I am going to sound like a Creative hater, but this HAS to be said. While enough has been said about the software issues in Creative software, I want to rant about the hardware, the Creative Zen Vision:M

The Zen Vision:M supports video output through it dock. The nice thing is that it’s over a standard A/V stereo-to-composite cable. But, Creative has made it proprietary by switching a few of the contacts in the cable. Anythingbutipod has a nice guide about this.

So if you want to use the video out, you are now forced to purchase a $35 video cable from Creative, instead for a $12 standard A/V Cable.

This is very bad marketting strategy. While I do agree that it does make the customer spend more money on Creative, its just sad that a company like Creative is sponging money off its customers using such tactics. For goodness sake, you are Creative, not some crappy mp4 player manufacturer from China.

And Creative already rips off people for the “custom” interface for the dock, which does not have any active or passive components. So its just how the connections are routed. And it costs $35 too.

I will surely think twice before getting another Creative product.