Walking Amongst Dark Shadows

Good things come to those who wait

I have had quite a few emails over the past week mostly asking where Creative’s answer to the new iPod’s are. Truth be told, there isn’t one - yet.

On August 30th 2007, Creative leaked out images of their next generation replacement for their flagship MP3/Video player - the Zen Vision:M. The new Creative Zen was a flash based player coming in three capacities of 4, 8 and 16GB. The player was almost identical to the ZVM, aside from having SD storage expansion, a superior screen and er, well that’s all sadly. For most users it was a downgrade because Creative, like most MP3 manufacturer’s seemed to be following the trend in moving away from hard disk based players onto Flash based players, which are cheaper to manufacture and more reliable.

The ZVM was one of the best DAP’s (Digial Audio Players) to come out of the portable music industry. In terms of sales it never could match the iPod, but specification wise it was a lot superior and for those owners who had one, they knew how powerful it was within minutes of using the player. It offered heaps of features, was solid and robust albeit a bit of a fatty. It could play almost any video format you could throw at it and it’s screen was far superior over the iPod and the rest of the competition.

September 5th 20076 saw Apple release their ‘new’ iPod range, with the main focus being on the lovely, sleek flash based iPod Touch. This device, whilst inferior to the ZVM feature wise, was enough to even grab my attention and I have one pre-ordered to arrive early October 2007, look out for a review. Creative have no answer to the iPod range, and at the IFA convention where all the Creative fans were hoping to see a new next generation player were left unimpressed by the Zen - hardly an impressive upgrade over the ZVM. Zen fans began to look elsewhere for a next generation player, as did I.

The industry is moving away from hard disk based players, and sales wise it has been clearly shown that flash players are selling much faster. The iPod Nano outsells it’s bigger iPod brothers, whilst Creative’s range of flash players are more popular than their hard disk based models. Apple customers have a good range of models at their disposal, while Creative have let their fans down by offering nothing but a smaller capacity ZVM. From a sales point of view you can’t blame Creative for ditching their support for hard disk based players. Apple can afford to take that risk because their products sell themselves through hype and advertising, the latter of which Creative have been rather slack on.

Where to now?

So Creative’s showing at the IFA was a disappointment and they’ve let down their fans somewhat. Most including yours truly were expecting an X-FI based player but instead we ended up losing our larger hard disk capacity to a flash based product.

The chaps at Tech.co.uk spoke to Alan Devine, Creative’s brand specialist after the IFA convention and he had this to say about Creative’s future. "We’re here today to talk specifically about the newly-announced Creative Zen," he said. "But yes we do have some spectacular new products in the early stages of development in Singapore. The Creative Zen will be our flagship player for the next couple of months at least."

On Creative adding XFI technology to their players, he had this to say. "It’s something we’re actively working on," he said. "The trouble is that the technology is so good that it’s quite battery-intensive, so wouldn’t currently work well in a portable device. There’s nothing arriving in the short term but we are working hard to try and get X-Fi into a player."

As to weather we can expect any more products from them in future, he had this to say. "We have a range of products coming out over the next year. We’ve done well in the entry level with the Zen Stone; the Creative Zen fits nicely mid-market. That leaves a pretty obvious area of the market for us to fill, and I can’t say more than that."

This is certainly good news indeed and proves that Creative haven’t given up on the DAP market yet, they’re branching out making different products, which includes third party devices for the Ipod range as well as their own. They have so far replaced the ZVM with the new Zen, but have yet to see a replacement for their Zen Vision:W - the widescreen version of their ZVM. So Creative will be announcing new players in future, but will they have the storage music enthusiasts really require? We haven’t seen the last of Creative that’s for sure.