ZiiLabs has released a new firmware this month (1.00.05), which brought about the ability to utilize Bluetooth 2.1 technology on your device. For the most part, you’re able to connect to a keyboard, or sound device such as speakers. That’s IF your update was able to enable the bluetooth at all.

In our test device, we had nearly a fully functioning ZiiEgg with the 99.04 firmware release. What wasn’t working? The SD card detection could not detect our Kingston 16GB SDHC card like the previous versions had. However, the wireless and other features worked fine. Upon installing 1.00.05, we quickly found that our Wifi had lost it’s MAC address, turning into 00:00:00:00:00:00 which is non useable, as well as would not scan for networks but rather would return a no wireless networks found error message instantly. But that’s not all! Bluetooth could not even be turned on without getting an error saying that no bluetooth device found. Of course, was our 16GB SDHC card detected once again? Absolutely not!

Foiled again!

Developers are now becoming more concerned about their warranty expiring and firmware releases like this killing features of their devices. At this time noone from ZiiLabs has commented regarding these issues.

This also means I’ll probably have to pay to ship my ZiiEgg back for yet ANOTHER RMA to get fixed and or replaced. This thing is costing me more and more everyday.