The previous iteration of Creative’s top end sound card for laptops was a PCMCIA Soundblaster Audigy 2ZS notebook edition. Ever since the new X-Fi cards were released for desktop computers in PCI form (PCI Express versions coming soon) some have been clamoring for a X-Fi laptop edition. That day is here.

There is only one downside, you can pick it up if you live in Europe today, other parts of the world will just have to wait a little bit more. I was impressed with the performance of the older Audigy 2ZS notebook and the new X-Fi card should be all the more impressive.

Note that even though it is listed as being available, I had difficulty locating it, even in Europe so either the stock hasn’t been listed yet or it is not actually available for purchase yet. In either case, it would be great if companies could list products that are available for purchase online or off, instead of all this hyping thing.

Sadly, it does not appear that the X-Fi notebook edition supports OSX and even if it did you would need an USB to Express Card adapter to use it with a MacBook. Don’t despair, if you have a MacBook then you can get the USB X-Fi module which brings some (but not all) of the same features to the table.

The other downside is that older laptops won’t be able to make use of the X-Fi laptop card because it requires an Express Card slot (PCMCIA users need not apply).

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Entry was posted on Wednesday, June 13th, 2007 at 3:59 am under Notebook.

Read more entries by Jonathan Schlaffer.
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