Creative Technology's ZEN Vision:M hard drive–based portable media player was a crowd pleaser, so we were surprised when the company announced that its update, the new ZEN, would be flash-based. Creative has in fact abandoned hard drive players altogether, and the new ZEN the company's first shot at a flash-based music and video player. In terms of general wow factor or ease of use, it's no iPod touch, but it does have a larger screen than the iPod nano and more features, including an FM radio and a voice recorder. The 4GB and 8GB ZEN flavors match or beat Apple's prices for those capacities, and the 16GB model costs just $250—$150 less than the same-capacity iPod Touch. (SanDisk beats them all with its new $200 16GB Sansa View.) The ZEN also has an SD memory card slot to expand the player's capacity, which iPods lack. If you're looking for a flash player with decent features, performance, and expandability, give the ZEN a try. It will even play unprotected Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) files from your iTunes library.

The polished black ZEN weighs 2.1 ounces, measures 3.3 by 2.2 by 0.4 inches, and is dominated by a 2.5- inch, 320-by-240-pixel resolution TFT display—a half-inch bigger than the nano's 2-inch screen. The front face feels a bit cluttered with buttons compared with the iriver clix gen 2, the upcoming Samsung P2, or any iPod model.

Audio file support for the ZEN is decent. Compatible file types include Windows Media Audio (WMA, all types, including subscription To Go files), MP3 (all bit rates, including variable bit rate), and unprotected AAC. That means no regular iTunes tracks, but iTunes Plus songs will work, as well as files ripped from CDs in iTunes. I found the audio performance to be perfectly acceptable, once I inserted a pair of Shure SE210 earphones—the bundled earphones aren't great, so you'll probably want to upgrade. The five-band EQ, combined with better earphones, will satisfy most users, although the lack of FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) support might scare away audiophiles. (There is, however, WMA Lossless support.)

Video and photo support isn't as robust. The ZEN handles only Windows Media Video (WMV) files, but it comes with software to convert MPEG-4, DivX, and Xvid files to WMV for viewing on the device. I had some success converting a 3GP file using the included software—audio lagged and the resolution was downgraded, but I was still able to watch the clip. JPEG is the only supported photo format.

The microphone (aka voice recorder) isn't my favorite feature, though it is nice to have. Inconveniently, you start and stop recordings with a pull-down menu, not the play/pause or central button on the control pad. The FM radio, also nice to have, can name and save 32 presets, and offers auto-scanning. The Photo menu has a slideshow option—but you need to create a slideshow in Creative's Media Explorer software first.

One serious gripe with the Zen's performance: My first test unit took 30 seconds to power up. Luckily, Creative has already updated the firmware (and will continue to do so), and now all 8GB and 16GB models ship with the updated software that alleviates the problem. If you end up with one of the few 4GB players that are plagued by slow start-up, a simple firmware update will fix things. You can get the update at www.creative.com/support. That said, my replacement ZEN still didn't exhibit a lightening-fast power-up; I got around 6 seconds, which is much more tolerable. Also, if the player has been powered on recently the start-up time shortens—closer to 3 seconds.

The graphics for the user interface are generally sharp, well designed, and easy to navigate, but scrolling through menus is not nearly as quick as on an iPod. The Music and Photo menus, when selected, offer views of album art or JPEGs, respectively, superimposed over the wallpaper, which looks nice. The music menu options are pretty standard: Now Playing, Playlists, Albums, Artists, Genres, All Tracks, Recordings (where your Microphone performances end up), and DJ. The DJ mode allows you to navigate your music by song rating and popularity, but also includes a shuffle mode as well as fun Rarely Heard and Album of the Day options.

The Video menu is divided into four categories. Notable are ZENCast and TV. ZENCast is for video podcasts, while TV is for TiVo To Go files that you can convert and watch on the device using the bundled software—a bonus for TiVo owners. The 2.5 inch screen has adjustable brightness—I set mine at about 70 percent and enjoyed the WMV content I loaded. I have no complaints about the 320-by-240 screen resolution, which is the same as the nano's. But you'll need to decide between the nano's seemingly sharper (because it's smaller) display and the larger view offered by the ZEN.

Creative rates the ZEN's battery life at 25 hours for music and 5 hours for video—both very respectable numbers. The problem is, my test, which I performed twice, yielded an audio battery life of only 12 hours 33 minutes—half of what it's rated for. Our video rundown test results will be posted here shortly.

Sure, the ZEN has some flaws—the interface, while good-looking and thoughtfully designed, seems to operate a bit slowly, and the battery life isn't stellar. It's not as tiny as the iPod nano, and it doesn't have the overall cool factor of the iPod Touch. But in the end, anti-iPodders looking to save some cash on a reliable, feature-filled device will likely find the ZEN an enticing option. It works well, it's expandable, and has more extras than the Apple players do. All in all, the ZEN offers excellent value.

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