Strengths: Incredible sound quality, great flexibility and customization, hard drive storage, play wma+wmv+DivX+various other formats, FM radio, voice recording, great compression, everything ipod can do + more

Weaknesses: Doesn't hold a great charge unless you use AC adaptor, very fragile, pet peeves in the firmware, etc; Only little things. Not as good as other Creative products.

Summary: I have been a fan of Creative MP3 players since I bought my first in early 2005, a Creative Zen Touch 20GB. When my Zen Touch started to progress into breaking, I got this Vision:M in December.The Vision:M is a great, underappreciated rival to the iPod video. Sure, it isn't as slim and the screen is less than half an inch smaller, but it has more features built in than an iPod has ever had. For example, it plays the widest variety of video and music formats, such as WMA, MP3, and WAV for audio, and WMV, DIVX AVI, XVID for video. It has great compression formatting and good software. Has GREAT quality sound, with built in Equilizer. However, the only downside to this is the battery life, and the firmware. Creative's latest firmware is from December 06, and it is badly needing an upgrade for little things like tags and such. Also, the battery life does NOT last very long when you charge it via USB port, however, if you get an AC adaptor to charge it with, it works like a charm and holds a great charge.My Vision:M just recently died from liquid damage, and sadly, I'm replacing it with an 80gb iPod, for I need more space and I just got a Mac and the Vision:M isn't compatible with Mac, unless you use a tricky 3rd party software. Nonetheless, the Vision:M is a wonderful product that I would choose over the iPod video any day.

Strengths: Capacity,Sound Quality, Interface / Controls, Reliability

Weaknesses: Size/Weight, can't think of any others!

Summary: I have had the zen vision m 60 for a few weeks now and am overall very impressed with it. This is my first high capacity hard drive mp3 player. It is very convenient to be able to carry my entire music collection along at any given time, but I often do not use a very large portion of the total capacity. I mainly use this to listen to audio lectures from school which are recorded at very low bitrates, but the player has handled any high-def material, VBR, etc. that I have thrown at it. I don't really use the player for anything other than audio, but I must say that the screen is incredible! It is very bright and colorful with well laid out menus and controls. I have never owned an ipod and so cannot comment on pros/cons between the two but can't imagine that any ipod could surpass the Vision M, it's that good. I have owned many creative products over the years and have never had any problems at all, very well built and reliable. I have not yet run the battery completely down so I can't comment on batt. life, but it appears to be very good (I have used it for over 8 hours on a charge and it was not even close to dead). That said, I still have found myself using my Creative Zen V Plus 4Gb more often due to its smaller size and flash memory. I prefer the smaller size to take with me to the gym plus I worry a little bit about the rotating hard drive when running, etc. I use both of these creative products with a pair of creative bluetooth wireless headphones (SE2300) and they work great together! Overall you can't go wrong with creative. Find whatever product best suits your needs and you will not be disappointed!

Strengths: Easy to use, large storage capacity, good sound and video quality, nice design (if that matters to you), plenty of bells & whistles, uses Windows Media player to add music

Weaknesses: No AC adapter included, more accesories would be nice, Creative software enclosed is kinda tricky

Summary: I'd been searching for an MP3 player since Christmas and did plenty of research before choosing this model. I'm still very happy with it. As of now, I have 30 albums (435 songs) stored with plenty of room to spare. The four user buttons aren't at all difficult to press. It's quite thick compared to an iPod, but that's not really important to me. It's still one hell of a piece. That said, if you use Media Player's "sync" feature to add content, set it to "manual." If you delete content from your PC that's been stored on your Zen, automatic syncing will remove it if you try adding more. Also, check creative's website for firmware updates.

