Creative Unveils Zen V Plus, Xmod in India

Manufacturer of digital entertainment products, Creative Technology, has announced two new products for Indian consumers — Creative Zen V Plus and Creative Xmod.

The Creative Zen V Plus is a compact Mp3 player, with features such as a 1.5" OLED display, FM radio with 32 presets, one touch voice recording and a five way joystick- based user interface. The MP3 player can also sync with Microsoft Outlook contacts, calendars and tasks to function as a mini organizer and can double as a memory stick for word documents and images ( in .jpg format). While users will be able to view pictures and album art on the device, they will not be able to view their word documents, stored within.

 An interesting feature of the Creative Zen V plus is the line–in point on the device, for recording directly from a CD player, without the use of a PC. In addition, the device offers up to 92dB Signal to noise ratio sound quality and the capability to play music in MP3 as well as WMA and WAV formats, downloaded from subscription and pay per download services such as Yahoo! Music Unlimited, Napster To Go and Soundbuzz.

Creative Zen V plus series is available in 1 GB (MRP Rs. 7,499), 2 GB (MRP Rs 9,999) and 4 GB (MRP Rs. 12,999) capacity in varying colors, while an 8 GB version is on its way. The battery is capable of 15 hours of continuous audio playback.

The Creative Xmod, the first external X-Fi device that claims to improve digital music beyond CD quality, is introduced by Creative for the first time in India. The device is based on Creative's X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity audio platform that improves music playback quality for MP3, WMA, iTunes or AAC songs, to beyond the original CD quality. It connects between stereo speakers or headphones and either PC, Mac, iPod, Creative Zen or any other MP3 player, and upconverts the music during playback to the X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity standard in high quality 24 –bit surround audio.

Sim Wong Hoo, chairman and CEO OF Creative said, "There are more than 100 million people who listen to MP3, WMA or AAC music on their PCs, Macs or iPod or Zen players but the quality of these compressed music are highly compromised. The Creative Xmod enables them to listen to their music with audio that sounds even better than CDs. Now with Creative Xmod, all your music is instantly upconverted to Xtreme fidelity standard in real time through a simple and compact device."

According to Creative, the X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity provides two important audio functions, X-Fi Crystalizer and X-Fi CMSS 3D, which improve and enhance music listening experiences. The X-Fi upconverts MP3 music by analyzing and identifying which parts of the audio stream have been truncated or damaged during compression. The X-Fi CMSS-3D creates virtual surround sound through speakers or headphones. It also uses advanced techniques to place specific audio elements, such as the voice of a movie character, in the virtual centre channel while ambiance is played through virtual surround sound.

The Creative Xmod is now available here at MRP Rs. 7999.

In Mumbai, both new products will be available at various retail outlets and gadget stores such as Chroma, Hypercity, Inorbit (malad) and Heera Panna, but Creative has no plans of launching exclusive stores yet. Customer services for Creative products is available at http://asia.creative.com/support.

Representatives said that the company will reinforce its presence in the country soon after its Indian regional office is set up in Mumbai, this march. Indian customers may then look forward to more Creative products in the country as well as product launches, on par with international releases.