of people are saying “Don’t get your hopes up”, which I should do, but I’m sorry, I want Creative to be a good compeditor to Apple, and the only way it can do that, is if it releases something super-awesome! We will find out at CES 2009 in around two days time. It’s good to see that Creative has a relatively large display booth, so whatever the Zii is, it better be good!