20 GB Creative Zen Media Center is $200 at Buy.com

ignatz · 10-17-2005, 11:29 AM

Buy.com is offering a $250 rebate on the Creative Zen Portable Media Player with 20GB capacity making the effective price $200! This device is owned by Microsoft and supports only MP3, WMA, and WMV formats. It cannot play Divx formats, nor is it likely to ever be able to. It does not appear to have any capacity to display ebooks, though it can display JPEGs. Overall it's a device that few would consider, except for the fact that right now it costs less than most ipods. If anyone goes for this deal I would love to hear about your experience.

Colin Dunstan · 10-17-2005, 01:09 PM

Ignatz, you really DO know how to spoil the fun, don't you? First I thought, what a great rebate! But then I read your post to the end and all I have left to say is, let's skip this one. ;(

ignatz · 10-17-2005, 01:42 PM

For that price, it might be worth it to some people. The Windows Media Encoder is free and pretty easy to operate. It might not be that big a deal to convert divx downloads to wmv if you're dedicated to watching video on the run. Compare that screen to the video iPod. You've gotta convert all your stuff to work on that too and it costs $300 for 30GB and that matchbook screen. I'm no defender of Microsoft, but a deal's a deal.

Bob Russell · 10-17-2005, 01:53 PM

I wonder if it can do timed standalone recording from a video source also? No divx is unfortunate. One of these days I'd like to get a VCR-like device that records to DIVX, but even recording to an SD card with WMV files would be intriguing if the screen resolution and picture quality was reasonable.

But like you say, it seems a great deal even with limited capabilities.

Yet, in a year, I bet you can get something like that for a similar price without a rebate!

ignatz · 10-17-2005, 02:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BobR

Yet, in a year, I bet you can get something like that for a similar price without a rebate!

I think that you're right about that Bob. And with luck you'll be able to get something that runs linux with open firmware and can interpret a dozen audio and video codecs. It all depends on how bad you need your media fix. I certainly couldn't live without my mp3 player now that my life has adjusted to it. But I don't care nearly as much about video and if I was going to pick up a unit like this is would definitely need to be able to do ebooks too.

10-17-2005, 11:29 AM	#1
ignatz mechanoholic Posts: 582 Karma: 1000217 Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Sarasota, FL Device: Nook STR/iPhone 4S/EVO 4G	20 GB Creative Zen Media Center is $200 at Buy.com Buy.com is offering a $250 rebate on the Creative Zen Portable Media Player with 20GB capacity making the effective price $200! This device is owned by Microsoft and supports only MP3, WMA, and WMV formats. It cannot play Divx formats, nor is it likely to ever be able to. It does not appear to have any capacity to display ebooks, though it can display JPEGs. Overall it's a device that few would consider, except for the fact that right now it costs less than most ipods. If anyone goes for this deal I would love to hear about your experience.

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10-17-2005, 01:09 PM	#2
Colin Dunstan Is papyrophobic! Posts: 1,926 Karma: 1009999 Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: USA Device: Dell Axim	Ignatz, you really DO know how to spoil the fun, don't you? First I thought, what a great rebate! But then I read your post to the end and all I have left to say is, let's skip this one. ;(

10-17-2005, 01:42 PM	#3
ignatz mechanoholic Posts: 582 Karma: 1000217 Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Sarasota, FL Device: Nook STR/iPhone 4S/EVO 4G	For that price, it might be worth it to some people. The Windows Media Encoder is free and pretty easy to operate. It might not be that big a deal to convert divx downloads to wmv if you're dedicated to watching video on the run. Compare that screen to the video iPod. You've gotta convert all your stuff to work on that too and it costs $300 for 30GB and that matchbook screen. I'm no defender of Microsoft, but a deal's a deal.

10-17-2005, 01:53 PM	#4
Bob Russell Recovering Gadget Addict Posts: 5,381 Karma: 676161 Join Date: May 2004 Location: Pittsburgh, PA Device: iPad	I wonder if it can do timed standalone recording from a video source also? No divx is unfortunate. One of these days I'd like to get a VCR-like device that records to DIVX, but even recording to an SD card with WMV files would be intriguing if the screen resolution and picture quality was reasonable. But like you say, it seems a great deal even with limited capabilities. Yet, in a year, I bet you can get something like that for a similar price without a rebate!