[Tejstar]

I posted this in the MP3 forums, however given that this can be seen as a silm PMP I thought it would be worth posting here too.

Creative have announced the Zen, that's it no model number or name, just the Zen. It seems like Creative have a lot riding on this little beauty judging by the name. It looks like they are also pre-empting Apple's rumoured announcement of a widescreen iPod Nano next week, as this player looks gorgeous imo. The fact that this is Creative's first device to support AAC-encoded songs will also rub salt in the wounds.

This is a flash based player and its form factor will appeal to many. Here's some of its main features:

Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.2cm
Flash storage: 4, 8 or 16GB (more memory can be added through SDHC slot)
Codec support: AAC, MP3, WMA and WMA DRM, MPEG 4, WMV, DivX video and JPEG photos
Screen: 2.5in, 16.7m-colour screen
FM Tuner
Microphone
Battery life: Five hours' video playback or 25 hours' music listening.
Price: £100 for the 4GB model; £140 for the 8GB version. The 16GB player's price has yet to be set.

Piccy 1

Piccy 2

The 16GB version has been reviewed at Popular Mechanics here.

The offical Creative Zen site is here.

This seems like a beauty of a player and the fact that it supports divx is a big plus point in my books. Although, anyone would be silly to buy until hearing what Apple have to say on 5th September.

[FrankS]

Looks like the solid state media players are here, it will be interesting to see how this compares with the Archos generation 5 series which have just been launched.

With the price of SDHC cards coming down these start to be an attractive alternative to HDD PMP's.

[Tejstar]

It was the comparison to Archos' fifth gen players that made me think if posting it here. They certainly seem like exciting little players, I can't wait to see how they compare to Apple's new products expected to be announced next week.