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Creative Zen Micro Photo Delayed
comment: 9 | Thursday, June 16 (2005) 09:46AM | Posted by Austin Vaughan

BetaNews reports that Creative's Zen Micro Photo player - an upcoming version of the Zen Micro which includes an OLED color screen - has been delayed until August, at least, and possibly later. Originally announced at CES, in January, the Micro Photo was supposed to be on the market by now. The 5gb version was going to be priced at $ 299 and a 6gb version for $ 349, but the Creative recently indicated that the prices will probably be different when it finally launches. As well they should...

Keep in mind that Creative announced these prices well before Apple decided to put a squeeze on the premium segment by slashing prices on thier iPod Photo series, back in Februrary. That may even be the why the Micro Photo is delayed, since Creative will have to sell it for less now, at a time when they're being scrutinized because of shrinking profits. Or perhaps they just can't enough of those full-color OLED screens... a real possibility. Players like the iPod Photo and iAudio X5 rely on TFT type color screens, which are more readily available.

If you remember, we had a chance to play with a prototype of the Micro Photo at CES. We even managed to snap up a few pictures... check out our super-exclusive Micro Photo gallery HERE.
Comments

Michael
Location: New York City
Comments: 2786
 		Jun 16 (2005) 04:33PM  

I like OLED screens a lot, and think it might be in most players in the future, but I don't like the yellow colored text in those pictures. It'd be nice if you could change the colors of the text.



estat

Comments: 67
 		Jun 16 (2005) 05:59PM  

The control strip should be slightly tweaked. After using the iriver H10, I would have to say that the H10's control strip is easily better than the Micro's. That is kind of offset, however, because the H10's interface can be laggy as hell.



melted_one

Comments: 4
 		Jun 16 (2005) 07:35PM  

^^^ Meh, I have to disagree. Instead of scrolling, I tap the top or bottom or top part of the strip on the h10 because of the unintuitive touch pad.



egloskerry

Comments: 410
 		Jun 16 (2005) 09:03PM  

If they're smart, they'll wait and add an 8GB version to the lineup.



SowndOfDeth

Comments: 417
 		Jun 16 (2005) 10:16PM  

Companies like Apple, Google etc, never announce their products way ahead of release dates (I am not getting into a debate of apple-intel thing ) - that actually works to their advantage and saves their face incase of some awkward delay ....

Why can't companies like creative, etc release products and then talk ? (or rather let the products talk for themselves.. )
iRiver doesn't do much of marketing... but their products are not talking well either ... I like my H10 though.

Its probably a better idea to release a 8gb version ....



Michael
Location: New York City
Comments: 2786
 		Jun 16 (2005) 11:41PM  

google?, how did that get thrown into a dap discussion?



broadwayrock

Comments: 32
 		Jun 17 (2005) 07:25AM  

Apple never announce their products way ahead of release dates?

What about Apples recent announcement about switching to Intel? Thats going to cost them a lot.

I do agree with Apple in the dap market. They can announce a new ipod a month before the release date.

Maybe other companies like Creative and iRiver cannot market that way because they need to build a momentum of enthusiasm for their products, something Apple never really needs with the iPod.


vince

Comments: 115
 		Jun 17 (2005) 04:20PM  

"Why can't companies like creative, etc release products and then talk ?"

Because then everybody will complain that they aren't doing anything. See: Rio



SowndOfDeth

Comments: 417
 		Jun 19 (2005) 03:11AM  

Whats the use of creating a momentum that doesn't help sales ?



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TheDarkSide
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