Creative is giving Apple a run for it's money, With new Zen Vision:M Options

[uLoVeMikeRoch]

Some of you maybe fans of the 5G iPod Video.
Some of you may be fans of the Creative Zen Vision.
Well, some of you might complain that the Vision is too big, and you like the iPod's size. But the iPod video doesn't play enough formats. Or all your other complains. Well look no further. The MP3 player that rips off the iPod's design is here!
It's basically a smaller version of the Vision, hence the name.

Creative is introducing their new Zen Vision:M, an answer to Apple's 5G iPod, and what an answer it is. We know it gets old hearing every new player get compared to Apple's flagship offering, but can you seriously blame us here? The specs are vaguely familiar, with a 2.5-inch screen at 320x240 resolution and a 30GB hard drive, though thankfully Creative squeezed in 4 hours of video playback, doubling Apple's endurance on at least video. (The audio playback conks out at 11 hours.) The size of the two players is virtually identical, with the Zen Vision:M only changing it up on thickness — at about twice the iPod's 0.43-inches. They're also forging their own path on button placement, sporting a layout similar to that of their Zen Micro Photo, and including a vertical scroll pad. Creative did add their usual FM tuner and voice recording niceties, and they have a decent list of video format support, including MPEG-4, WMV, Motion JPEG, DivX, and XviD, so this $330 player could turn out to be a worthy candidate for video capable commuting buddy — if Apple's lawyers don't have something to say about it first. Check out some closeups of interface, erm, borrowing after the jump.

[artislife90]

As great as it is for creative to have the law on their side, the general public will.. ONE - not even give it a 2nd glance seeing the Ipod as the only choice (out of ignorance)... or TWO - See it as an Ipod nock off. or perhaps (but highly unlikely) Accept it and gravitate to it ending the Ipods complete dominance as the de-facto digital music player. (hah..no)

In my opinion, Apple will be viewed as the one being wrong by creative, just because the vast majority of people don't really realize how many other, even better, players there are around.

OH, and just a correction. Its IPOD with VIDEO, not ipod Video. A true Ipod VIDEO is rumored to be slated for 2006 release. (no idea what a "true" ipod video would entail.. but there we go.)