I've played with it a bit more and the battery life is pretty good.

I watched 2 movies about 1.5 hours long plus played music for say 4-5 hrs and the battery showed 50% used.  They say it does 13 hrs for music and 4.5 hrs for video.

I too like a bigger screen but for 'on the go'  video this one is really good.  The quality is excellent and from what I can tell it's true widescreen.

It does sync to both Outlook 2003 & 2007. Too easy to do.

Txs mrchuck999 for posting all the addt'l info - good stuff!

I agree - I think recode needs updated to be able to create video for the Zen.  I tried a few different profiles in Recode Digital and they didn't work.
Though out of the 8 avi's I put on there only 2 had to be converted 1st.  I didn't run them through GSpot or AVICodec to see what the diff on them was though.
 

I deserve some brownie points for this..  :)

I am sharing my info here since binkie has a ZEN Blog in Featured.

ZEN VISION W:
I have been doing some research on the ZEN VISION WIDE, as I am quite excited about this device.  One thing that really got me going was... I popped into a local Circuit City and they actually had one out on demo. Not only was it on the demo shelf but it was fully operational and had photos, videos, etc, on it for the testing. The ZENVW is the perfect size when it comes to screen-size vs. pocket size. The ZVW can fit in a man's slacks pocket yet the screen is 4.3".

The quality is top notch.. No question. I was very happy with what I saw.

The calendar and contacts area are great, but you need to enter data via PC not a V keyboard in your ZEN.  So on the run people who want to update the calendar need a different process than traditional entry on the run. The calendar updates using Outlook. But does it use outlook 2007? I have a request into tech support to find out.
I assume it works with outlook 2000 but I will test the software (downloaded it for free) and I assume outlook 2003 is the defacto version. The VISTA version of the Zen software might not like the outlook 2000, so I will update my blog with more information later.

Navigation is speedy and has a few features I didn't expect such as ZOOM for hi-res photos. It also has an alpha set for jumping through songs and videos. i.e.  If you want a song that starts with P, just click the option key and slide down to P and you are in you're in.  You can Jack your ZEN into your USB-TIVO if you have one, and store tv files or so I'm told. The ZEN even has a menu item called TV.. Which is not a TV tuner but rather a slot where TV files will be stored from your TIVO. Not sure what dictates that it lands under TV and what else might land in TV.

The ZENVW has a pile of software that interfaces your PC to the ZEN. If you use the conversion process within these tools, it forces the video to scale-down to 480x320 which is about the max the display runs at anyway. If you plan to use the TV-out interface, you will want to consider 3rd party tools to keep the resolution up. The ZEN cab play higher resolutions that 480x320 but the player alone cant really benefit from them. The extra res only serves to take up more room If you display your video on your big screen tv, you will want the extra res. (720x480) In this case, it will make a major difference.

The ZENVW also has its own web site with free content for you its users. aka www.zencast.com. You will need a zen/zencast organizer software to save the files.

There is also an add on that's a cover/stand for the ZVW available at creative labs webs site.

My only disappointments thus far is .. I can not locate a docking station for the ZVW. There is one for the 2005 ZEN-VISION but the screen was smaller so the dock is likely not the right size.

The meat and potatoes of ZVW will be creating video content via NERO_RECODE or NERO_VISION. This is a topic worth looking into. Odds are a ZEN owner can already generate the right file format out of VISION. I think recode though needs a future update to allow saving the data in other formats. Until then there are free and try-before you buy options that convert video formats.
http://www.download.com/Fox-DVD-Ripper-Pro/3000-2140_4-10715910.html

http://www.download.com/JetAudio-Basic/3000-2167_4-10696318.html?tag=lst-6-1

http://www.download.com/SuperAVConverter/3000-2194_4-10709607.html?tag=lst-3-2

}}  http://www.download.com/Any-Video-Converter/3000-2194_4-10726101.html?tag=lst-3-3

Hi All,
The ZENVW is getting a lot of attention.. Here's some more information worth reading..
After researching, I see ZVW has updated software on the web site that is VISTA ready.

The contacts/calendar/notes all sync or at least pull from Outlook. ( I don't use Outlook 2000 even though I have it. I can install it though)

Grandizer wrote: get a pda if you want pda function.. I understand the thought but for me.. its not the best choice.  I really need a calendar to keep me from forgetting my appointments but I dont need much of the other features. I also really need CONVERGENCE. I need my junk in one box and I need it with me. I also need a small portable video playback device. I love music but the fact is I'm much bigger into Video. I have a pocket mp3 player which does the job fine for music in a tiny unit so the large size of ZVW does not put me off.

What I want to avoid is buying several devices. I want as many as possible in one unit.  For kicks I cut out a piece of paper to see how big/small the ZVW actually is. I dropped it in my pocket and while I was out shopping I laid it over a PALM TX. I have to say.. they are very close in size. They are basiclly the same only the ZVW is thicker (by less than double but not much). The calendar and contacts sync with outlook puts the ZVW in the right place. I just moved all my data to igoogle, now it looks like I need to devise an organizational process which includes outlook2000. I like iGoogle since I can yank it up on the Net and type in my appointments. ZVW can't do this. Its the one short coming. a firmware udpate could add virtual keybd and data input but I don't expect it on this model/year.