The Zii Egg: Showcasing Creative's potential
The egg has hatched
When sharp-eyed observers first spotted FCC documents on the Creative Zii Egg, it was apparent that the Singapore-based company was far from quietly exiting the media player market. Despite the current economic gloom, the developer's edition of the Zii could suggest that Creative may make a consumer version of this interesting device.
Is it a Creative phone? Is it a touchscreen successor to the Zen Vision:M? We had a hands-on with this prototype, and we think it is brimming with potential.
The Zii Egg, seen here operating on the Plaszma platform that Creative is working on.
Photo and caption credit: Kelvin Low/CNET Asia
Just like the good ole' Zen
The Zii Egg has an SD/SDHC expansion slot on the right that supports up to 32GB capacity.
Photo and caption credit: Kelvin Low/CNET Asia
Connectors
What we have here is probably Creative's first universal docking connector. While we've been very happy with its players sticking to mini-USB ports, the docking connector is necessary for video output on the Zii Egg. Thankfully, Creative has kept the mini-USB port intact, and happily, both are capable of syncing data between the Zii and PCs over the USB connection.
Photo and caption credit: Kelvin Low/CNET Asia
The HD Camera
A hotly discussed topic of the Zii is its HD camera. It's a 1.3-megapixel camera that's capable of 720p HD videos. That said, none of the demo units we tried had working software for the camera.
Still, does the camera position remind you of another device?
Photo and caption credit: Kelvin Low/CNET Asia
A front-facing camera and… what's that?
Front facing cameras are there for one main reason, to facilitate video calls. Notice that gap above it? Does it look like the perfect place to mount a speaker in?
Photo and caption credit: Kelvin Low/CNET Asia
Another element borrowed from the Zen
Of course, we're interested in how it sounds. The Zii Egg claims to have built-in X-Fi support, although this is enabled only through the operating system itself. We had a brief audition of this using a pair of UE 700 in-ear headphones. Safe to say, it sounded great.
The music player interface in Plaszma looks vaguely familiar to the one that Zen uses. And more Zen-ish signs were found when we tapped on the album art on the screen to access different display modes--here, for example, is where you rate your track.
Photo and caption credit: Kelvin Low/CNET Asia
Hello, what's this?
No, it's not broken. It's a preproduction sample, remember? That said, the video interface goes well with the touchscreen UI. But video playback isn't just what the Zii is capable of. See why in the next picture.
Photo and caption credit: Kelvin Low/CNET Asia
Not just any video output
While everyone else was raving about the Zii's music and video playback and connectivity capabilities, we noticed a little section of the FCC documents that suggested the Zii Egg has HDMI output.
It gets better. That's an up-scaled full-HD video output over HDMI. What's the big deal, you might ask? Well, its nearest competitor is capable of 576p output and limited to VGA video size only.
Photo and caption credit: Kelvin Low/CNET Asia
Opera browser
The Plaszma demo unit also had the Opera browser built-in to demonstrate its Wi-Fi capabilities.
Photo and caption credit: Kelvin Low/CNET Asia
On-screen keyboard
The onscreen keyboard may look similar to another offering, but typing on this keyboard was easy enough.
Photo and caption credit: Kelvin Low/CNET Asia
The Zii on Androids
The Zii is capable of running the Android operating system, which is really gaining popularity among major manufacturers, especially in the smart phone market where big companies like HTC have announced products that run on Android.
Photo and caption credit: Kelvin Low/CNET Asia
Where's the Marketplace?
The pull-up menu screen seems devoid of the Android Marketplace, but since it's still under development, it's a feature we hope to see on the finished products.
Photo and caption credit: Kelvin Low/CNET Asia
The Plaszma's home screen
It may look empty, but that's because Creative didn't have enough time to pack the device with more software.
Photo and caption credit: Kelvin Low/CNET Asia
The egg has hatched, and it shows what Creative is really capable of
Creative's savior may very well be the Google Android OS that has been gaining interest among manufacturers. Given what we've experienced with the prototype Egg, Creative has not only created a platform for hardware and software developers to design on, but also quite possibly a very capable device that may well be the next big thing.
At this time however, the company has not announced any official plans to make a consumer version of the Zii Egg. But given what we've seen, it's full of potential, and we hope we'll see a consumer-oriented version of the Zii Egg one day.
Photo and caption credit: Kelvin Low/CNET Asia
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