Love it, love it, love it! The Creative Zen Vision M Portable MP3 Player does effortlessly what I used to spend hours doing 20 years ago - recording off the radio and building playlists. What a cool little machine this is.

I have had the Creative Zen Vision M for a week and thought I had made a bad purchase at first, but after a few hours of playing around with it I found that it does all that I expected and more.

The screen is clear and the menu is easier to navigate than the ipod for me.

I have had two ipods before and found this better for many reasons but the main two I have found are being able to play most video formats without to much hastle and deleting from the unit without having to connect to a pc.

I wish I had found about this one earlier and not brought an ipod but I am now selling my ipod Nano, ipod Photo and my PSP which this will replace.

I know the Creative Zen Vision M is starting ot look a little iPod-like, but I still think it's cuter and sexier. Creative always blow Apple out of the water with their feature rich players and now they're catching up aesthetically too.

The Creative Zen Vision M is one of the best mp3 players out at the moment. A little expensive. Looks pretty good, but not as good as I-pod. Features are good but there could be more. Quality of vid, music and stuff are good. Battery life could be better, because when watching videos often it wastes quite quickly. Overall good and better than i-pod.

Looking for an MP3 Player? Want to store 1000's of songs, a load of pictures and maybe a movie or two? Want a player that will also double up as a data storage device? and while your at it, an FM radio might be nice!
THEN LOOK NO FURTHER!!

The Creative Zen Vision M 30Gb MP3 player by creative is with out doubt the best all round multi media device on the market. Not only is it small, easy to use and great to look at, it has more features and functions than all the rivals out there (including the ever so popular iPod Video).

The user interface is very easy, and it takes minuets from out of the box to happily navigate around its 30Gb of storage with simple 'strokes' of the vertical touch-pad on the front. However, occasionally there is the odd mis-selection, as tapping the central column also skips you on to the next 'page' of the user interface.

One possible downside, is that mine has produced small scratches on the shiny polished surfaces within days of removing it from the box, and the current lack of accessories is annoying in comparison to the market leaders, but I'm sure that this will pick up within weeks as the manufactures realise that this is the true rival and BEATER of the common Apple iPod.

My comparison to what I think is really the only other contender for the Creative Zen Vision M MP3 player (January 2006) that I could get my hands on, namely, my mates 60Gb iPod.

It's just a question of priorities. For me it was sound quality then capacity, operation, physical size, battery life, and fashion.

Sound quality...
What ever type of music you like, if you were to listen to it on both players I'm sure you would agree that the iPod is lacking. There is simply more detail when listening to the same tracks on the big Zen. You can play with a graphic equalizer all day on the iPod, but track after track you will find that if it's sound quality you want, the Zen is the one.

Storage...
Yes I know my mate has me on storage capacity, but 30Gb was enough for me. I rip at 320kbs so that's over 200 albums I could put on it (not that I have 200 albums - more like 50 odd CD's and a few episodes of Voyager) with about 8Gb spare.

Operation...
I must say that if I hadn't used a big iPod, then I would probably think the interface on the Zen was more than adequate. Personally I have to agree with my buddy, in that Apple have really excelled in this area. I have had the Zen for a few days now, and I am starting to make less unwanted selections, but it still happens. I used the iPod for a few hours and it was a doddle.

The fact that my Zen was still physically larger than his 60 gig iPod (never mind the skinny 30Gb iPod) was not so good, but then I have a usable FM radio on-board, and should I wish to watch a long movie or some back to back Voyager and then listen to an album or two away from the mains supply, I can and he can't.

Fashion...
I must admit, I'm not really that fussed about it, probably why my mate drives a Merc and I drive an old Saab.

As a recap, the sound on my Zen Vision:M is wider with more detail than the flat sounding iPod (using all eq settings), but I did find the iPod easier to operate.

Fashion or function that is your choice.
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Players tested with

Music
Radiohead - Hail to the Thief, Faithless - Back to Mine, John Martyn - Solid Air all ripped at 320kbs.

Headphones
Stanton DJ PRO 3000 cans and some Sony MDR-EX71 plugs (both supplied headphones are very poor).

PS. I Have had many MP3 players over the years, but still have yet to find one that matches the sound quality of my old Rio 600. This must be a some sort of rogue single album player, 1 AA battery for 12 hours playback (as I said, only one album (@ 192kbs) though), available on eBay for about a fiver...