All the latest UK technology news, reviews and analysis
|
|
|
04 Aug 2005
Creative has unveiled its Zen Vision portable media player which can play music, show movies and display digital pictures.
The device comes with a 640 x 480 pixel colour screen, and a 30GB hard drive which the vendor claims can hold 120 hours of video or 15,000 songs.
The Zen Vision's battery provides up to 4.5 hours of video playback and 13 hours of music, depending on file format and energy settings. A double capacity battery is available as an accessory.
Creative is positioning the device as a competitor to Apple's iPod. Although it is slightly larger and heavier than the 60GB Apple iPod Photo, the two devices both cost $399.
But the addition of video playback puts the Zen Vision ahead of the iPod, which is not expected to offer such a function until 2006.
The Zen Vision is not compatible with tracks from Apple's iTunes music store, but does support Napster, MSN Music and Yahoo Music.
It also offers an address book, to-do list and calendar that can be synchronised with Microsoft Outlook.
The Creative player supports MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 encoded video, allowing consumers to play DivX, WMV and MJPEG formats.
Consumers in the US can pre-order the Zen Vision through the company's website for $399. It is slated for release in Europe and Asia at a later date.
Latest stories from Hardware
Related articles
Related jobs
Poll
What is the most important IT priority for your company this year?
Connect with V3.co.uk
This paper focuses on a series of best practices and techniques for development teams looking to improve their software development processes
Why good data management at all levels is essential in the modern business (video, 6mins)
A global consultancy is looking for a technical IT infrastructure...
External Technical Engineer, Rochdale This Lancashire...
Contract: L3 Solaris Administrator - Stockholm, Sweden...
C# or VB.NET Senior Developer / Team Leader x 2- Manchester...
Keep up to date with the latest products, services and technologies from the world's leading IT companies. IThound.com brings you over 2,000 white papers, case studies and analyst reports.
Do you agree?
yeah sure... another "iPod Killer"
So tired of hearing this term... Seriously, iPod is so successful because it is integrated with superior hardware and software. It is very hard to be it's quality. This creative thing looks like another clunky, half thought-out, piece of ..technology.. that is meant to compete with a product that is vastle superior.
Posted by: Alpacahacka 16 May 2006
I thought "iPod Killer" was retired years ago
Please ... I thought the tiresome "iPod Killer" title was long gone ... a couple years ago it seemed every lame device with an FM player and voice recorder and bad industrial design was poised to become an "IPod Killer" .... which was an insult to the intelligence of people who are buying MP3 devices, and to the skills of the folks at Apple. OK so now we have a device from Creative that can play video ... has Creative truly though through their solution? Have they made it easy for consumers to find, purchase, download and transfer video to their device? Do they have the equivalent of an iTunes music store available for this new device? I don't know the answer myself, but mark my words -- when Apple adds video to their line of iPods, it will be deeply integrated into the entire experience of using the iTunes music / video store. Whoever "kills the iPod" (which in itself is such a tired, tired concept -- why must one product KILL another? Such a 90's Microsoft monopolistic way of thinking) is not going to "kill" it based upon features alone. It will be ease of use, simplicity, superior function and user experience -- the whole package. And so far nobody has come within spitting distance of Apple on any of these counts.
Posted by: Bruce McFadden 04 Aug 2005