Dubai: The Singapore company Creative has become the latest vendor to join the growing Android tablets market in the Gulf after Samsung.

The company, better known for Sound Blaster speakers, has launched Ziio tablets in 7 and 10-inch models.

Annette Zimmermann, Senior Research Analyst, Mobile Devices Technology and Service Provider Research at Gartner, said that 19.5 million media tablets were sold this year globally, but less than a million in the Middle East and Africa markets.

She said the tablets were the new trend being seen in the market. More vendors were coming out with tablets.

Both the iPad and Samsung Galaxy were highly priced and she expected lower-priced tablets to hit the market next year with bigger screens.

Research in Motion, HP and Dell have announced plans to launch tablets. Gartner is expecting global tablet shipments to reach 54.8 million next year.

The Ziio Pure Wireless Entertainment tablets come with Google's Android 2.1 operating system with 8GB storage capacity and expandable to 32GB without 3G.

"The tablet can sync with its audio products via Bluetooth to play music. The device includes an audio application and an Apt-X codec to achieve quality audio streaming and playback," said Andy Ho, sales manager for the Creative multimedia group.

He said the company had shipped in 1,000 pieces for initial sales in the UAE and the product will be available in January.

The retail price of 7-inch is Dh1,199 and 10-inch for Dh1,499.

Beyond music, tablet users would be able to check e-mail, surf the web or play casual games, a Creative spokesman said.

Applications are offered through the company's ZiiStore.

The tablet is powered by the homegrown ZMS-08 processor, which is based on a 1GHz Arm processor and can play 1080p video (full HD) only on 10-inch. The device comes with an HDMI (high-definition multimedia interface) port to play video from the tablet on high-definition TVs.

The device comes with a front-facing camera and has wi-fi capabilities. The company says the device can play back up to five hours of video on a single battery charge.