Guess who's back? Creative. Hard to believe, we know, but the company
we've all but forgotten looks ready to make a comeback in the portable audio / video game. Creative Labs Zii and Zii EGG just made their first appearance at the FCC. Can't say that we're too enthused by the "EGG" moniker but we're definitely liking the looks of that "HD Camera" module along the backside of these "MP4 players with touchscreens" in addition to the Bluetooth and 802.11b/g WiFi radios. That "developer edition" is also a good sign that Creative is looking to make this a software platform a la the ol' iPod touch only with Creative's
Zii system-on-chip architecture secret sauce. In fact, these devices could very well be running
Android atop Creative's ZMS-05 chipset as we saw back in February. Welcome back Creative, you've got until September or so before Apple adds a
camera to its own iPod touch... best get to work.
posted Jul 7th 2009 1:14AM
Creative is back, baby!
Zii somehow doesn't sound very creative...
Seems like some people still can't get over the name. The one that was chosen about six months ago.
Creative sucks. Apple rules.
"Zii" sounds like a German pronouncing "The".
Zii EGG ist boiled. Zu you want ham wisz zit?
I thought this was the back of an iPhone when I saw the picture. I'm looking forward to seeing this.
As others have said though, this doesn't look too 'creative'
You're forgetting that Creative announced the Zii stemcell computing software way back. Will we find it in this hardware?
Oh yeah! I forgot all about Zii, what with all this Tegra and Snapdragon hype!
me too. i thought Zii was software but looks like im completely wrong. or am i? aw snap i just blew your mind! no really i don't get it. wtf is Zii?
zii is a system-on-a-chip multiprocessor that is so far ultrahype.
but it is to be comparable to tegra.
^^except the fact that tegra=pwnage.
Yep. Zii = underpowered Tegra (720p playback with no possibility of 1080p playback) with bigger size (Zii - 15x15mm, Tegra - 12x12mm). And it uses more power. In one work: bad. Don't hope for much.
@ Shinigami
Not "bad", just not as great.
and cheaper also, most likely
...actually the Zii does 1080p as demonstrated running on android in barcelona...
Moar liek Creative Wii. Mirite?
no urnotrite. dumbass
Oh come on, you can't ignore the similarities...
that is unless you close your eyes REAAAALLY tight and clench your teeth.
Even the font looks the same,.
the font does not look the same. the Z is considerably different. obviously anything ending in "ii" is simply trying to ride the coattails of the Wii's success. i just wish people like The Police would type like they have half a functioning brain.
I think the problem is he did type like he only had half a functioning brain.
Actually, he just overloaded on memes. I'm at work so I'd rather not go to encyclopedia dramatica, but I'm pretty sure you can find articles on more than half of his exhibited vocabulary. Moar and Amirite are defnitely memes and liek may be as well.
Hmm, if its using the "ii" to build off the Wii, they could go a step farther and call it the iZii!
UHHHH... is that not a first-gen iphone without the phone?
Nah its more like an iPod Touch with a camera *raises eyebrow*
but it will have MUCH BETTER audio quality (major reason for not getting a 'itouch') and will have drag and drop support and NO ITUNES!!!! (my other major reason for not getting an 'itouch') If you have ever used a creative product you know how easy it is to load music onto. If creative does this thing up right it will be tough making a decision between this and a Zune HD :D There is no way to tell what the interface looks like BTW and the processor in this bad boy promises to kick some tail. Give me good battery life and I will be won over (even in spite of all the "iphone ripofz suckz" people).
Well i have had a Creative Zen Micro and Zen Photo and they were HELL to load stuff onto. The programs were absolute shite and im NOT a fan of drag and drop.
When it came time to remove the Creative stuff i had to do a system reinstall, as uninstalling produced a series of errors upon every restart.
But its not made by apple, hence it won't be successful!
wii..xii..yii..zii they are only a few steps away from Nintendo too!
sacapuntas, there's drag & drop in iTunes and you have all your music in a same place. Could someone explain why it's better to drag and drop with Windows Explorer than iTunes?
@zsus
Because it isn't iTunes.
i had a Creative Zen and i always used WMP to sync it. worked quite well.
WMP sync ftw
@Zsus:
Because you can do it on every Windows PC in the world without installing anything.
Drag and drop with windows explorer is a thousand times better as i dont have to wait for iduds to determine the "gapless playback" for 30 gigs of music every time i load something up.
I wonder if the marketing people could preserve a straight face when they came up with, and presented the name Zii. I also wonder why noone at Creative said "NO".
well, the whole country didn't say "NO" when they ban coca cola in school or chewing gum in the country either, why now?
Yes! Creative you made awesome stuff, I hope this new project will not disappoint (ala the x-fi) . I am now throwing a new competitor into the ring for my next DAP/PMP
I'm still waiting for the Zune HD.
Really?! You haven't gotten one yet either?
The Zii.
A name ripoff of the Wii which took influence from Apple ubiquitous "i"s that took the place of the "e-" for the technological world.
...
I need to go to bed.
Sweet. What came first, the Creative Zen touch or the iPod Touch?
Please...don't do it. Nintendo pawns Apple any day of the week...
Take that to the bank.
And Nintendo has.
a little kitten dies every time someone calls a iPod Touch an "iTouch" ...
and this ZII thing looks like an iPhone ... not so creative this time ha ? :(
exactly
Four sides with camera on back != rip off of the iPod Touch.
If that is the case, then I embrace their furry, pathetic genocide.
I hope it comes with expandable memory. I love my Zune 30 but I can definitely use an upgrade. I need support for more than just WMV. MP4, AVI, AVC, could go along way. I can go with this, if done right. And I like the drag and drop.
