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Creative adds to music player lineup with Zen Mozaic

By Michael Hatamoto, BetaNews

July 24, 2008, 2:54 PM

Creative expanded its music player lineup Thursday, releasing new models designed to be fashionable with a mosaic design where the buttons are located.

The Creative Zen Mozaic comes in four sizes -- 2GB, 4GB, 8GB and 16GB -- with a stronger emphasis on the music player's looks than functionality.

All models are able to play music and video files, along with display photos and CD cover art. The Mozaic has a 1.8-inch screen, built-in speaker, FM radio, microphone, and supports MP3, WMA, WMA-DRM 10, and JPEG file formats. The device measures 79.5mm x 40mm x 12.8mm.

The specifications of the Zen Mozaic are rather ordinary when compared to other digital audio players, but Creative seems to be banking device's mosaic design that will likely be met with varied levels of enthusiasm from the market.

Creative continues to launch music players, but it has largely been overshadowed by market leader Apple and SanDisk, which has overtaken Creative in market share. Each company has worked not only to pack more storage space into their players, but also to make them more visually appealing for consumers.

The 2GB Zen Mozaic is available for $99, the 4GB model is available for $129, 8GB $169, and 16GB for $249. The 2GB and 4GB models are available now, with the 8GB and 16GB models expected to be released next month.

Creative's Zen lineup now has 12 different models available to consumers. The company has had a busy July, also announcing the Zen X-Fi and Zen X-Fi with Wi-Fi, which have a 2.5-inch displays and ship with Creative software aimed at cleaning up poorly compressed sound files.

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By shicaca

posted Jul 25, 2008 - 11:28 AM

haha they really are going further and further away from what most people want these days. They had it right on the money with their Zen Vision:M and W's, but have had nothing but crap since.

Their UI hasn't changed
They took out some of the vid formats they had w/ the Zen's
They don't listen to things their customers want

The only thing they have going for them is that the sound is still pretty good on their players.

This weekend I had the choice of getting a X-Fi or a Touch. I spent a lot more money than I would have with the X-Fi, but in the end I think I'll be happier w/ my Internet-enabled device that is widely supported (also a huge flaw of the Zen's in general)