Creative Zii/Zii EGG!

[jonnys]

Anybody hear about the new Creative Zii? I am really excited about it because of its hardware, its much more powerful than an iPhone..(even 3gs), So developing Ogre3d on it should be a beautiful experience. It will run the Android OS or Creative's own Plaszma OS. It supports OpenGL ES 2.0!
You can get one now (Creative Zii Egg developer version for as low as $199!) on their site!.
http://www.zii.com

Engadget has some videos and CNet has a hands on.

This isa link to a 3D game running on the ZIi using the Accelerometer to control a bike in a 3d scene. http://www.zii.com/Developer/SDKVideo.aspx Cool.


These are the specs of the hardware
http://www.zii.com/Developer/SDKProduct ... GGFeatures:

Zii EGG
• Capacitive 10-point multi-gesture touch display • Hardware GPS receiver
• 3.5” 320x480 true-color display • Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• X-Fi audio processing • 3-axis Accelerometer
• Up to 32GB Internal Flash Storage • Ambient light sensor
• 32MB NOR Flash (Linux Kernel Boot ROM) • SDHC slot (supports up to 32GB of external SDHC Card)
• 256MB Mobile DDR RAM • USB 2.0 Mini-B (MTP and Charging)
• Supports 720p and 1080p HDTVs via HD cable • Universal Docking connector (USB, Audio)
• Composite video out • Headphone socket, built-in speaker and microphone
• Dual cameras • Supports Plaszma OS and Android
- Forward facing VGA camera • 1200mAH rechargeable lithium-ion
- Rear facing HD camera • Light weight: 108grams
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g • 115 x 62 x 12 mm

This is the specs of the ZMS-05 processor used in the Zii:

ZMS-05 Media Rich Application Processor
• Dual ARM processor cores
• High resolution - decode to 1080p/720p encode
• 1080p HDMI output
• Supports wide range of codecs e.g H.264, MPEG 1/2/4, WMV/VC-1
• Powerful floating-point 3D graphics
• Supports OpenGL ES 1.1 and 2.0
• High quality audio encode and decode
• High Quality Imaging Processing
• Low power architecture
• Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling
• Multiple clock domains and clock gating
• 16 independent power down regions
• Suspend to RAM for standby
• USB 2.0 OTG controller
• Analog HD TV encoder
• Three independent 12/24-bit video units
• Three SDIO/MMC/CE-ATA controllers
• Mobile SDR, DDR and DDR2
• 64/32-bit data bus
• 1Gbyte address space

The plaszma SDK that comes with it ..(if u choose not to use Android) supports:

Native C/C++ Development • Opera 9.7 Web Browser supporting CSS, XHTML, JavaScript and Ajax
• Wide range of supported video, image and audio formats • Adobe® Flash Lite™ 3.1(available in August)
• Cell Framework of industry standard API’s and Libraries • Internationalization and localization of applications
• Advanced 2D and vector graphics, compositing and blending • Integrated Database
• OpenGL ES 3D graphics • Network services and Event management
• HD media playback and record framework • Sensor handling (accelerometer, GPS, ambient light)
• State-of-the-art multi-touch, gesture-based user interface

This device has alot of potential as a PMP..MID....maybe even a netbook ... lets hope it lives up to its potential and sell for a low cost!!!

It would be cool if someone could buy one and port the iPhone OpenGL ES 2.0 renderer to it. Since masterfalcon already did a great deal of work (thumbs up)
---Question to masterfalcon: How easy do you think it would be to port ogre to this device?

[Kojack]

Hmm, I've never heard of the Zii until now, been too busy waiting for a Pandora.

Looks pretty damn cool. Dual arm cpus, gps, wifi, bluetooth, ambient light sensor, 3d accelerometer, 10 point multitouch screen, 1080p output, 8gflops, opengl es, and a c++ native sdk.
It could be a good replacement for my Dell Axim and iRiver mp3 player. Although it's only got 320x480 res, compared to 640x480 on my Axim.
Although I'm not sure there's much of a pda market around these days, everyone wants phone functionality built in.

The name is a bit strange though. Zii EGG with Stemcell cpu and Plaszma OS?

The battery life will be the real decider for me.

The website lists the price right now as $399, and you can't select australia as a country (only 11 countries are listed).

(Edit: There is a $199 version, but it doesn't come with 32GB of storage. The website doesn't seem to offer it from their store though, only the $399 version comes up)

[nikki]

Why is it named very much like the 'Wii'? Makes it sound like a parody or something.

[xavier]

Why is it named very much like the 'Wii'?

Because marketing hacks have no imagination The same reason that if a Bioshock sells well, we'll have publishers putting out clones of Bioshock.

[volca]

It's an impressive piece of hardware - but why that recent no-keyboard trend?

I suppose this device should be game oriented - having no analog stick or even a button-only cross and some action buttons seems like a really bad design decision. I can't understand the hype over iPhone gaming either for the same reason (Heck the same can be said about FPS gaming using console controls, but I guess that is more a matter of getting used to than this). Can anyone please enlighten me?

[Kojack]

That's why I'm still waiting for the pandora: dual analog sticks, dpad, 4 action buttons, triggers, qwerty keyboard and touch screen. It doesn't matter how powerful the hardware is inside of something, games aren't fun to play without good controls.

But for a pda/mp3/video device, the Zii sounds great.

[volca]

Pandora is a great piece of hardware. It's surprising it took a group of enthusiasts to realise someone would like such a device. Well, the big players tend to copy one another in fear of bad choice of investment targets.

[stoneCold]

I never heard of the pandora before, but now that I did some google-ing on it and watched some videos, I have to say that I'm very impressed and that I simply want to have one .... NOW !
Does somebody happen to know in what approximate price class they plan to release it ?

*Go-Go-Gadget-Pandora*

[volca]

The first batch was sold for $330 or €300 if I found it right. There will be next batch of orders starting the upcoming december, according to this page.

[Kojack]

To be accurate, the first batch has been pre-ordered. A bunch of people paid $330us to get one of the first batch when they get released, but so far OpenPandora are still working on the case moulds, making tv out cables, fixing the firmware and improving wifi.

I generally don't like paying for something which isn't even finished being designed, I've seen too many cool things fail to reach market.