I got it confused with sandisc.
Wow, I forgot when was the last time there were any news about Creative. The specs seem promising, but is it going to do anything? Hopefully at least it would be android. With Creative and Sony making Android based media players, the better it is for Android as a platform.
ditto
Now this is a media player I can see myself getting behind. I love Creative products and even still have an old Nomad Jukebox 2 back when it was kinda cool. :P
This will be a definite must upgrade from my iPod video that is WAY out of date.
OK, I'm interested to know more about this but I want concrete information from Creative and not a filing from the FCC.
The first thing i thought of when i saw the G1 phone was i would so buy an MP3 player running this o/s ... Creative may be making it happen ... price and capacity are biggest concern ... and can Android be twinked to use NapsterToGO??
Android can be tweaked to use anything ;)
def between this and a zune hd
Finally i have a reason to upgrade from my Zen vision M. And the fact it might also run Android = total awesomeness. I will never own another i anything again.
Same, my Vision:M still works perfectly after 3 years of constant use and a few falls along the way, only problem is the battery is slowly dying but i guess that is to be expected. Such a solid device though.
I've also been looking for a bigger screen device to replace my Vision:M, but it's been hard to find a decent device that will play divx.
Creative, include divx support and you have a customer right here.
Another Zen Vision M owner here. Still works great after 2 years. Its built like a tank, ive dropped it at least 10 times on concrete lol.
Creative knows what they're doing and can make a great product when they really want to. I'll be first in line to buy this when it's released.
I loved my ZEN Vision M, and I was soooooooo upset when it died last year. I tried to turn it on one day, and it just wouldn't.
I ended up replacing it with a ibiza Rhapsody, It's good, but no ZEN.
Again, I've had an M for 3 or 4 years and I still love it. No other player I've seen come out has the durability or features over 30 gig. If this is high capacity, say over 60 gig, I'm going for it.
I think PMP manufacturers need to try different angles. The market is flooded with Ipod Touch knock offs - which quite frankly don't appeal to many people outside of the anti-Apple market.
Then you have smaller flash based players like the Nano and the View - which fill that void. But outside of the 120gb zune there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of competition. Or atleast it seems to me.
If you're after players with a lot of capacity, Archos makes some. I'm not really an Archos fan, though, as I don't like their policy of making you buy codecs after the fact, or the amount of dumb peripherals they expect you to pay for. They also lacked a few of the codecs I consider important for a while, but that's improved lately. They're an option if that's what you're after, though. I'd personally like to see more high-capacity players, since I like to load my mp3 player up with tons of stuff once every few months or so and not have to worry about getting a song in my head at random and not be able to listen to it. I guess there's not much of a market for people like me.
Yeah, Archos is crap.
Its funny, I have a 3rd gen Ipod running roxbox and it owns. But I want something I can put videos on and a ridiculous ammount of music, full drop and drag - like my touch pro. Something around 200gb. Don't really care about the look, but nothing too bulky. But 16 gb touch media players are busted.. most anyone that reads a site like this already has a smart phone that will do whatever most media players do and then some.
Guess I got another couple of years to wait.
...this is going to smash the iphone or ipod touch...
...not only through sheer processing power...
...but customisability and style...
Ummm...
No. No, it will not.
Nothing against Creative but they really lack in creativity, if they felt the need to pretty much copy the exact design of a first gen iPhone, and steal(for the most part) Nintendos name. I'm all for competition but at least Microsoft are differentiating themselves in overall product design with the new zune hd. It almost sounds like "If you can't beat 'em, just do exactly what they're doing and hope no one notices" I hate to be one of those guys but this attempt just leaves me thinking meh :/
Everytime someone compares a PMP to the iphone, don't they realize a kitten just died from their stupidity?
You don't hear people saying the ipod touch is a rip off of the iphone now do you?
Because according to your logic, it is!
They even use the same OS and you can use the same apps except some of them don't even work without 3g. What a piece of shit!
See what I did there? That's how stupid you sound when you compare a Zii to an iphone.
On to the product at hand, why a camera on a pmp? Does creative have such a huge fan base that they can bring out what will have to be a pretty damn expensive pmp, gimmified with a HD camera and an unproven processor and rather late in the game considering they're releasing a developer version when the new ipod touch and ZuneHD are just around the corner.
tell me that doesnt look like an iphone though
No, it does not look like the iphone. Are you happy?
does it NEED to look EXACTLY like an iphone from the back?
fuck the rounded corners and camera in the same place...
I hate it when people say it looks the same, rip off. then people shout how else woudl you do it? apple didn't invent rounded corners.. blah blah blah.
seriously? it's 1 for 1 a rip of the back of the iphone...
Nintendo Zii?
Creative does not stand by their products. I have had too many creative products break for me to recommend them to any one. I'm hoping that this is a game changer, but I doubt it.
that zms android demo looked great.. this looks really interesting to me, ive had creatives soundcards for ages. They have always produced great sound. As someone who is not sold on apples gimmicks this really looks like something i could see myself using if it lives up to the hype
BTW drag and drop rules all skoolz f@ck all this sync BS. THats for people who use cutesy playlits. not people with stacks of ALBUMS of already organized music. Itunes is one of the smelliest pieces of smeg ive every laid eyes on. What happens if you want to use a FLAC or ogg, oops nope not with itunes. There's a reason that rockbox was developed. While apple put together some decent hardware for their ipods their software is god awful. While this has been much improved with the touch models, i still find the lack of file system access absolutely disappointing
...hehe...
...smeg...
Zii has changed my life and the entire world as I knew it.
Well obviously they were waiting until the new stem cell research guidelines were finalized.