umpcportal home

Tag Archive | "ziiO"

Creative ZiiO Tablets – Cheap, Audio-Centric and with Resistive Touchscreens


ziiO7 ziio10

Lets put aside the issue of resistive touchscreens for the minute as I think most of you know that it’s not the best way to implement a finger-touch user interface. I’m taking a closer look at the Creative Tablets for one reason APT-X.

APT-X is a 352kbps ‘CD-quality’ codec implementation that can be used over the Bluetooth A2DP profile (instead of the default SBC codec) to provide high quality audio, something that A2DP hasn’t really delivered on yet. [More information here.] Up until now, if you wanted a high-quality digital stream to feed into your HiFi, you had to take either HDMI or a digital audio output from a docking station. If you wanted something without wires, there wasn’t much choice.

The ZiiO Tablets are built on the Creative ARM Cortex A8 core in their own ZMS-08 application processor and they seem to have focused well on audio reproduction. I’m not saying this will be ‘pure’ but it’s likely, with the APT-X implementation, to able to deliver high quality wireless digital audio. Of course, you’ll have to find a device that can receive the audio (Surprise! Creative have some headphones and speakers) so there’s still some way to go here.

As for the rest of the tablet, it looks like an AOS (Android Open Source) solution with a good chunk of storage and a decent price although Android 2.1 won’t get the best out of the ARM Cortex core for sure. If you can handle the resistive touchscreen and fancy playing with some HQ audio and video (H.264, MPEG4, WMV9, MJPEG, MOV, AVI, MKV is supported) it could be of interest for you. If not, you’re probably going to be taking a look at the Archos Tablets.

ZiiO 7 information at Creative website. 16GB version will be available for just under 220 UK Pounds

ZiiO 10 information at Creative website 16GB version will be available for just under 270 UK Pounds

News found via Journal Du Geek

Follow Chippy on  TwitterFollow Chippy on  YouTube

Popular mobile computers on UMPCPortal

Acer C740
11.6" Intel Celeron 3205U
Acer Aspire Switch 10
10.1" Intel Atom Z3745
HP Elitebook 820 G2
12.5" Intel Core i5 5300U
Acer Aspire E11 ES1
11.6" Intel Celeron N2840
Acer C720 Chromebook
11.6" Intel Celeron 2955U
ASUS Zenbook UX305
13.3" Intel Core M 5Y10a
Dell Latitude E7440
14" Intel Core i5-4200U
Lenovo Thinkpad X220
12.5" Intel Core i5
Acer Chromebook 11 CB3-131
11.6" Intel Celeron N2807
Lenovo Ideapad Flex 10
10.1" Intel Celeron N2806

Find ultra mobile PCs, Ultrabooks, Netbooks and UMPCs quickly using the following links: