Creative's Zen Touch 2 PMPs Pack Android and 2MP Snapper

With the advent of smartphones and tablets I have to admit that I am no longer a believer when it comes down to PMPs, but this hasn't stop Creative from designing the Zen Touch 2, an 3.2 inch Android 2.1 powered media player that comes loaded full of features, missing just GSM capabilities to be called a smartphone.

Available in both a standard and an enhanced version, the base model being available with either 8GB or 16GB of storage space while its older brother comes only in a 8GB version, the enhanced version adding a GPS, digital compass and FM radio features to the mix.

As strange as it may sound, the FM radio is missing from the standard edition, although users do get Bluetooth and 802.11b/g/n WiFi connectivity, an accelerometer, inbuilt speaker, a 2MP fixed focus camera, a microSD card slot as well as composite video out and lossless audio support.

The 3.2 inch resistive touchscreen is also common to both models, settings, back and search capacitative buttons being placed right under the screen.

A full length hardware Home key is also present, Creative's players supporting MP3, AAC, WMA9, FLAC, OGG, ADPCM, MIDI, WAV, Audible Format audio as well as H.264, MPEG4, WMV9, AVI video files playback.

An integrated web browser is also provided, although I don't think you will do that much web surfing on the Zen Touch's low-res display.

Pricing start at £149.99, for the 8GB standard models, the GPS enabled enhanced version being retailed for £159.99 the same price as that of the 16GB base PMP.

Taking it all into consideration, I really think that Creative asks a bit too much for these units especially considering they have to compete with a wide range of smartphones that usually come more feature rich and save you the trouble of carrying yet another gadget around with you.

However, these do come cheaper than the £189.00 asked by Apple for its 8GB iPod Touch, although you would pretty much have to give up that high res Retina display in favor of a 2MP snapper.