Well, I found this a while ago, when I was visiting Creative’s website and on their website, if you go to it, you’ll notice the main flash animation banner thing saying “Everything you know is about to change”. If you click “find out more”, it leads you to “Zii“. So what is this “Zii”? A rip off of the Wii? Creative is being rather vague… Many of those in the online community do not know what it is, nor whether or not their “stemcell computing” (which if you’ll notice, Creative have trademarked) is just a teaser. Many believe it is a “chip” of some sort, that can be integrated into many devices, and that it will do something to them. However, like I am, many are hoping it’ll be a new addition to Creative’s line of mp3 players and Portable Media Players (PMP).
Creative has been said to be “dying” amongst many people in forums and Endgadget certainly believes that this marks the end of Creative. Last year, Creative Technologies had to undertake major cost cutting measures by selling off their main building in Singapore, closing down a few factories, and having to let go almost half of their workforce. It’s hard to find Creative products here in Australia these days. They used to have a fair share of the mp3 and PMP market but now, it’s a real struggle to find one these days. With such an Apple iPod dominated market down here, it’s kinda hard to find anything else. If Microsoft released the Zune down here, I’m sure it’d hurt Apple quite a bit. but that doesn’t seem to be happening anytime soon.
So, really, what is next for Creative? Honestly, I think their next product (if that product even get’s released) is make or break for them. What they need to make is a product that is a direct competitor to the iPod/Zune. When browsing around Anythingbutipod.com’s forums, many people are looking for an updated version of the highly appreciated Creative ZEN Vison:M. Many of them seem to like it’s design (apart from the fact that it is super chunky!) it’s wide range of codecs, and it’s handling/interface etc. What I am hoping for, and what I’d like the Zii to be is a new PMP that rivals the iPod/Zune. Large screen, (3 inch? 320×240 or 480×270?) the super awesome 16,700,000 colour display, (iPod and Zune only has 64,000) the FM Radio, wide range of audio and video codecs just like all of Creative’s PMP’s, (WMV, XviD, DivX, MPEG, mp3, WMA, ogg, etc.) high capacity (60GB+) with external memory slot (a fully intigrated one, not like the ZEN’s) and the wonderous drag and drop system as with most of Creative’s products. Touch screen, and wi-fi not necessary but would be fun to have. Oh, and same awesome design as most of Creative’s products! =P
As for the Zii, who knows what it could be! epiZENter seems to know a little something about it… A lot of people are saying “Don’t get your hopes up”, which I should do, but I’m sorry, I want Creative to be a good compeditor to Apple, and the only way it can do that, is if it releases something super-awesome! We will find out at CES 2009 in around two days time. It’s good to see that Creative has a relatively large display booth, so whatever the Zii is, it better be good!
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