Creative Labs Zen MP3 Players Sound Blaster Card

Don't know how many more of these they are going to make before they die away as a company.

they still make good mp3 players

Total flop. Same stuff over and over again, no innovation at all! What a disappointment, i used to support creative but its just frustrating to see this kind of lousy stuff again and again

There's no design aesthetics in Creative products. It also needs alot of work on improving its hardware and software. Its competitors make better products and provide easier support to its customers. The only way to do great work is to love what you do. Creative doesn't do that. And that's the reason, their supporters had left. Music is always wonderful and beautiful. If the box doesn't look good, it also sound no good either. People doesn't know how to differentiate good products. But if it looks good, it also sound good. That's human nature.

creative is a company which focus on technical features and capabilities. physical appearance and look is secondary. but i think they are improving on that

Its mp3 user interface was outdated. So many things can be done and they are not doing anything. So many things which can be useful like song lyrics, songs recognition, music store, 3G functionalities. They just repackaged without innovations. Sure doom. Look at Samsung, Apple. Their players have better capabilities. Creative player doesn't sell. I have a smart phone which does better. How it differentiates itself from the phone then? It needs alot more passion and alot more hardwork to do something better. They need to have more speed too. It cannot always produce more cheap players without looking at the carbon footprint. It needs to change its business model and do its part to conserve earth resources. Just few good smart devices with upgradeable hardware options are more substainable in the near future.

i think creative knew that mp3 player market is dying as more people are using smart phones as a mp3 player. but they still manage to introduce a touch sensitive mp3 player with its sd card memory integrated with its main internal memory.

Creative still doesn't get it. Why is it multi-touch instead of buttons? The objective is to make the player easier to use. I find their players difficult to use and it turns off many people like me to buy their new players. Why is it people choose smart phone instead of mp3 player now? They just want one device. In future, people will want a NFC capable smart phone to replace their cash cards and credit cards. It's all about convenience and ease of usage. No doubt audio quality is important. But in human eyes, if it sounds almost similar. The next thing is to see whether it looks and touch better. This is the same situation between Andriod phone and Apple iPhone. Andriod wins market place due to its cheaper price and equivalent software functionality. The market has already shrink for MP3 players, it shouldn't place so much attention to that. It should follow the tide and come out with its own smart devices. The only way to do it better is to do it yourself to ensure quality is there. Audio is always great but not better for MP3yet. There's still room for improvements. Example: Steve Jobs already see it and wants to help their customers get better quality songs through their cloud solutions. Quality is always important and he place the customer to his centric. This is where people feel appreciative on Steve Jobs. People won't remember who is Sim Wong Hoo or their sound card. They only remember that it is a piece of shit hardware that is going to crash the windows and result in blue screen. Its sound card either doesn't work or it doesn't work well. Who to blame? Intel or Microsoft? Take charge of your own hardware and software drivers like what Apple did. It elimates many support issues and can concentrate on service and software enhancement.

it is easier said than done. creative is not a big MNC like Apple, Microsoft or Amazon. it cant afford to have billions of dollars or budget to do cloud solutions. look at amazon, they can afford to sell kindle fire at a loss and hopes to make it up through sales of ebook or movies. if creative were to do that, they will be bankrupt in a second. smartphone is everywhere now. the only market for mp3 player is those developing countries where smartphone is literally non-existent. not places like USA. sound cards are also non-essential now with onboard sound performing really well. most people can't hear a difference.

the best bet now for creative is their OEM jaguar class android tablets. they are smart not to go directly into consumer market where they are facing stiff competition from Apple, Sony, Samsung, etc. Let's hope some big boys engage them to build android tablets...