Becoming PSP - PlayStation Portable vs. Creative's Zen Portable Media Center

by Brad Larson  |  June 24, 2008

The Creative Zen Portable Media Center was announced on the 8th of January 2004 and was released eight months later. It is based on Microsoft's Portable Media center interface, runs Windows Mobile and supports WMV, WMA and MP3. It can display JPEG images and other video formats are supported through transcoding. This device is the first one to support exclusively Microsoft's Media Transfer protocol and uses a 1.8 inch of 20 or 40 GB hard drive from Hitachi.

It has a 3.8 inch 4:3 format screen, a 7 hours video battery life and TV output, but except these different features it does not really pose a threat to the PSP. The PMC is a lot thicker and in the age of the HDTV it uses the dinosaur 4:3 screen format. As a matter of fact, the Sony PSP AC adapter can in fact charge also the PMC because the plug fits both units that use the same voltage power. Watching standard 4:3 size videos on the PMC is mildly satisfying, but when trying to view shows or movies at a higher format of 16:9, there is a striking difference in overall quality: the user gets annoying black bars on the screen, the picture look washed out and faded and very grainy. As a contrast, the 4:3 format on the PSP could have been bigger, but it is nevertheless more clear, detailed and brighter.

As for audio performances, the Portable Media Center from Zen has only one speaker included at the bottom right corner of the screen for a mono sound, meanwhile the PlayStation Portable has two little speakers for stereo sound. However, despite having just one speaker the PMC has slightly better sound and has a higher maximum volume, but if using a pair of earbuds when listening to MP3s, users may find that the audio fidelity is satisfying in both devices, with no noticeable differences. All in all, the PlayStation Portable wins over Zen's PMC at video and design quality.

Next articles in this series:

1. Becoming PSP - Introduction
2. Becoming PSP - History
3. Becoming PSP - Hardware
4. Becoming PSP - Software
5. Becoming PSP - Slim & Lite
6. Becoming PSP - PlayStation Portable Vs. The Nintendo DS
7. Becoming PSP - PlayStation Portable Vs. Creative Zen Portable Media Center

Related articles:

PSP 1000 vs PSP 2000 vs PSP 3000
Portable vs. Home Entertainment / PSP vs. Playstation
Becoming PSP - PlayStation Portable vs. the Nintendo DS
iPod vs. PSP: Comparing the hardware
iPod vs. PSP: Comparing the software capabilities

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