It's hard to be excited after the last announcement in what october? surely there's an actual consumer device lined up using the Plazma OS (other than the zii egg) with the ziimeet platform. Surely someone has bitten right? right?

whats that electronics board pic on the left?

I'm holding my breath as I believe the next device will centre around the chinese market first and foremost. especially with all that stuff they were talking about making it cheaper and affordable for them.

What I want is news of say DELL, HTC or even samsung coming in and saying yes i would love to use yer zii chip in our next blah blah blahhhhhhhh.

at least then i could expect a creative product to maybe hit down under. I still have yet to see new products like the vado hit australian stores (yeah i know why that is) but they are really letting that market go especially when you can see kodak and samsung take advantage of it.

Creative does not know how to feed a buzz. they need to learn the "art of fanfare" from Apple.



how likely is it that they would sell Creative-branded Zii accessories but not Zii devices? think about it, if Dell releases a Zii device, they would not market it as a "Zii" product. chances are they would never mention the word Zii or Creative. so what would lead a regular Joe to ever head to Creative.com in search of Zii accessories? it doesnt look logic. Creative must be planning at least one Zii device.



could it be that the "Shanzai" strategy is only pertinent to the Chinese market? in other words, maybe they would release their own device in the Americas and Europe, but not in China.



there should be a thread just to discuss the firmware advances. both Plazsma and Android. all news and discoveries (by current Egg users) should be posted in it. i've found myself heading to other websites to find out what's going on with the Zii firmware. epiZENter is been around for a while and has a large member base, therefore it should be the source of Zii news. members and Mods should keep the place busting with info. i dont have an Egg, so i cant help much.

i say this based on old times.... when the ZVM first came out, this place looked like a big metropolis, booming with activity. it was a madhouse. nowadays the firware is updated and no one hears about it.

i dont mind if the Zii comes out via Dell.... as long as the device kicks ass, i'll be happy.
[ edited Feb 24 (2010) 11:51AM ]

looking forward to the zii trinity from the first day it was announced, but that's not the same as relaesed
indeed, we still have to C the first ziiproduct
and I just don't understand what's creative taking so long? zii summit was like a few months agoo

about the zii egg, I think they just used that road to work out the plaszma os, as soon as they don't need it anymore, it will drop dead
I thought differently in 2009, but Its just the truth

creative is letting me down the last couple of months
they need a big release, lots of attention, and some money
like when zen vision M came about
that did the trick, took some marcketshare from apple for sure, cause he got the red-dot award so

just waiting .
.. time is gonna tell everything .....

Sounds interesting. I believe something is coming in the next few months...but what? I think the Trinity has great specs but if it looks like that dated mock up device we saw last year... it will fail. Creative need a Wow factor from average jo on the street - not just the techy's!

The Zii Egg device looks better but could still use some tweaks - if just to differentiate it from the IPod. I had a white Zen Micro and I loved the feel of that. If they could implement a similar build, Zii Egg like Trinty phone, it could be an attention grabber.

nordloewelbas: I agree with your comments about the firmware updates. We all could have helped keep the Zii platform on the radar and help maintain some kind of interest if we had talked about it more.

Well lets just see what's coming!!!

I've said this before, and I'll say it over and over again, the direction Creative is moving in is just unpredictable nowadays. This summer, I'm getting a new player for sure, so if Creative wants some dough from one of their biggest fans, get a good player out by then!!!

Yeah I need a new player too. my zvm screen is broken!

I'm missing out on some quality old school music!

Don't hold your breath!!!!! I would have thought a Zii consumer device would have been out by now. or at least for CES 2010. Yet again Creative are missing the boat.

If you are waiting for a phone just get a iphone or blackberry. If Creative are taking so long to release a consumer Zii device I doubt if a phone is coming anytime soon.

if Creative fails to deliver a decent Zii device before the holidays, i'll get myself a Cowon O2. the most important things for me are: 1) bigger (than ZVM's) screen; 2) wide video format support.

btw, i'm using my ZenNX right now.... built to last!

...i am always telling people about the updates...
...just keep your eyes on the chatbox...
...also, Plaszma is great these days...
...they just released a new android firmware...
...so i switched to it to see how good it was...
...last time i did that i was very impressed with it...
...but these days, even though it has improved...
...i prefer to use plaszma, because plaszma is just that good...
...it is much more pleasant, and much more flexible...

so it should be android looks crap at default as long as plaszma allows android apps then all good

Make the phone (with all the goodies such as wifi, media player etc) for a prepaid carrier such as Tracfone for under $100 and I'll be impressed. All the good phones have you locked into 2 year contract hell.

@tmc: which is why I hope that Creative will release a standalone player, and not just a phone(that is, IF creative does decide to release any Zii device). I don't think any phone is worth a two-year contact.

@nordloewelabs: Me too! Even I, being a huge Creative fan, can only wait so long, and I'm waiting now not because I like Creative, but because I don't have the money to buy anything new as of now. If Creative doesn't get something out by, say this summer, or maybe a little later if I'm in the mood to wait a bit more, I'll be getting an S9 or a ZuneHD.

And I'm still using my ZVP ...for over 2 years now. I love it, it's a tank! I still have my MuVo, and it still works, and I'm quite shocked too! I do wish though, that I owned one of the older, more indestructible Creative players, like the Nomad jukebox.

Well rumour has it something IS coming soon there are flurries from the developers. Come on creative its time to show em what ya made of :p

I sure hope those rumors are true!

Yeh something is coming soon. It's probably a XFI3 or upgrqded Mosaic..........

If they're awesome, I wouldn't mind.

Unfortunately, ramakandra is rather painting a bright picture of what is actually going on (and I'm a little surprised since he is apparently following what is going on very closely). So far, the development of the Zii platform has been a complete mess:
- Firmware:Yes, firmware updates are released (but, e.g. for Android it took 3 month) but sometimes they just makes things worse (especially for Plazma).
- Can you believe that it took them 4 month to update android without being able to address very basic bugs like the WIFI not working in some cases (let alone that they would have been able to integrate the promised bluetooth)?
- Support: Company-side support in the Dev-Forum is almost ZERO.
- The developer documentation of the Plazma platform is more than poor.
- Ziilabs is using GPL source and are violating the licence by not publishing their altered code entirely (they've started though with a huge pressure from the developer's side)
- The Zii platform is not at ALL 100% market ready (as stated on their homepage). E.g. battery life is horrible, a lot of bugs (sound crashes in Android very often) and so on...
- Constantly, developers have to send back their devices for repair because they are not working anymore.

In short: The only thing which works in this company is the PR office- you just see another nice example above. It is not only me which is frustrated but in fact most of the developers and I've seen a lot of motivated people getting scared away from the project on both, Plazma and Android side.
I've been very hopeful at the beginning- especially about the "open development". It turned out, the ZiiLabs is not willing to cooperate with the developers above a very basic level.

So my advice: If it would turn out that they throw the hardware on the market soon (what I really don't believe): Don't buy it. You would buy a device in it's very early development stage (where it has never moved away from for the last half a year).

Btw: Cooperate policy at Creative:
[Linky]

So, that's enough bashing for now

[ edited Mar 09 (2010) 06:01PM ]