Creative Unveils Zune Rival, Zen Vision W

Creative Technology has unveiled its answer to Microsoft’s Zune - minus the hype, the Zen Vision W. Creative calls its newest MP3 player the '16:9 widescreen entertainment on the move'.

The player has multimedia features to support popular formats of movies, music, photos and FM radio. Zen Vision W comes in two versions, a 30 GB model priced at $299.99 with a capacity of 120 hours of video, and a 60 GB model priced at $399.99 with video capacity of 240 hours.

Other features of the Creative ZEN Vision W include a high-resolution, 4.3-inch 16:9 format, color TFT display and a video formats, such as MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4-SP, MJPEG, DivX 4, 5 and XviD, for playback of video clips and movies downloaded from the Internet. The Creative ZEN Vision W also supports TiVoToGo, for viewing of TV content recorded on a TiVo personal video recorder, and digitized home movies transferred from the PC. The removable rechargeable battery provides up to 4.5 hours of video playback.

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The ZEN Vision W also supports Amazon Unbox, which offers television shows, movies and other video content from more than 30 studios and networks. Moreover, new releases from major studios, including 20th Century Fox, Paramount, Universal and Warner Bros., and TV shows from A&E, MTV, Fox, can be downloaded and transferred to the ZEN Vision W. Each DVD-quality Amazon Unbox video download for the PC also includes a specially formatted high-quality version for portable players such as the ZEN Vision W.

Creative ZEN Vision W also supports music subscription services such as Yahoo! Music Unlimited, Napster To Go, Urge and MSN Music. Online music stores such as AOL Music Now, Napster, Yahoo! Music, and Soundbuzz, and Audible.com have also collaborated with creative for this venture. The Creative ZEN Vision W includes a built-in FM radio that features 32 selectable station settings.

Sim Wong Hoo, chairman and CEO of Creative said, "We designed the Creative ZEN Vision W to work easily with major video download services. Then we added a stunning 16:9-format widescreen so movies and TV would look awesome. With support for a large selection of video formats, music subscription and download services, and a built-in Compact Flash slot so you can take your memory card from your digital camera and offload pictures directly to the player, the Creative ZEN Vision W is the ultimate travel companion."

Check it out here.