Strengths: Lots of disk spaceGood sound qualityPretty fastGood battery lifeBright and clear screenSimple controlsUSB Host featureBuilt in FM RadioBuilt in Voice Recorder - Great recording quality

Weaknesses: Slightly bulkyNot many accessories available

Summary: With all the strengths that I have listed above it stands out amongst the bigger capacity MP3 players namely iPod, Zune and Zen. Yet, I think that this one is not my dream-machine. Before I had finalized between Zune, iPod and Zen, I had done a thorough study of their features. I believe that all popular MP3 players have a good sound quality. So I was not going to eliminate any of these on the basis of sound-quality. One of my foremost criteria was storage capacity and cost. The Zen provides 60 GB at a very competitive price. This was one feature on which the Zen beat the Zune in my opinion. I had heard that Zune has a bright and clear LCD. But I m certainly not disappointed by the quality of Zen's LCD. The colors on it are nice, bright and lively. The built-in FM radio is a definite plus, but Zune has this feature too. Another feature in which the Zen scored over the Zune was the voice recorder. And the mic on Zen is probably the best you could get in that tiny size! I almost sounded like a professional singer when I recorded some stuff on it! ;) I haven't used the USB host feature yet, but I think that its a great alternative to carrying a laptop when you are taking thousands of photos on a trip. Just transfer the photos to the player so that you can empty your camera's memory card for more photos. Somehow, Zen 60 GB does not have a lot of accessories in the market. I feel that a good case is a must-have for a MP3 player, and its not easy to find one for Zen 60 GB. Many websites claim that their leather cases fit both 30G and 60 GB. Don't be fulled by such a claim. I bought one such nice looking leather case, but its useless for my 60 GB. When I press one key on the player, all the keys get pressed because the leather case is too tight on it. My dream MP3 player would have been something like a regular MP3 player software, e.g.. Winamp or Real Media Player. One cannot create playlists on the player itself, though it can be done on the PC and then transferred onto the player. Another problem is one cannot view the actual filename of the audio file. Instead, one will see the title in the ID3 tags. I have all my MP3 files named as album name - title - artist. But this naming proves useless because the filename is not visible on the player. Yet another problem is one cannot queue the files to be played if the shuffle mode is selected. In Winamp, one can have the shuffle mode, and yet queue the files that should be played next by pressing the "Q" key. All in all, my dream MP3 player is yet to come out!

Strengths: Hard drive to backup your photos directly from your flash cards, play wma and wmv files, bright screen, FM radio, Video, voice recording, 14 hour of mp3, basically everything ipod can do + others...

Weaknesses: Navigating, poor description in manual--a lot of features are not explained in the manual. Screen not as large as Zune from Microsoft.

Summary: I do not like ipod...not of it capabilities, but I do not like it because it is used so much by majority of people. I ask myself...do I have other options? Yes... I have... Here it is. Zen Vision: M is as small as ipod. It can play mp3, wma, wmv, etc. Ipod cannot play wma directly. It has to convert wma to acc file, which 10 times larger than wma. It does not make sense to me. It also serves as a hard drive that can download your photos directly from your flash drive. It is truly multi purpose machine.You do not need special program to download anything to zen. Just drag and drop...

Strengths: Cool design, excellent sound quality

Weaknesses: NO ac adaptor provided. Kind of expensive.

Summary: This is an awesome device for people who love multifunction MP3 player. It has a very cool design, the sound quality is excellent. The down side is it doesn't come with many accessories in the manufacture package which means you need to buy them separately (case, AC adaptor, etc). Everything else is perfect with this unit.

Strengths: Large capacity, ease of use, giant screen.

Weaknesses: No AC adapter provided (must buy as an accessory). Wish there were more accesories available (compaered to the Ipod).

Summary: Couldn't believe that the prices are coming down so fast on these. Was looking at the 30GB, but for a few bucks more why not go with the bigger unit. Sounds fantastic, great picture quality.

Strengths: 60gb, divx, fm tuner, reall nice vivid color screen

Weaknesses: battery life only 4 and a half hour on video, which it was 8.

Summary: This is the best MP3/Video player I have ever owned. The screen is clear. Love the album art. Sound is fantastic. It plays divx/xvid file out of the box, meaning no conversion like some of the other players.

Strengths: Incredible sound quality, beautiful color screen, huge capacity, good battery life, great flexibility and customization.

