I have been skeptical about how revolutionary the Creative Zii platform actually is since Creative has a history or over hyping products. I also don’t hear anyone else talking about it other than Creative- more is being said about Nvidia’s Tegra chip within the circle of industry insiders and device manufactures. Perhaps the Zii has not been out long enough for it to sink in, but it the way Creative is talking about it seems like more people should care. While I still hold a healthy bit of skepticism, I have warmed up having seen the Zii chips in action at CES.

The P7 was my favorite device shown off at the iriver booth, but unfortunately the US won’t see this device. The closest thing you will get is the Cowon O2, but well we found quite a few problems. The P7 is a beautiful monolithic block design common to the high style of iriver. But this modern design also shows up in the UI with a truly unique home screen almost like a layout of a brochure or magazine.

Unfortunately, the UI is rather sluggish as you can tell from the video and basing the opinion solely on experience from previous devices, it’s likely not up to par. Perhaps what needs to happen here is iriver needs to give up on making the electronics and concentrate on the design- leave internals up to Cowon. A fantastic sounding Cowon iriver P7 anyone?

I was definitely excited to see iriver’s booth this year at CES since was by far my favorite last year- bright, modern, and fun. I would love to put the iriver booth in my home somewhere; it would be my happy place. This booth was the same as last year with a slightly different layout but it a much better location, not stuck in the corner with the car audio. I did the best I could to share this with you in the form of an HD video below. Please enjoy this along with a general recap of whats new with iriver.

No too long ago the "Sony Touch" appeared as very crude mockups. Real photos have now surfaced. The specs appear to be what we SonyInsider got the scoop on in that first article- Wi-Fi, 16GB, 32GB ect. I will keep you posted as soon as i get some more info on the show floor of CES 2009.

[Gizmodo | SlashGear]

Update: Press release and video below.

I'm headed off to CES 2009, to bring you the scoop on the latest players. I am however a bit thrown off due to an ice storm to hit here in the North East on Wednesday, when i was supposed to fly out, so I had to push my flight up a day to beat the storm. I'm excited to get there early and have that extra day, but I Amazoned some last minute camcorder batteries, a Nintendo DS (Mario Kart FTW!) for the flight, and some other little necessities which will arrive just after i head out the door in the morning. I know, total bummer.

Either way, you can follow my CES adventures by following me on Twitter. I will be updating the main page with my finds thought the week as well as popping in and out of our IRC channel from time to time on my Blackberry Bold.

The abi YouTube channel might get some Hi-def love, so you might want to subscribe there as well.

Anyway, I'm off to pack, see you in Vegas!

I just got word from iriver that they will be showing off some new devices at CES 2009. I’m told that these devices will include PMPs, MP3 players, and GPS devices. These devices are also said to be “sleek and unique mobile networking devices” so start your imagination and hypothesizing.

Last year iriver’s booth and device showing was quite impressive- best of show in my opinion. You can check out my pics in last year’s iriver round up here. Do stick with us during CES coverage we will be sure to bring you the 411 on the latest iriver.

BTW: The word “Wave” was given to me in quotes so I perhaps that is some sort of clue as to what these devices entail? Any ideas? Perhaps the obvious "iriver WAVE"?

Update: I missed this one, Pocketables points out that the Wave is just a W7 turned phone. My excitement has turned into dismay. Lets keep our fingers crossed for more.