Creative's ZEN X-Fi player with WiFi gets a lot more real
By Thomas Ricker 
posted Jun 29th 2008 6:12AM
posted Jun 29th 2008 6:12AM
The Creative kids over at epiZENter have what looks to be a genuine scoop of an unannounced ZEN X-Fi. Not only did they receive this supposedly leaked photo, they also managed to dig out a "ZEN X-Fi Starter Pack" (software and user guide) from the bowels of Creative's own site. Accordingly, we're looking at a new DAP with SD expansion and built-in WiFi, speaker, FM tuner, voice recorder, and the ability to stream media from Creative's "Public Media Server." Additionally, users can chat with Yahoo! Messenger and Microsoft Live! users thanks to the 9-button, cellphone-like keypad. More details and genuflecting lie just beyond the read link.
[Thanks Tony and everyone who sent this in]
[Thanks Tony and everyone who sent this in]
Is this creative coming back into the MP3 Game?
I hope so!
This player looks great.
Apparently youvrnbeen under a rock since the new century started. Creative has alqay been in the dap game. They actually make some of the best sounding players around
"youvrnbeen"?
"alqay"?
OK i admit i am horrid at proof reading
I think my Zen Vision: M just found his successor =)
(Provided it has decent storage and file compatibility)
"OK i admit i am horrid at proof reading"
so you're saying you actually proofread that before posting it? be honest now. ;p
As with everything they do it's the software/firmware which ruins their products.
"alqay"? Could this be the new "pwned"?!
OH MAN, SHIT JUST GO REAL, YO.
...
I apologize for that...
The design looks really nice.. You know, this would actually have been a lot cooler if this were a phone - it'd be a really interesting concept, given that its managed to cram numpad like buttons on it.
yeah and it would have been even cooler still if it doubled as a car aswell.
A really interesting concept.. a phone that doubles as a media player.. where have we seen that before..
Sony Ericsson! What did I win?
touchscreen would've been better but damn that looks nice!
They might as well just make a phone/mp3 player, since pretty much all multimedia devices are of the all-in-one type.
Weird I was under the impression people were still buying iPods, not just iPhones. It'll be a little while before phones and mp3 players are so intertwined that they're hard to find separated. Just look at the camera phone. Even though there are a lot of them, the majority of them (cameras and phones) still exclude each other.
Or they could just buy themselves a nokia N95 (8gb) an go look for a job.
Looks like a good iPod alternative to me. Especially the model without numpad, too bad it won't have wi-fi... Hit the read link if you can't get what I'm talking about.
This doesn't look all that different from their current Creative Zen. Even in specs the only thing the current model is missing is Wi-Fi.
Changing the D-Pad into that Num Pad could easily become confusing though as their doesn't appear to be any labelling whatsoever as to its function.
Also, if that slit visible at the bottom is indicative of substance I'd also hazard a guess that it'll use the Micro flavour of SD this time around.
The Live! support is an excellent idea, I could see myself purchasing one of these.
out of curiosity, i wonder if there's people out there who try to properly pronounce the "Live!" with the exclamation. if so, i'd like to personally punch them in the head.
"Public media server"? As in PMS? :D
A cranky bloated server that "feels fat". Oh great ...
X-fi and wifi are a big deal for me, but I don't like the design. Would've preferred if they had've just gone all in and made a touchscreen version.
What's on Creative's Public Media Server? Movies or TV shows maybe? I checked and didn't see any reference to a Public Media Server on their web site.
Hmm. Rounded, chrome bezel with radius corners. Aluminum / Light Silver back. Glossy black front panel. Very original.
Rounded corners were already on their ZEN lines.
Back of the player was already matte, but matte plastic was a bit cheap.
Chrome trimming's been whore out on products for ages.
Get out.
Minium - Yeah as original as the iPod interface....every time an iPod sells, Creative smiles and rolls in their lawsuit settlement cash.
Google "Rio Carbon"
any word on storage capacity? im getting kinda tired of all this flash nonsense capping out at 32GB. i want 60GB or more. a spinner is totally fine with me!
Yeah, didn't you know, Steve Jobs invented chrome. He also worked with Pythagoras on the so-called "rounded corner" but then stole the concept for himself.
