[dvallere]

I had a Zen Sleek for a while and sold it because it seemed more sensible to use SD cards in my PDA instead of carrying another device around. Well, bleah, I can't stand fumbling for SD cards all the time. My first choice to replace the Sleek would be a ZVM, especially since my music collection has grown. I like the Creative software; the ZVM looks nice; it has the right amount of storage for me (for the foreseeable future); it's in my price range.

However, over at the Creative forums there are a lot of people complaining about problems with the units freezing up, or losing tracks, etc. Several people have returned them to Creative for warranty issues - some people have done this multiple times, then given up and gotten an X5. The Creative forums are probably where most people will go to complain, so I'm hoping to reach a different "market segment" by asking Head-fi'ers.

Have you had any problems that have made you rethink your purchase of the ZVM?

Thanks,

D.

(Reason why I'm steering away from the X5: money, and the fact that it's kind of old technology afaik...correct me if I'm wrong. I'd consider the M5, but it only has 20gb of storage.)

 

[EscaBoi]

I've had my ZVM since the beginning of January, haven't had any major problems with it yet, especially from what the users from the Creative Forum keep talking about. Only problem i've encountered is with the video, on 1 occassion it froze so i had to reset the player, which was fine because everything went back to normal. I'm thinking it was a problem with the video and not the player, because it was always that 1 video that would freeze like that.

If you read some of the "problems" on there, many of them are also peeves "why doesn't ZVM do this....why doesn't it do that....why am I missing _____" It seems alot like idiotic errors which is why i refuse to go on there anymore. The instructions are plain and simple. "You need Windows XP with service pack 2 and the latest Quicktime" to run the ZVM...then you get idiots who say "why doesn't my ZVM work, i'm using Windows ME/2000/XP (only SP1)"

ugh...just talking about it is annoying...

I remember when i re-formatted my computer it was having trouble recognizing the device, but after installing everything and READING THE INSTRUCTIONS everything was fine.

I went from iPod -> Vision:M and i'm very satisfied

I'm old school so i perfer the old "Drag and Drop" method as opposed to the syncing option, so i thought that it was nice that you have 2 options.

I will say however, the Video reacts slow sometimes, especially when you are rewinding/fastforwarding/seeking. That's one of my peeves on it

 

[GreatDane]

I've had my ZV:M for about 3 months. No regrets and I love it.

Mine has froze about 5 times so far. Everytime time after the re-boot there were no problems and all files remained intact.

 

[ILikeMusic]

I wouldn't pay much attention to the Creative forums... as others have mentioned for every valid complaint there seem to be 100 whines or simple user errors. That said, Creative products do have their share of glitches... just part of the 'character' I guess...

But there are no serious problems or show-stoppers of which I am aware. I have seen a few reports of issues with subscription-based music services (large inter-track gaps and poor battery life) but I don't use these services and thus can't comment on the validity of such comments. I can say that for non-DRM stuff the unit works very well, has superb SQ, and easily meets if not exceeds all battery life claims. Stores can't keep them in stock so that should tell you something...

 

[dvallere]

Well...

"stores can't keep them in stock" - we thought perhaps Creative pulled a bad batch and the new ones weren't in stock yet.

But otherwise, glad to read these happy reports. Yeah, I noticed a lot of the Creative posters seem to be either (a) people who never used a computer before and (b) whiners.

Thanks all!

 

[EscaBoi]

if you decide to purchase one, let us know if you have any problems.

so far everyone i've met online who's had a ZVM hasn't had any problems, cept for those on the Creative Forums

 

[dvallere]

Guess I'd better avoid the Creative forums then! Don't wanna get jinxed.

Amazon has the pink ones; Target has the black ones...hmm...they're the only ones I can find in stock anywhere. Decisions, decisions...

EDIT: Just checked online - my local Best Buy has the black ones, so I bought it for store pickup. I'll load it up tonight and report back tomorrow! Thanks again, guys!

 

[GreatDane]

dvallere,

Will you be buying the replacement warranty? I bought mine at Best Buy a few days after they started selling them and I paid $40 for the 2 year warranty.

 

[ptaaty]

I use mine all the time, ALL the time.

Very minor issues:
1. Some tracks make a pop noise at the beginning when smart volume is used.
2. Twice out of literally hundreds of hours I have had a track with some static, pushing back to the beginning or skipping a track whatever fixes it.
3. A couple times putting the headphone jack in it has switched to FM tuner.

So that is about all I can nitpick out, extremely minor and the only thing that happens with any type of consistancy is a little pop for some tracks...with smart volume, just on the very beginning (one) and only sometimes. At first I thought it was part of a song actually...

 

[dvallere]

Quote:

Originally Posted by GreatDane dvallere, Will you be buying the replacement warranty? I bought mine at Best Buy a few days after they started selling them and I paid $40 for the 2 year warranty.

No, I never buy extra warranties. The warranty from the mfr is usually long enough for me to discover anything serious (since, when I get this stuff, it sees heavy use right off the bat), and in most cases I'm ready for an upgrade within a year or so. I've never had a bad device yet (cough) except ones that were still within the store's 30-day return period.

ptaaty, I had the static problems on my Sleek but discovered it was a fault of when I ripped them, not the player's fault. Did you ever check that?

 

[dvallere]

ARGH!

Best Buy just emailed to say that (despite their online inventory) they do not have this device.

Grr, well, now back to Amazon, I guess!

 

[EscaBoi]

That's odd that you say there's only Black and Pink because I went to a CompuCentre here in Toronto about 2 weeks ago and saw a Green Vision:M on display. I was in disbelief because i orginally thought that Pink and Black were the only colours out in North America as well.

 

[ILikeMusic]

Quote:

we thought perhaps Creative pulled a bad batch and the new ones weren't in stock yet.

Don't think so... many of us here have units out of the initial release with no problems.

Regarding the 'static' issue... that is a known bug that shows up very rarely (maybe once a month or so of heavy use in my case.) Simply restarting the track clears the problem so given the ease of the fix and the infrequency of occurrence it's pretty much a non-issue. I imagine Creative will attend to it in some future firmware release.

Quote:

Grr, well, now back to Amazon, I guess!

Good luck with that, but be advised that Amazon has been very slow to ship ZVMs (in spite of their showing 'in stock' on the website), and you can forget getting any useful answer out of Amazon customer service when it doesn't show up... DAMHIK. I let them jerk me around for a while then finally gave up and canceled the order. That was a few months ago though, maybe things have gotten better lately.

 

[GreatDane]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ptaaty I use mine all the time, ALL the time. Very minor issues: 1. Some tracks make a pop noise at the beginning when smart volume is used. 2. Twice out of literally hundreds of hours I have had a track with some static, pushing back to the beginning or skipping a track whatever fixes it. 3. A couple times putting the headphone jack in it has switched to FM tuner. So that is about all I can nitpick out, extremely minor and the only thing that happens with any type of consistancy is a little pop for some tracks...with smart volume, just on the very beginning (one) and only sometimes. At first I thought it was part of a song actually...

My ZV:M does those 2 things ( #2 & #3 ) but not very often.

______________

Re the warranty thing, I've saved money with them since buying my first cassette deck (JVC) in 1982 from Circuit City. There was a problem with the head azimuth and after the second attempted fix they gave me an Onkyo Integra that still works!!

Maybe my Zen won't crap out but I fugure if I don't buy the warranty...then my bad luck will creep in.

 

[nomdeguerre]

Had mine for over a week, so far this bugger has:
froze on me 3 times
did that fuzzy tack thing twice
and the fm radio turned on by itself once

I'm hopeing its just a fluky unit and getting a replacement