Creative ZiiSOUND D5 iPod speaker dock eschews anything ZiiLABS

Looking for a guaranteed way to confuse press and customers alike, and dilute your new brand?  Creative have a good example: they’ve called their latest iPod speaker dock the ZiiSound, which you’d expect to thus include some of the clever ZiiLABS “StemCell Computing” magic they’ve been discussing this week.  Instead it’s a bog-standard speaker dock, with nary a whiff of a Zii processor.

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Despite going on display at the ZiiLABS summit, the ZiiSOUND D5 has nothing to do with Creative or their PMP range apart from the branding.  Apparently a version for the ZiiEGG -the ZiiSOUND D3 – is also planned, but again that will only be a basic speaker dock rather than include any sort of nifty 1080p-capable processing.

As well as directly docking into the ZiiSOUND D5 (and recharging) you can connect your iPod wirelessly with a Bluetooth adapter dongle; alternatively there’s a standard 3.5mm audio input for other sources.  No release dates for the D5 have been announced, but it’s expected to go for around $299 in early 2010.