When it comes to music and video players, Apple faces some tough competition. Bloomberg Boot Camp, a report on today's technology. With its top notch design, ease of use and ad campaigns featuring the likes of U2's Bono…sales of Apple's iPods continue to soar. But there are some worthy competitors. As an alternative to Apple's new iPod that can play videos….Creative is out with the Zen Vision. Priced at 399 dollars….the same as a 60 gigabyte iPod, the Zen Vision has only half the capacity….but includes a large 3.7 inch LCD screen ….an FM radio, Voice recorder, a CompactFlash slot making it easy to transfer photos to the device. Creative's Phil O'Shaughnessy says the company's players offer consumers more flexibility than being tied into Apple's iTunes…

"The neat thing about the Creative players is that we support not only the a la carte download services, but the subscription music services as well. So if you have a monthly subscription on say Napster to Go or Yahoo Music Unlimited, you can just download all of your tracks and take it with you. You don't have to purchase the tracks each time."

Creative has other new players on the market as well…including an 8 gigabyte Zen Micro Photo with a unique color OLED display. OLED is a new alternative to LCD screens offering brighter displays with less energy use. Both the Zen Micro Photo and the Zen Vision have another feature not offered by Apple, their rechargeable batteries are removable. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.