Creative announces world's first digital media player with Xtreme Fidelity X-Fi audio technology - the ZEN X-Fi

The Creative ZEN X-Fi provides a breakthrough in sound quality for digital music with the X-Fi Crystalizer, a Creative audio technology that greatly improves music quality during playback.

It does this by restoring the highs and lows that were lost during ripping to MP3, WMA or AAC formats, allowing you to listen to your music at a higher quality than was previously possible on any MP3 player.

With the Creative ZEN X-Fi, you can really experience your music with the sound quality of the original recordings.

To truly deliver the ideal music listening experience, Creative is including a set of premium EP-830 in-ear earphones with every Creative ZEN X-Fi.

Alternatively, share your great-sounding music with your friends by using the built-in speaker.

The benefits of the Xtreme Fidelity X-Fi audio technology don't stop with music.

The ZEN X-Fi also supports many video file formats, allowing you to view movies with accompanying soundtracks that now sound just as the studio intended.

"We're very excited to achieve this breakthrough of adding our X-Fi audio technology to a ZEN player, setting the highest standard in audio quality for portable music players," said Mr. Leonard Yap, Associate Marketing Manager of Creative Labs Middle East (CLME). "Some of the top recording artists in the music industry are very outspoken about the poor quality of digital music. We addressed the issue of the poor quality of digital music by inventing X-Fi technology, which restores the quality of music that is lost during the digital ripping process, and now for the first time ever we've been able to implement this technology in a ZEN."

The Creative ZEN X-Fi also features:
* A built-in speaker so you can listen to favourite songs with friends
* X-Fi Expand to move and expand the sound forward for a natural listening experience over headphones that simulates the sound from stereo speakers
* An SD card slot so you can add more music, video or photos to the player
* A vibrant 2.5-inch TFT display with 16.7 million colour support for an excellent viewing experience with videos and album art
* Built-in FM radio with 32 presets
* Built-in microphone for voice recording
* The new Creative Centrale application for organising, CD and playlist creation, and transfer of a wide variety of video formats, including WMV, AVI, MJPEG, MPEG4-SP, DivX 4 and 5 and XviD
* Using Creative Centrale, player syncs with Microsoft Outlook - contact, calendar, "To Do" list and more
* Creative ZEN X-Fi Video Converter, which converts video files to formats suitable for wireless streaming, will be made available for web download early August 2008

A range of Creative ZEN X-Fi accessories will also be available, including:
* The Creative TravelSound ZEN X-Fi Docking Speaker System
* An elegantly designed leather case
* A silicon skin to protect the player
* An armband to hold the player
* A three-pack of screen protectors