Weaknesses: None. Could use more accessories. Leather case and silicon skin fit very tight, so can access controls. Probably due to thickness increase over 30G. Scratches by looking at it!!!

Summary: I've had mine 3 weeks and still am amazed by it. Have already 12 fils on the thing using M2Convert for Zen, all 9 Beethoven Symphonies, etc. etc. The included software is great, as well as WMP11, which rocks. Previously had a Zen Touch 40G. Love the flexibility, customization, and how easliy it sync MS Outlook. I've got subway maps from major cities of the world on it, as well as it seemlessly syncs from my new Cannon Powershot A540 camera without a computer. I plan to travel to Africa and the back-waters of the third world, and the ability to coordinate my camera with a MP3 player is simply awesome. There are just so many more option on the Zen than an Ipod, or the Zune. I wasn't all that impressed with the Toshiba Gigabeat.I think Microsoft really has a winner with their Zune, but I am extremely happy with my 60G Zen Vision M, I think I got the best machine out there. It is definitely the thinking man's toy, the ultimate tool for the individual thinker. Check it out!!

Strengths: beautiful screen, big storage capacity, USB Host feature, ease of use, FM radio

Weaknesses: no ac adapter in box

Summary: I bought the 30 GB Zen Vision:M and fell in love. It is a great player and gives you a lot of options when it comes to selecting where you want to get your music, as far as subscription services go. My player did break but, just like my fellow Vision:M owner, it was at fault of myself. I sat on my player and broke the screen. Luckily i bought it from circuit city and bought the circuit city advantage plus+ protection for my player. The price was steep at the time: $89; but it was well worth it. I packaged and sent in my player(i bought the box to put my player in but that was it). I went onto their site and printed out the labels, taped them to the box, and sent the box on its way. About two days later i received a letter in the mail with a $300 circuit city gift card attached so i could purchase another, no questions asked. i am going to buy the 60 GB version very soon, maybe not at circuit city, but wherever i do decide to purchase my player, i am going to make sure the venue offers accidental coverage. *HIGHLY RECOMMENDED*

Strengths: just like any other

Weaknesses: it's a lemon

Summary: PLEASE DO NOT BUY CREATIVE!It's coming close to Christmas, and if you are thinking of buying an MP3 player (for you or anyone else) PLEASE DO NOT BUY CREATIVE!I used to swear by these guys a few years ago, as some of you know. I have bought a few of their products, and I told some of you to buy 'Creative', but unfortunately, like most electronics, their products have become flimsy and disposable!I bought a ZEN Vision:M in May, I dropped it on a kitchen floor, and it didn't work properly after that! I sent it back to Creative (at my expense of $53 CAN) and I had to put a money order of $25 US for them to have a look at it, then they call me to tell me it's not covered and they want another $109 US to fix it, because it was my fault! also one of the guys I spoke to on the phone said I tried to use glue/adhesive on it to fix it, ...which is completely untrue!So really, one fall and a $436 CAN MP3 player is toast! IT'S A GOD DAMN PORTABLE DEVICE!!!, anyway, as you can tell I am mad as hell, I was a loyal Creative buyer, but not any more!Those of you who have the old players: ZEN Extra/ZEN Touch, hold on to them, cause they don't make 'em like they used to!I know I dropped it (like who doesn't drop things?) but for the price you'd think it more durable, and that I'd get better satisfaction from them, the 1st two Creative players I bought, I gave away, just to buy a flashier, More gig, smaller player, now I am paying the price! and the old ones still work, and it's a pity you can't buy them anymore...It has now scared me off buying new, so my next one will be an old one from e-bay!Anyways, sorry about the rant, but it will make me feel good if I can help someone in NOT choosing a Creative product from now on... I feel better letting you know tooCovering my $109 to fix mine, would have been worth it, than me stopping at least one person buying a new Creative product! ...who wins in the end!?Please pass this e-mail on (edit if you want) if you know anyone buying an MP3 player this Christmas, maybe the iPod was the way to go all along! anyone have any complaints about other MP3 player companies?Thanks for your time...