Creative Technology is introducing their new Zen Vision:M featuring a 2.5-inch screen at 320×240 resolution and a 30GB hard drive. The press release from Creative Japan states that the Zen Vision:M will come in white, black, and green and is due in mid-late December in Japan (worldwide release information and/or dates goes unmentioned in the press release).
Singapore-based Creative claims capacities of 15,000 songs and approximately 120 hours of video for the unit. Video playback formats supported include: WMV, MPEG4 and DivX, MPEG2, MPEG1, and Motion-JPEG. Creative claims battery life of 14 hours for music and 4 hours for video.
The unit measures 62mm x 104mm x 19mm (width, height, depth) with a weight of 166g.
Apple’s iPod also features a 2.5-inch screen at 320×240 resolution. Apple’s iPod specs state 7,500 songs and 75 hours of video for their 30GB iPod (15,000 songs and 150 hours of video for the 60GB iPod model) with a battery life of 14 hours for music and 2 hours for video (20 hours for music and 3 hours for video for the 60GB iPod model). Apple’s iPod supports H.264 and MPEG4 video formats.
The 30GB iPod is thinner and lighter than the Creative unit. Apple’s iPod 30GB measures 61mm x 104mm x 11mm with a weight of 136g.
Creative’s price for the unit is quoted in the press release at ¥39,800 (US$329) vs. Apple’s US$299.
Creative’s press release (translated from Japanese to English via AltaVista’s Babel Fish) is here.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery? And why do iPod cloners (like Mac and Mac OS X cloners) always damage the chromosomes?
From Merriam-Webster Dictionary:
cre·a·tive
Pronunciation: krE-‘A-tiv, ‘krE-“
Function: adjective
1 : marked by the ability or power to create : given to creating (the creative impulse)
2 : having the quality of something created rather than imitated : IMAGINATIVE (the creative arts)
3 : managed so as to get around legal or conventional limits (creative financing); also : deceptively arranged so as to conceal or defraud (creative accounting)
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Related articles:
Beleaguered Creative waves white flag, surrenders self-declared MP3 player war to Apple iPod – November 07, 2005
Beleaguered Creative shifts promotional efforts from music players to new sound card line – September 21, 2005
Apple debuts iPod nano, iTunes 5: how are Microsoft, Napster, Real, Creative, Sony feeling today? – September 08, 2005
Creative explores new way to beat Apple iPod: patent litigation – August 30, 2005
Creative plans ‘very vigorous defense’ of iPod navigation patent – August 31, 2005
Beleaguered Creative Technology’s ‘war’ on Apple iPod not faring well – August 15, 2005
Apple’s iPod shine dims beleaguered Creative Technology’s outlook – August 08, 2005
Microsoft not buying stake in Creative Technology – August 02, 2005
Creative CEO Sim Wong Hoo adds fronts to war against Apple iPod – August 01, 2005
Analyst: Microsoft could buy Creative Technlogy in bid to compete with Apple iPod – July 14, 2005
Beleaguered Creative CEO Sim Wong Hoo ‘optimistic’ the company will survive ‘MP3 war’ – July 01, 2005
Beleaguered Creative may have to write off unsold stock as losses loom – June 28, 2005
Creative Tech’s reduced outlook drags on Apple, PortalPlayer, SigmaTel – June 27, 2005
Creative Tech cuts sales outlook, drags Apple down in early trading – June 27, 2005
Apple passed 20 million iPods sold milestone in early June – June 24, 2005
Apple’s understanding of what really counts makes iPod+iTunes impossible to beat – June 22, 2005
Creative Technology shares slide to lowest mark in almost two years – May 18, 2005
Apple squeezes and Creative’s profit plunges 72-percent – April 23, 2005
Apple iPod pressure forces Creative to drop prices on music players – March 01, 2005
Creative’s self-declared ‘MP3 player war’ against Apple isn’t going very well – January 20, 2005
Creative CEO: Apple iPod shuffle ‘a big let-down, worse than the cheapest Chinese player’ – January 12, 2005
Creative declares ‘war’ on Apple iPod, shoots for 40% market share of MP3 players – December 21, 2004
Creative Technology declares ‘MP3 War’ against market-dominating Apple iPod – November 17, 2004
Mossberg: Dell, Rio, Creative ‘iPod mini killers’ lag badly behind Apple iPod mini – October 27, 2004
Creative pushes to become ‘Pepsi’ to Apple’s ‘Coke’ in digital music player market – August 07, 2004
The millionth ipodder on threads and forums like this who think they’re being witty and ‘creative’ by writing ‘how creative’, is the biggest irony.
Anyone would think competition is bad…Gawd, these are DAP’s people, hardly a necessity in life and hardly on par with poverty and starvation as issues. Enjoy you’re ipod, zen or whatever and have some f@*king perspective.
It’s the zealotry that turns me off any product.
IPOD SUCKS CREATIVE RULE!!!!!!
apple thinks they are good whahahaha CREATIVE ALWAYS THE BEST!!!
i dont see why everyone is making a big deal on the design. it looks like a bigger version of the zen micro, so i dont see the problem,
It’s an awesome idea, come on, play sick video formats, plus the MP3 can play WMA’s. So it rules, and if appple adds more formats to the video, then apple will still own the market, but otherwise, i see creative taknig a good size market share.
Hm…I just think that the creative stuff are more reliable…because in an ipod…when the battery wears out…what can you do? At least wtih a creative product you can always refill your battery life!…This is my opinion…
Yeah…. I see there are lots of ignorant die hard fanboys in here (In a mac website? NO WAY!). I’m don’t give a crap about apple either way, i’m still deciding if i’m going to go with an ipod or the vision:M. The price for the creative is a poor choice seeing as how ipod is the industry standard and the ‘big brand’ name, so you’re going to have to at least match ipods price if you want to convert anyone. On the other side the video formats that vision supports is far better than ipods backwards system. Longer video play too, that’s cool. But still, i’m already spending tons of money on one of these so the extra 30 bucks does make a difference. It’s going to pretty much come down to going to the store when the vision comes out and comparing them face to face.
Too bad Apple filched Creative’s menu interface years ago. Get over it, fanboys. Quit whining.
you apple freaks just dont even bother giving anything else a chance. this product is clearly different and just as well designed and put together as an ipod and has better features
Well, it’s 5 years later and clearly this is a better product. No more guessing needed! I’ve had both products and the Vision M wins hands down!