In just a few short years the Creative Labs MP3 player range has established a reputation that rivals any other digital audio product set.
The company behind these players, Creative, has long been considered to be a leading player in digital entertainment products such as the Sound Blaster sound cards; now they have a firm foothold in the MP3 music player sector.
The company was launched in 1981 in Singapore by Sim Wong Woo, by 1989 with the launch of Sound Blaster Creative became a major player in the digital entertainment sector. The year 2000 saw the launch of the world’s first portable hard disk based MP3 player, the Creative Nomad Jukebox. Its 6GB of storage was a real big deal at the time!
The key thing that continues to attract MP3 aficionados and music lovers to Creative players is the audio quality that is an intrinsic part of every player that they produce. This commitment to sound quality, together with an eye to cost and the ability to offer sleek players with all kinds of storage capacity has boosted the company’s reputation. Where once they solely competed with other hard-drive player companies such as Archos and Compaq, now the company is even pushing Apple for industry plaudits!
Since the launch of the first Nomad player, Creative have consistently evolved their product lines to meet consumer expectations. In the past some models would be given a lukewarm review, despite their superior sound technology, because they were relatively large in size compared to players such as the iPod. Things are very different now and you’ll find slim formats and funky designs in their ranges.
Their players now rank among the best of the best and can suit any budget, even their 60GB models are reasonably priced when you compare them to other players.
Creative’s current MP3 player range now includes:
- The Zen Range - there are various players in this range. These include the original Zen, the Micro, the Neeon, the Touch, the Nano Plus, the NX, the Xtra and the USB 2.0. Storage capacity here ranges from 512MB to 60GB.
- The MuVo Range - players in this range include the original MuVo, the Slim, the Sport C100, the V200, the TX FM, the TX, the USB 2.0 and the NX. Storage capacity here ranges from 128MB to 1GB.
- The MuVo² Range - players here include the original MuVo², the FM and the X-Trainer. Storage capacity here ranges from 512MB to 5GB.
- The Digital MP3 Range - players in this range include the Jukebox product set (2, 3 and 10GB) and the Digital MP3 set (FX200, Rhomba NX, MX and the FX 120). Storage capacity here ranges from 64MB to 20GB.
Future developments with Creative will undoubtedly involve the Zen Micro Photo, this player walked away with the G4techTV Best of CES Award in the Audio to Go category at CES 2005. Creative have also recently successfully launched a range of multi-media players.