Well, in case the recent news of the LG’s eXpo smartphone didn’t pique your interest in the future capabilities of cell phones and the continued convergence of portable electronic devices into a single “does-it-all” machine, maybe  the announcement of Creative’s Zii Trinity smart phone platform will.  The Zii Trinity platform, which will be licensed by Creative to manufactures for further development and software customization, supports either the ZiiLABS’ ZMS-05 or ZMS-08 media processor, whose low-power, high performance media-rich processing capabilities offload much of the main ARM CPU’s burden during OpenGL ES 3D graphics applications and high definition video output.

High definition video output?  Yes, in true media player form, this thing incorporates a Mini HDMI port for 1080p video output when you’re bored with its 3.1″ 480×800 OLED display – which itself features a multi-touch capacitive touchscreen.   Included “standard” features are a rear facing 5MP digital camera, a front facing VGA resolution video camera for video conferencing, a MicroSD storage slot, WiFi, GPS, and 3.5/4G compatibility.  The phone will run on either the Android OS or Creative’s own Linux based Plaszma operating system, depending on the manufacturer’s choice.

The Trinity’s personal media player and graphics processing capabilities are impressive, making it a viable alternative to the iPhone in those arenas.  But, like all potential iPhone competition, the long term success of any particular hardware platform lies more in the ability of software developers to create sought-after apps to compete with the iPhone’s App Store.