Creative debuts Android powered Zii Egg for developers and OEMS

Looks sort of like an iPod Touch. Only with Android and a full size SD card slot.

If it had a dpad and physical keyboard, I'd probably go for it.

This device + ergonomically comfortable 5 row keyboard + dpad + newly announced NAM 3G Mifi + Google Voice == no need for an actual cell phone.

the funny thing is that the mifi basically is a cell phone...

Except for the part about it not being a cell phone :-)

(no voice, no SMS/MMS -- and all of the both good and bad things that go with those two data points)

And, unlike using a cell phone for data connectivity for a MID, you don't ever have to actually touch the Mifi. You can leave it in your backpack/gadget-bag/etc. With an external battery pack, you can probably even leave it in there all day.

You don't need an actual cell-phone, sure, but

1. you still need to pay $60/mo

2. you have a 5gb limit

3. The battery on the mifi lasts only 4 hours of use, far less than an average cell phone battery.

looks brilliant.

a GPS enabled ipod touch with a more open Android OS, and masses of space for map data.

i like it, i like it a lot.

sounds like how i leave my SE C702 these days, thanks to my a2dp headset and N800

be honest, what your trying to dodge is the carrier packages of call minutes and sms, and the pr month costs that comes with it (that you will probably never use thanks to google voice providing both gratis pr data connection).

maybe im just lucky that i live outside of usa, where there are still pay-pr-use plans to be found (to the carriers are pushing hard to get usa-style plans in use)...

on that note, this baby came to mind:
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=26072

Uh, no. I've made it rather clear, multiple times, what my aim is.

Only having one handheld device. Having both a cell phone and a MID/NIT is not acceptable.

The G1 just about gets me that, the only problem being it doesn't do tethering for my netbook (and the 3G netbooks all tend to be Windows based). By having a Mifi in my gadget bag, that solves that, and then I start to think about how I could only have one plan instead of two.

It's not about avoiding call and messaging plans. I happily pay for unlimited minutes and messages, so I'm clearly not trying to avoid paying the cost of minutes and messaging. It's all about "only one device in my hand". If the Mifi was a full cell phone in addition to being a full wifi hotspot (as opposed to a less featured joikuspot type hotspot), and had a SIP and Jabber server to gateway voice and SMS/MMS messages, that would be pretty damn ideal. But that's not an option as far as I know.

This device, though, would work as that pocketable, in combination with a Mifi. It doesn't need SIP and Jabber support, though, since Android has a Google Voice client.

Paying for voice plan? no problem.
Paying for a messaging plan? no problem.
Multiple plans? minor problem*.
Multiple handhelds? show stopping problem.


(* but liveable... and probably what I'll do: keep my G1, get the NAM 3G mifi for use with both the G1 (only half of my area is covered by T-Mobile 3G, but all of y area is covered by AT&T 3G) and the netbook, and then debate whether or not I really need to do Google Voice ... has some usefulness even if I'm NOT avoiding call/messaging costs)

meh, never mind me as a mid/nit/whatever and a mifi is still two devices in my opinion...

Yeah, I'm waiting to see how the Movit MIni does ... but, if a bigger player, like Creative, beats them to the market ... and if Creative has better features, then I doubt the Mini will be much of a success. I just wish Creative had gone with an 800x480 resolution.