"It's like an iPod Video, but not made by Apple." Creative, along with other Apple competitors, has been struggling against this perception since the iPod defined the market. Yet despite bearing more than a passing resemblance to the iPod, Creative has done a pretty good job with this model. In many ways it's better than the Apple model with which it's going head-to-head.

It's quite a bit thicker than a standard iPod, and the Zen Vision:M does feel quite chunky. On the plus side, the rear of the case isn't made of the kind of material that will show every little mark, but unfortunately the front of the case is made of the type of soft plastic that has brought Apple so much criticism with the Nano. While having a scratched screen isn't a problem when navigating through a music library, it is a problem when watching video, so it's best to make use of the supplied protective bag.

Although it's a little more expensive than an iPod Video of the same capacity, it does include several extra features and a very impressive battery life of 14 hours of music playback or 4 hours of video playback.

Right, iPod comparisons aside for now, let's get the video feature clarified. You're quite clearly not going to want to watch a feature length movie on this gadget, especially a widescreen one, although you might store one on it and plug the device into a TV to watch it.

However, watching programmes saved from a TV adapter, especially 4:3 aspect ratio TV, really isn't as bad as we had expected. For commutes, perhaps with cartoons to keep the kids amused, it's quite good.

As you might expect, the Zen Vision:M also serves as a picture viewer and performs quite well in this regard as well, with slideshow features and thumbnail browsing. The quality of the 2.5-inch, 320 x 240 pixel screen means that it's possible to see quite a lot of detail.

It's quite cool being able to carry round an entire library of digital camera pics and home movie clips, and great for showing your Gran where you went on holiday, but we suspect that Creative had another market in mind when it created the hidden and password-protected folder feature. We'll say no more.

Videos, photos and music are uploaded to the device via two different applications. Take your pick between an iTunes-style application or a 'Media Explorer'; the latter was our choice because it affords greater control over what gets uploaded.

Video, images and audio can all be uploaded by this means, and formats are converted as needed, although unfortunately the device doesn't support AAC format audio. However, it does support MP3, WMA, and WMA DRM10, so if you use a subscription service you should have no problems. If you've been using iTunes, you could always get it to convert your AAC library to MP3 format.

On the video side, the Zen Vision:M supports MPEG 2 as well as DivX, WMV and some others, so it's pretty comprehensive. It certainly played every test file we uploaded with no issues, although some required automatic re-encoding. Playback is smooth and the screen is bright with rich colours. We were quite impressed with it, although for long viewing sessions on the move you're probably better off with a Sony PSP or similar device with a larger screen.

The Zen Vision:M is supplied with the usual in-ear type headphones. We found that we could listen to music at full volume (which is pretty loud in comparison to a European iPod) without any distortion, although they're not that comfortable to wear.

Navigation controls are always going to be a matter of preference and if you're accustomed to an iPod then the Zen's controls might take a little getting used to. Menu and play control buttons are arranged around a slider control which also serves as a means of selecting items using a single tap, so it acts like a trackpad on a laptop. We found it a little over-sensitive at times, but it worked reasonably well on the whole.

At the risk of suffering from too many features, the Zen Vision:M also includes a microphone, which worked very well, and a radio, which didn't, although we didn't really expect it to since it uses the headphones as an aerial.

Connection to the host computer is via a dock connection block that attaches to an interface looking remarkably similar to an Apple dock connector, although it is actually different. A USB cable is supplied as well as a power adapter that fits to the same connection block, but no video out cable is supplied, which is a shame.

The Creative Zen Vision:M beats the iPod Video hands down at video format support and screen quality. Although we wouldn't recommend watching entire movies on it, it's perfectly acceptable for TV and home movie clips. Once you've mastered the navigation, it's also low-hassle to use with some very nice features. Oh, and it plays music too.