RhumbaTecH_: Creative starts moving...
Okay... It's time to Blog all the latest tech happening which I have wanted to talked about was too lazy to during the last few weeks or so... Starting right with what Creative has been up to...
Creative Zen Vision
This is the successor to the Creative Portable Media Center which was out last year. The good news is that this guy definately looks much better than his predecessor. Coming in white and black (not certain if they will release it in other colours yet), this guy holds 30GB, has a CompactFlash memory card slot, a 640 x 480 pixel, 3.7-inch LCD screen, built-in FM tuner, and support for playback of MP3, WMA, and WAV audio files and MPEG4, WMV, DivX, and XviD video files.
Not much news about this guy yet. Frankly speaking, this device might be quite useful as a portable 30 GB harddisk photo backup for people with CF card cameras. Kinda just like my Xs'Drive Super which I talked about before. However the Vision is definately much better being slimmer, and having the larger screen. Hell, judging from the size of the CF card, the Vision looks almost slimmer than my iPaq 2750 PDA.
Anyway on a side question... would anybody really want to watch video on this device or on other portable video player devices out there? I do watch videos on my iPaq 2750 but buying a device for solely that purpose doesn't really appeal to me. Are people really making money from selling all this?
Creative Zen Micro Photo
You may think that these are ordinary Zen Micros you see. These are not. They are the Zen Micro Photos, yes with the 'Photo' behind. In addition to being a Zen Micro, it has a coloured display and the capability to display photos. This device was out to go head to head against Apple's bigger and more expensive iPod Photo (haha big joke later). It sports 6GB of internal memory and it is really really tiny man. Mr Sim Wong Hoo (in the picture below) is not a very big man, so look at the size of that device. Pretty cool.
Sorry to torture Mr Sim haters with his face but I got to make my point. Creative plans to sell the device for USD $349.00 (haha bigger joke coming...). That's about SGD $580.00 man! No way am I going to fork out that amount of money for this 6GB device!!! Especially since with another USD $50 I can get this 20GB Archos Gmini 400 portable video player device.
Now for the Big Joke...
I just checked out the Apple Store and I found out that Apple is no longer 'selling' the iPod Photo! Instead, the next generation of iPods are now all iPod Photos (but now called just plain old iPod).
The 'new' iPod now has a coloured display with the capability to display photos and even album cover art when the song is playing. On top of that, it has the additional function now of syncing with podcasts (internet radio shows/ audio blogs). This means that the Zen Micro Photo is no longer competiting with the equally stupid yet expensive iPod Photo anymore, but is now competiting directly against the kingpin, the iPod.
The Biggest Joke???
The 20GB version of the iPod costs just USD$299.00 bucks man. Hello? $349 6GB vs $299 20GB anybody?And hell, the 60GB version is priced at USD $399.00 bucks man! Looks like Apple is one step ahead of Creative this time round. Good luck Creative on your Marketing blunder...
Side note: I can't help noticing how neat and 'product-free' is the Apple Shop compared to Creative's website. Makes me want to buy something there...