Creative Zen Vision 30GB vs. Consus PMC-300 20GB
Page 17
Battery Life
Creative claims a battery life of 13 hours for music playback (on "Hold"), and 4.5 hours of video playback. Consus claims 8 hours for music, and 5 hours for video.
For audio tests, the Zen Vision was set to volume 19, with Rock EQ and Bass Boost on. The PMC-300 was set to volume 13. The volume settings are so the player would output the same volume as for all our previous battery tests. Tracks are played by the album.
A 3.5mm-3.5mm audio cable was used to connect the players to the line-in of a computer, with software recoding the audio input. The battery life is considered to be the time from which music starts playing till it stops (when the player switches off due to insufficient power).
For video tests, XviD format movies with resolutions ranging from 500-640 pixels in width were used. They are then played until the end. Once a movie ends, the next movie is selected and played. The battery life is considered as the sum of total playback times, up till the time when the player stops playing due to low battery.
Click for larger picture.
The Zen Vision fell short when playing videos. It only managed to play two complete movies and started on a third before the battery went, about 3 hours 35 minutes. However, the Zen Vision managed to keep close to the claimed timing when playing music, managing 12 hours 52 minutes. Without putting "Hold", the Zen Vision only managed 7 hours 17 minutes. The reason for this is that in "Hold" mode, the player switches off the screen after a while. This saves the battery and allows for longer battery life. However, the Zen Vision struggles with WMA files, managing only 9 hours 52 minutes with "Hold", a whole 3 hours less than playing MP3s, and 6 hours 17 minutes without "Hold".
The PMC-300 posts impressive results. I obtained timings that were more than what was claimed. For video playback, the PMC-300 managed nearly three complete movies. The player stopped playing just a few minutes before reaching the credits of the third movie. Total playback time: 5 hours 25 minutes. For music playback, the PMC-300 managed 8 hours 52 minutes for MP3 (nearly one hour more than the claimed 8 hours), and 8 hours 5 minutes for WMA.
The Zen Vision gives pretty impressive timings for music playback, but the PMC-300 wins in terms of video playback. If you intend to use the Zen Vision to watch your favourite movies on long flights, do take note of its battery life.
Creative Zen Vision
Problems
As good as the Zen Vision is, I have some gripes about it. The biggest issue I have with the Zen Vision is the very, very limited viewing angle. Even worse, this optimum viewing angle requires you to tilt the player to the left. If you are in a public place, such as a train or bus, it seems as if you are showing your player to the person next to you.
Another thing is the Video Converter as mentioned on the previous page. It took 47 minutes to convert a 577MB MPEG-1 file. The rest are mostly minor issues, such as slightly fuzzy video when connected to a TV (as compared with the PMC-300), a somewhat long power-up time of approximately 30 seconds, occasional jerkiness when playing high resolution MPEG-4 videos, video resume for only the last played video, as well as no extra file information for videos, such as the file size, resolution and format (although this is more a personal preference).
Consus PMC-300
Problems
There are a whole bunch of problems I found with the PMC-300. The first thing I noticed was the over-sensitive touch buttons. Just hovering your finger over the button causes it to be registered.
Because of the lower resolution LCD screen, jagged edges and loss of detail is noticeable when watching high resolution videos.
Unlike the Zen Vision, there is no battery charging status. The PMC-300 only indicates whether it is charging, or if it is fully charged. You would not be able to estimate how long more the battery needs to be charged. Also, the battery indicator is not always accurate. Once, when the battery was totally drained after I did the MP3 playback test, I switched it on, and the battery indicator showed it was almost full. A few minutes later, it showed a warning saying the battery was low. In yet another instance, the player was fully charged. I switched the player on, and the player showed it had half the battery left. The PMC-300 also does not support USB charging.
I also felt that the menus were very unpolished, especially when compared to the Zen Vision's highly graphical interface. The user manual was also very poorly done. It seemed as if it was first typed in some foreign language, then translated using online translation software.
The PMC-300 is also not a good music player. First of all, it requires the user to manually index the music for them to appear in the "Artist" or "Album" menus. The indexing process is rather long. Also, the player is unable to index music in folders, as well as WMA files. The player would also hang once in a while when browsing music using the "All" function. I then had to switch it off and on again.
While the PMC-300 can open VOB files copied straight from a DVD, it is unable to play them like an actual DVD. Rather, it plays the files as-is. However, the fact that it can play VOB files is a bonus already, as the Zen Vision cannot do that.
Finally, I noticed there were some audible clicking from the hard disk, as well as quite noticeable vibrations when the hard disk was spinning.