Finally, we can put all of those rumors to rest. Creative officially announced the Zen Vision W, its next generation portable media player.
In both 30GB and 60GB capacities, the Zen Vision W features a 4.3-inch, 16:9 widescreen, 480 x 272 resolution, FM radio with 32 station presets, voice recorder, and syncs with Microsoft Outlook contacts, calendar & tasks.
It supports many video formats, such as AVI, DivX 4 & 53, XviD4, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG4-SP, WMV9 and Motion-JPEG. It can play MP3, WMA, and WAV files and display JPEGs.
Battery life is said to last up to 13 hours for audio, or 4.5 hours for video, which is around the same battery life that the 30GB Zen Vision:M has.
The Zen Vision W is also reported to support music subscription services such as Yahoo! Music Unlimited, Napster To Go, Urge and MSN Music, as well as downloads from AOL Music Now, Soundbuzz, and Audible.com.
From the press release: "The Creative ZEN Vision W (30GB) premieres at COMEX 2006 in Singapore on 31 August 2006 for only S$649.00 and will be available at all Creative Stores island-wide and online at sg.store.creative.com, as well as other retail stores in Singapore. The 60GB model for just S$749.00 will be available in end September 2006."
Boy, those are hefty prices!
Even more so, Creative also announced a 60GB model of the Zen Vision:M, available for pre-order at COMEX 2006 for S$599.
[Gizmodo via epiZENter]
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August 31, 2006 1:34 PM
Those are Singapore dollars which work out to ~$412 and $476 US dollars respectively. I assume US pricing will be in line with the Archos and iPod competition.
August 31, 2006 3:36 PM
Yeah, I figured that, Dave...that's why I still have to go on a payment plan to afford one! HEHE Anything above $200 is a lot for me, well, to get myself something anyways!
August 31, 2006 5:56 PM
Here's hoping that it's a worthwhile device! I look forward to reading reviews! I remember people saying similar things about the screen size and aspect ratio when I got my Palm Tungsten T3, how you could slide it out and flip the display so it would make use of the wide screen; I suppose now, depending on whether or not the device is any good in the first place, we'll see if people really do have an appetite for portable video with their mp3s.