You criticise, yet, if this was in any way similar in design to an iPod you would cry "copy"
Here is the link to the "X-fi starter kit" file
http://uk.europe.creative.com/support/downloads/download.asp?searchString=%B2
My comment is hiding =(
(Probably double post)
Creative shows it's still got what it takes to be original. Love that Singaporean company.
I wonder why this isn't top news at Digg.
Looks like a pretty classy player to me. I'm not sure if I'm completely sold on the buttons, but otherwise this makes me almost regret getting a ZEN 16GB already.
Then again, this would only mean me spending more money than I would have for probably the same capacity choices, and me having to wait longer for a PMP.
Wonder why this isn't top gadget news at Digg.
Damn, thought the first two comments didn't go through. Sorry, guys.
I'm really doubtful of that X-Fi Crystallizer feature properly. You can't use processing power to restore detail that wasn't there. You can use it to assume new details, but not to make compressed audio closer to its original form.
Trust me it works. You can use advanced mathematical techniques to inter or extrapolate missing frequenties in the power/frequency spectrum of a 16-bit sample sound.
If a weatherman can predict weather, fortuneteller can predict the future, economists can predict stocks, mathematicians can calculate risks, gamblers can predict the outcome of the game etc etc... then why cant creative calculate those missing details?
And none of that even matters if it makes the music sounds better then who cares if its phoney or not?
The swallow may fly south with the sun or the house martin or the plover may seek warmer climes in winter, yet these are not strangers to our land?
So, is this the Creative MP3 player that will finally beat the iPod(s)?
no.
No, the Zen Vision: M blew away the iPods that it was stacked up against. Similar size, better sound quality, longer video battery life, native DivX/Xvid Support, much higher colors in the screen, FM radio (with recording), voice recording, more color choices and most importantly: CHEAPER. I'm still using mine that I've had for about two years now, and even though there are some new players that can outstrip it, the old thing still holds its own, even survived a few drops here and there.
Creative players generally do blow away iPods in terms of features, they just aren't marketed well enough to grab the attention of the sheep out there...
And yay CV:M!
A nice player- hopefully something can replace the repugnant, mass culture music vacuum device. (Hopefully third parties will not release products to accomodate it)
i can haz cryptic arrangement of words that adds up to some unknown quantity of mystery?!
Looks sexy.
Looks good is the pricepoint is right, but a couple issues to me.
-Real WiFi, as in podcast/rss feeds updating over wifi, maybe a browser, and wireless sync(didn't see anything about this, maybe its TBA)
-Very wierd navigation system, maybe a touchscreen or something?
-Rockboxable, so many more options could be unlocked if this can have rockbox loaded on it, which I'm pretty sure all creative players have been, but just in case.
I think the 9 buttons also act as a d-pad (look at the lines connection what would be 2, 4, 6 and 8 to 5).
I hope it has MSC and MTP (MSC = just drag and drop music onto player as external hard drive). Even Sony, in addition to Cowon and iRiver, has that now.
Really..............I just bought the Creative Zen 4 hours ago..........no damn joke............
just used rss on my hacked iPod touch to see this article. since the xfi has a mic which my touch does not the xfi will be able to do voice over ip at any hotspot so one could theoretically not have a cell phone, log into home and make calls from the landline.
Design-wise: weak. It just looks like a big iPhone with a bunch of buttons shoved on the front.
Capability-wise: nice.
However, I wouldn't buy one. Just the fact that they moved the screen off center to put the logo on the front... very annoying. They could have easily kept the screen centered, and made the logo fit in the space available.
I fell for all the Creative hype that CNET was putting out two years ago. I've owned the "Vision", "M", "Nano" and the V series. Yeah I know, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice and you've pissed me off for a long time. I had problems with all of them, their customer service sucks and they don't (or didn't) have a proprietary video source so even though they advertised them with the ability to play music videos, movies,etc., the only way you can download anything is by creeping around in the world of illegal decoders or start your own band or invite your friends over to watch vacation videos on cool new device.
