News

Creative Launches Android Tablets

Esther Shein

The entertainment-focused ZiiO 7" tab includes the Pure Android Audio application and Creative's X-Fi Crytalizer, which the company claims provides a superior experience over "conventional tablets that offer mediocre sound."

Creative Technology ZiiO Tablet
(click image for larger view)
Creative Technology ZiiO Tablet

Creative Technology, a maker of audio products, has entered the increasingly competitive tablet landscape with two Android-based entertainment devices.


More Hardware Insights

Webcasts

More >>

White Papers

More >>

Reports

More >>

The Creative 7-inch tablet is being touted as different from "conventional tablets that offer mediocre sound." By touching an onscreen button, a user will launch the Pure Android Audio application, which offers Creative's X-Fi Crytalizer, X-Fi Expand, and apt-X audio enhancements, the company said.

The ZiiO devices run on Android 2.1 OS, and offer a touch screen, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g connectivity, HD video output, a front-facing camera and a built-in microphone and speaker. Both are available with 8GB and 16GB of memory. The two ZiiO devices also come with an accelerometer, playtime of up to 25 hours (MP3) and up to five hours of video, a microSD card slot up to 32GB and a stylus.

"Pure Android Audio represents the most seamless high quality wireless audio streaming experience from an Android based device,'' according to Creative. "This is achieved with the unique Pure Android audio application (a one-touch onscreen icon housing X-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity interfaces), and a host of audio enhancement technologies that include the apt-X codec and lossless audio support."

Like other competitor tablets, the ZiiO devices let users connect to the internet, send emails, and shop for apps, games, and ebooks -- the ZiiO tablets can access apps from Creative's ZiiStore.

The 7-inch 16GB ZiiO tablet retails for $270 and the 8GB tablet retails for $250. Both are available through Creative.

According to a Goldman Sachs, some 54.7 million tablet computers will ship in 2011, an increase of more than 500% over this year.

Other recent tablet announcements include ViewSonic, which said this week that it is now shipping its Android-based 7-inch device in the U.S. Last week, Sprint said it will introduce a tablet device in 2011.

For the 14th consecutive year, InformationWeek Analytics is conducting its U.S. IT Salary Survey. Take the survey now and be eligible to win a Sony HDTV or other prizes. Survey ends Jan. 14.

Related Reading


Informationweek Discussions

Start the Discussion


InformationWeek encourages readers to engage in spirited, healthy debate, including taking us to task. However, InformationWeek moderates all comments posted to our site, and reserves the right to modify or remove any content that it determines to be derogatory, offensive, inflammatory, vulgar, irrelevant/off-topic, racist or obvious marketing/SPAM. InformationWeek further reserves the right to disable the profile of any commenter participating in said activities.

Disqus Tips To upload an avatar photo, first complete your Disqus profile. | View the list of supported HTML tags you can use to style comments. | Please read our commenting policy.
Subscribe to RSS

Resource Links