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Upside: Clearly, the most obvious benefit is the integration of a whole range of high-quality audio options into a PCMCIA card to slot into your notebook.
This allows you to enjoy multi-channel surround sound when listening to your selection of MP3s and playing favourite games like CounterStrike. You get features such as Creative Multi-Speaker Surround 3D support, THX-certified audio with support for DTS-ES and Dolby Digital EX, a high signal-to-noise ratio exceeding 104dB along with a rich 24-bit audio quality.
You get three jacks: one is the output for S/PDIF/optical-out/earphone-out for MD recording or headphone listening.
The second is a good substitute for the multiple jacks found on Audigy PCI cards: a port to connect to Creative's Speaker Docking Cable which links to your 5.1/7.1 surround sound system such as Logitech's Z-5500. The last is the input for optical-in/microphone-in/line-in.
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Outlook: While it is commendable that Creative has come up with a PCMCIA card with superb audio features, is it perhaps too late? Plenty of new notebooks these days come with S/PDIF support and some like the Toshiba Qosmio series do not really need any audio enhancement. However, for those with older notebooks, this might just be the key to audio salvation.
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