Written on June 30, 2008 – 9:06 am | by Bogdan Alex |
It seems that iPod Touch and MS Zune will soon have a strong competitor. This one comes from Creative in the form of a wireless music player with Wi-Fi media sharing capabilities called the Zen X-Fi.

From what we can see in the pictures already circulating on the Net, the player features a chrome-and-black plastic look, with a nine-point directional pad. X-Fi will also come with an SD card slot and a built-in speaker.

The final specs are not known as of yet, but there’s s number of leaked specs that present the nine-point pad as an alternative way to type text in instant messaging programs such as Windows Live or Yahoo Messenger with the aid of a phone-style typing schema. The device will also use wireless data transfers to share media between home networked computers and access an Internet-based media pool, called a Public Home Server.

The player is named after Creative's X-Fi audio technology, because it comes with some of the features found in the X-Fi audio cards. These include the restoration of lost data in compressed music files to create concert-like audio effects. In order to benefit from the X-fi technology, users can use the Crystalizer to make audio richer and clearer, and the Expand option which repositions the music to sound like it's coming from in front of you, simulating listening to a live performance on stage.

No word on pricing and availability.