iPod Killer? The 32gb Creative Zen

Everybody knows about the iPod. It’s been around forever and everybody has one. My mother, who waited until the 21st century to convert her music collection to CDs will be receiving an iPod for Christmas. In fact, iPods are so common that I found one in my box of Lucky Charms the other day. Anyway, you get the point.

I understand why iPods are so popular. They’re small and good-looking and Apple advertises exhaustively. Apple also has its music world wrapped up so tightly that once you go Apple, it’s hard to go back. It is for these reasons that I do not own an iPod and I probably never will. XM satellite radio has filled my music needs for the past year and the XM device I own has served adequately as my mp3 player. However, this year (or early next year) I will be making another plunge into the digital audio player (DAP) market.

There is a reason why I have waited so long to purchase my next mp3 player. I have known for over a year now that flash memory would be the future of handheld devices. Until now, manufacturers have been unable to produce media players with larger capacities of flash memories in a cost effective way. I believe that 30 gigabytes of flash memory is the sweet spot for the media player market. And just recently, Creative announced that it would begin selling its Creative Zen in capacities of up to 32 gigabytes. Creative has said that the 32gb player wouldn’t be released until first quarter of 2008. What I’m hoping is that Creative will start selling it at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in early January. If that is the case, I will probably blow a big wad of cash on it. Other advantages of the Creative Zen include its relatively large screen for its small size, and its SD card expansion slot which would allow one to increase the player’s capacity to more than 40gb. It also supports more audio and video formats than the iPod.

I know most people think that the new Microsoft Zune is the best challenger to the iPod, and that may be true with the amount of money that Microsoft is willing to sink into promoting its product. However, I still feel that the Creative Zen is the best bet for me.