We here at TeenTechBlog may often come off as Mac aficionados, but I speak for myself when I say iPods suck. That is, compared to the rest of the market. For a better price, you can buy a player with a greater range of features, and most often, with a greater audio quality! So, I am happy to finally hear word from Creative about an upcoming player. Word from epiZENter.net has it that Creative has unofficially announced the Creative Zen X-Fi. The company has taken an interesting twist in this player in adding some unique features which may pan out to be positive. The X-Fi is a player that assumably will be advertised based on the premise of Creative’s reknowned X-Fi audiocards, appealing to the audiophiles who want to carry their music on the go. Read on!

Features:

• Audio: MP3, WMA, AAC (unprotected), WAV, and Audible
• Video: WMA, MPEG4-SP, Divx 4/5, Xvid, and MJPEG
• Built-in X-Fi technology with two effects (Crystallizer and Expand)– guaranteed great sound
• Wi-Fi for instant messaging (Yahoo! and Windows Live!) and wireless streaming– admittedly not as useful as the full-blown web browser found on the iPod touch, but better than the more comparable iPod classic, which has no internet capability at all
• FM Tuner and Voice Recorder– a feature glaringly missing in the iPod product line
• Built-in Speaker– again iPod decided to skip this one, unfortunately
• SD Support–Far more reliable than the the iPod’s hard drive. There is built in memory too, but they don’t know how much yet. It can be assumed that it will come in 8, 16 and 32 GB sizes as the same has been true for it’s Creative’s other Zen player
• Premium quality earphones included (EP-830)– it may not seem like a big deal, but how many broken sets of junky iPod earphones to you have lying around?
• Battery Life: 36 hours for Audio, 5 hours for Video (May differ depending on X-Fi)– pretty similar to the 80 gb iPod classic, which has a slightly lower 30 and then also 5, respectively.

If you are sick of the constant grievences that are often associated with buying an iPod such as my self (countless batteries and hard-drives have malfunctioned), please investigate the opposition! If you need help, heck, send us an email and we will try to help you to find the best deal possible!

More (epiZENter.net)