Quote:
Originally Posted by 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 youAs long as you are happy with the controls, I don't see any reasons not to buy it at the moment. 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.)
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Having made your decision, I guess I'm just posting this because I've written it already
I never rethink my purchase of anything as I bought them to know them. I know now though that the ZVM will never be my main DAP.
1. The screen was something of a disappointment after all the comments about its superiority. However now, I've developed a theory as to why my two ZVM's so far may be 'bad', assuming that people taking pictures of their ZVM's aren't using a polarising filter. I am waiting to receive my third ZVM from Creative, after describing the problem as specifically as I can. Unfortunately they seem to have lost the player I sent back. We'll see what happens.
2. DRM flakiness. Yes yes DRM is evil but for subscription music services, I actually find it quite good. All the more shame than that the ZVM is frequently flaky with DRM services, leading to lots of unnecessary futzing on my part. I had put this down to Windows and Playsforsure, but since then my experience with players from other manufacturers leads me to believe that the Creatives have reliability issues with Playsforsure subscription implementations.
3. Controls. This obviously depends on what you're used to, but having an iPod I cannot abide unusable controls, and the Zen Vision M ranks among one of the worst thought-out controls that I've ever come across, because it requires an unnecessary high degree of dexterity and care from the user. Many players even with 'traditional' non-touch controls can have usability that rivals the iPod... The Rio Karma is a good example. However the mixed-up Zen Vision M is an object example in half-assed control interface design, even though it has in certain ways a superior firmware implementation for the user interface.
4. Lock-ups and how to deal with it. In heavy use, at times the player stops responding. I'm willing to allow that crashes happen on any player (my iPod crashes perhaps twice every month under heavy use) but on the ZVM it is not possible to recover from this situation without something to press the reset button. This is a problem common to some other players, but it seems that I have to reset the player slightly more often than some others. As a result I have to walk around with a bent paperclip.
The control as well as relatively small differences in the firmware implementation making the iPod easier to use on a daily basis for navigating a large library onboard the player and also filling it from an even larger library is really the deal-killer for me I'd have to say (apart from the software integration, but that's a different argument).
On the flipside, it offers much more functionality than the stock iPod and the MTP functionality may be a significant advantage to many... So I can't rag on it too much. Still, it wouldn't have been with me past the first month had it not been for Napster To Go. The Samsung YP-Z5 has been rock solid with Napster though and 4Gb is fine for Napster-only use, so the ZVM's days may yet be numbered.