Creative announced the Zen Vision:M last Thursday in London and with the announcement of this model, Creative has launched the attack on Apple's iPod. The Zen Vision:M is not just another small clone of iPod, but the manufacturer -- leader on the market for soundcards for PC, based in Singapore -- bypasses it's rival iPod in several aspects. Creative also targets to destabilize the market position for iTunes which currently holds 80%.
Click "Read more" below for more info...Sim Wong Hoo, at Creative, Thursday personally came to London to announce the new player. The company does not make it a secret that it wants to push Apple from the throne. The American Company has 80% of the market share with iPod and Creative sets out to take part of the market away from Apple. The market share is so strong that several other brands have resigned from the scene like BenQ and Olympus. Also Sony, the once so almighty player with the Walkmans has not had success yet to come even near to Apple's iPod. For Creative the same Doom Scenario was set. The Company created players that had nothing more to offer against the iPod and also the design was not near as good as the iPod, but now, everyone agrees, Creative Zen Vision:M is the player Apple hoped would never become real from another brand.
The new player leans towards the iPod video, recently released. The size is the same and the wheel (patent by Apple) is replaced with a slide panel. Other then iPod, the battery life is no less then 15 hours with Audio playback and 4 hours for Video. The Creative Zen Vision:M comes with FM Tuner and Voice Recorder, the Creative comes with a 256k color display and supports a wide range of Video and Audio formats. (MPEG-1, MPEG-2/4, WMV 9, Motion JPEG, DivX 4/5, en XviD, en Mp3, WMA, DRM en WAV). These formats are important because a lot of legal download sites can not handle iPod and can only be used for downloads with iTunes which is also a reason to find the reason behind why iTunes is the most popular download site.
The dependency of iPod with iTunes is, according to analysts, the weakest point for Apple. The Zen Vision:M player can handle over 250 content providers. Online Stores like 7Digital, Napster, HMV Digital and Virgin Digital already have announced their support for the Creative Zen Vision:M. Not everything is better though. The Creative Zen Vision:M will be slightly more expensive then iPod however if iPod users want to have the same as the Creative players offer by default, they will need to purchase FM receivers and Microphone. With these extra's, the total sum is about 700 Dollar for iPod instead of the 330 dollar Creative is asking for the player in it's total package.
The position of Apple is not endangered right away and Apple is still capable of taking full charge of the festivities around end of year as the Zen Vision:M is not available in stores before the end of January!
