The new Creative Zen Vision:M is Creative’s answer to the 5G Apple iPod. Specs for the unit are very comparable to that of the Apple 5G including the 2.5 inch screen, but Creative did manage to squeeze roughly four hours of video playback on its 30 GB hard drive. Roughly twice as thick as the iPod, the unit offers 11 hours of audio recording. On the plus side, the Creative Zen features an FM tuner, voice recording options, and handles a wide variety of play formats including MPEG-4, WMV, Motion JPEG, DivX and XviD. At a cost of 330 bucks, it is easy to see why this unit has become a great rival for the 5G Apple. Negatives do exist, primarily on the proprietary feature side. Those include the proprietary dock connection and a proprietary video cable as well. Yet another issue is the non-removable battery. But the greatest issue is that you cannot simply plug the unit into your computer and just drop music onto without installing software. In addition, your computer must feature Windows XP.

Overall, the Zen Vision:M is a great personal media device. The ability to play back most popular video file formats, especially DivX and XviD, are particularly attractive (you will not have to spend a lot of time converting video formats). The audio and video quality, especially the bright screen, are excellent and a fully charged battery allows for at least one movie, perhaps even a second while traveling. Its proprietary video cable and the needs for the Windows XP software to operate could get in the way of someone using a different operating system but the Creative Zen Vision:M is easily considered the top video rival to iPod. The high quality viewing screen and a battery life twice that of 30GB video iPod make this the ideal choice for many.