In terms of operating problems, the Vision has a box to check for duplicate recordings or videos to either alert you or record over the original. Bullcrap! Every time it synced you had another complete set of your files. The Nano had a well publicized problem with the battery crapping out after about amonth or so. Check out their site-they still have a box on the side of their title page "Having trouble charging your Nano?". It's been there for about 1 1/2- 2 years. almost every time I used the "V" series I had problems with the screen freezing or the battery crapping out. Now I have to admit that I was fairly pleased with the "M", though it still had the problem of duplicating files and ultimately mine was stolen. I took that as a sign and went back to iPod, something I really didn't want to do, but I now own the "Touch", the 80GB "Classic" and the 8GB "Nano" and have not had any problems and as most people know, 3/4 of the accessories out there are targeted for the iPod. You may think that I was the one person whose Zen Kharma had been cursed,but if you do, just go to any "Creative" dicussion forums and you'll find volumes of correspondence from people with the same problems or worse.
Just log into any apple forum and read about the droves of people having hardware problems with their iPods. You forget, these are made out of essentially the same materials, probably in the same factories, with the same parts. It just comes down to how many people report their problems versus how many are out there.
I have owned Zen Vison M (30GB) for 2 years now. Never encountered any problems, so maybe you are just unlucky, and recently bought Zen V Plus (2GB) for 2 months, and well, do not encountered any problems too so far.
The only complaints that I have, I will need to buy the Car Charger and Travel Charger separately. But its cheap too, Got it from ebay for less than 6 Dollars for both chargers. So overall, nothing much too complaints.
So, If this came out and turns out to be good, well I will still buy another one.
Apple will release a new gen iPods and will evidently destroys this due to Apple being Apple. Even if this is much better in specs, it will just end up to be a 2nd placer tops.
LETS GO TOUCH!!!
A net player?
It's not a good idea.
Am I the only one who isn't feeling that keypad? T9 is fine for cell phones but for DAP's with nothing but wifi? I don't get it.
Going from my Creative Zen experience I'll be treating the SD Card claims with extremem caution.
They never integrated it into the memory on that and show know signs of putting it right despite huge forum threads, as such I won't be going near this new one.
Fine looking player, hopefully it will have video capability similar to the Zen Vision:M. Too bad about the shitty audio codec support. I think the messaging thingie might slurp balls as well the UI. And where the hell are the 64 Gb flash players, seriously.
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Josh @ Jun 29th 2008 1:03PM
A really interesting concept.. a phone that doubles as a media player.. where have we seen that before..
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Josh: I have a Toshiba Pocket PC that's both a cell phone and MP3 player. And a real computer, too! Oh, and it has an SD slot so memory is unlimited.
Age? I got it used 3 years ago via eBay. So it must be 4 or 5 years old.
Nuttin' new...
Terry
I bought a Zen a week ago.
CREATIVE: who in the hell did your usability testing???
Just a few "bugs":
1. it won't turn on if plugged into a power source via the tiny USB port.
2. if it's running and you plug in power via the tiny USB the time & date are reset back to factory specs.
3. if you are playing (for instance) a book on tape there is no "Pause" capability.
4. if you are listening to a book on tape there might be 20 or 30 chapters involved. There is no reminder of what the last chapter you listened to.
5. I recorded a movie script I was memorizing. It was 3 files on my SD chip. Listening to the sequence was no problem. BUT when the last one finished why not have the big "OK" button do something intelligent? Such as: loop back to the first file. Instead it stops playing and I have to hit the tiny "One Step Back" button and then the "OK" button. Not very much fun in the middle of the night driving 55 miles per hour!
There are more gaffes in the usability design of the Zen but right now I have to leave.
Let me say, as a commercial photographer, I've put my portfolio on it and folks to whom I show my work are most impressed with the Zen.
BTW the purchase was a no brainer over Zune because the Zen had an SD slot.
Overall rating of my Creative Zen: 8 out of 10.
Terry Thomas...
the photographer
Atlanta, Georgia USA
http://TerryThomasPhotos.GooglePages.com
cou;d be nice- I like the whole keypad thing- I had a vision M that my GF is now using since I have been using my archos 604 wi-fi- I like the big screen, but it might be nice to have messenger and a small form factor- though I would miss the touchscreen