2006-09-04
Creative bows widescreen PVP, the Zen Vision W
The latest weapon in Creative's cold war against all things iPod is the Zen Vision W, a portable video player that appears to improve upon its predecessor, the Zen Vision. Vision Dubya comes at us with a 4.3-inch widescreen LCD that's clocked at 480 x 272 pixels ? the same as Sony's PSP. We hope the lab coats at Creative have made some upgrades since designing the original Zen Vision's screen, which was certainly sharp but noticeably less vibrant than the displays on more recent portables like the video iPod and Creative's own Zen Vision:M. But there's also a video output when you want to watch your digital vids on something bigger. Of course, it'll play all the standard video and audio formats (Windows Media, DivX, AVI, MPEG-4, MP3, etc.), has an FM tuner, serves as your organizer ? blahblahblah yaddayaddayadda ? though apart from the display it looks like it has the same bag of tricks as the Zen Vision. The 30-GB version of the Vision W will cost a little more than $400 US while the 60-GB model is about $475. It's only available in Singapore right now, but we'll keep our eyes peeled for a U.S. release.
