Creative has introduced two new tablets running Google Android 2.1.Both feature the ZiiLabs ZMS-08 HD application processor and Creative X-Fi sound. The company is positioning the tablets as entertainment devices with support for audio, video, and games, as well as web browsing. The tablets include 802.11b/g WiF and Bluetooth, have microSD cards for expansion, and HDMI ports for outputting video to a monitor or HDTV.
The Creative ZiiO 7 is a 7 inch model with an 800 x 480 pixel resistive touchscreen display, a front-facing VGA camera, and 8GB or 16GB of storage.
The Creative ZiiO 10 has a 10 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel resistive toucshcreen display, front-facing VGA camera, and 8G or 16GB of storage.
It looks like the only real difference between the ZiiO 7 and ZiiO 10 are is that one has a smaller, lower resolution screen than the other. Both support a wide range of media codecs including MP3, AAC, WMA, FLAC, OGG, WAV, MIDI, H.264, MPEG4, WMV9, MOV, AVI, and MKV.
I don’t see any information about Google Android Market access, but if I had to guess, I’d say that these tablets will ship without the Market app preloaded.
The ZiiO 7 will run £199.99 and up when it goes on sale in the UK soon. That’s about $320 US. The ZiiO 10 will start at £249.99, or about $399 US.
Update: Electric Pig has confirmed that the tablets will ship without access to the Android Market.
via EuroDroid
Supposedly the ZMS-08 system-on-a-chip will support 1080p H.264 video playback, OpenGL ES 2.0 and Flash acceleration. That’s not too bad, and if it is good on power it might be an interesting device series.
You have the stats right. I believe that this solution is part of the Cortex A8 family. Still, Creative has certain marketplace advantages, and I’d caution anybody against calling these “me too” devices in terms of the impact that they could have at places like your local consumer electronics store. People who know and like the Creative Labs name may be more likely to just go “all Creative” in terms of their entertainment peripherals, slates included.
These look like a good alternative to the Archos 70 and Archos 101 for anyone looking for a multimedia tablet.
It is indeed Cortex-A8, but like many ARM licensees these days, they’ve shoved the CPU into a little corner and surrounded it with specialised co-processors up the wazoo.
I’m a bit disappointed about this – “back in my day” Creative was the quality brand that you could expect good things from; but putting resistive screens on these tablets puts them in the bottom-feeder category.
Or maybe I’m just ignorant: I’ve seen other comments that resistive screens are better for entering Asian text, and I have no idea whether that’s true but it would be a good reason for Creative’s decision.