- Jul 9, 2010
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This got lost in the midst of the Honeycomb news, but Creative announced the 10" Creative ZiiO 10 early last week on February 22. As it comes with Android 2.1, a single-core processor, and a resistive single-touchpoint touchscreen, it really isn't the most exciting Android tablet ever released. But it is the largest Android tablet with a resistive touchscreen on the market, and the pricing isn't exactly unbearable either for what will be a decent package out of the box.
American pricing is $299.99 for the 8GB internal memory version, and $319.99 for the 16GB. In the UK, £249.99 for 8GB, and £269.99 for 16GB. The tablets can be ordered directly via the Creative online store, with free-shipping. The pricing puts it in direct competition with the Archos 70 and 101 IT, but those tablets already have Android 2.2 and are also equipped with capacitive touchscreens with multi-touch support, despite having half the onboard RAM and making it a slower performer. It really makes little sense for most consumers to consider the ZiiO 10 at this point, but some people do prefer resistive touchscreens, but it would definitely not be the majority. We are scratching our heads on this one. In one word, it is unattractive.
The upgrade to Android 2.2 is expected in the first half of March this month, according to a tweet from Creative. We doubt this will ever see an upgrade to Honeycomb.
Creative ZiiO tablets are equipped with Creative's very own ZiiOLabs ZiiLABS ZMS-08 HD Cortex A8 single-core processor at 1GHz, 512MB RAM, bluetooth, wifi g, HDMI output, front camera, SD memory expansion, and support for many video formats. Both 7" and 10" models come with single-touch resistive touchpanels, which may be enough to drive some away from the device. The 10" in display has a resolution of 1024x600 pixels. Neither tablets ship with Google mobile applications such as the Android Market or Gmail.
You can join the discussion for the ZiiO at our subforum for Creative tablets.
