Creative Technology jumps into the tablet market... too late, too slowly?

 
Detail of Creative ZiiO 7 tablet: note the non-English script on the return button, bottom right. Photo by charlesarthur on Flickr. Some rights reserved

Creative Technology - the Singaporean company which five years ago vowed to go after Apple over a patent it had which it reckoned the iPod infringed - has come into the tablet market with a range of tablets, including 2 3.2-inch, 7-inch, and 10-inch models, running the Android OS.
And what does it bring to the tablet party that's different from what everyone else is doing? Wellll... that's hard to say. It has built its own processors to run the devices (designed at 3D Labs, which Creative Technology owns), and written its own audio drivers which it says means that you'll get far higher audio quality while listening or streaming (via Bluetooth) to compatible devices.
But in many other ways, Creative's output looks to be lagging behind many other tablet companies. To begin with, they're all running Android 2.1 - and none of them has 3G. This means that they won't automatically be able to access the Android Marketplace (because Android is a phone OS, and devices which don't have 3G or other phone stuff inside them can't be phones, so they can't access the marketplace for phone apps).
Update: Factoring in the prices, though, suggests that these are priced to sell - and so could give rivals quite a run for their money if Creative can get past the Marketplace hassles.
However Mac Aw Kuw Weng, director of corporate marketing, told us that there will be an over-the-air update (via Wi-Fi) to the devices to Android 2.2, which will be available as soon as Google has finished its trials of them - sometimes in late December... early January? Once that's done, then users will have access to the Marketplace. Otherwise they'll have to sideload apps via their computer.