Creative Nomad Jukebox ZEN XTRA - Digital player - HD 40 GB - WMA, MP3 - silver
Featuring a large, hi-res, blue backlit LCD, the NOMAD Jukebox Zen Xtra builds on the industry-leading music features of the NOMAD Jukebox Zen product line. Simply transfer all your music into the player with Creative MediaSource or the new NOMAD Explorer using ultra fast USB2.0, press the play button and get set to enjoy high-fidelity music. With advanced features such as Quick Scroller Navigation, Find, Playlist Creation and automatic ID3 tag categorization, managing and organizing your music will be a breeze.And the NOMAD Jukebox Zen Xtra doubles up as an external hard drive for storing all your photos, documents and other data files. Simply open NOMAD Explorer (integrated into Microsoft Windows Explorer) and drag and drop data files into the data folder or music files into the music library.
Creative Nomad Jukebox ZEN XTRA - Digital player - HD 40 GB - WMA, MP3 - silver Accessories
Creative Nomad Jukebox ZEN XTRA - Digital player - HD 40 GB - WMA, MP3 - silver Reviews
Plenty of space for my entire music library, decent controls (better than the annoying "touch" controls on certain players), decent sound (with a decent set of ear-buds) and easy navigation. I bought the refurbished version, so keep that in mind.
Definitely not as great as the Zen Sleek Photo that it replaced, but worth the money, even with it's quirks. The most annoying quirk is that the player will for some bizarre reason turn itself on at odd moments. The other quirk is that, unless you select each album to play individually, it plays the first song of each album first, in album order, then proceeds to the second songs of each album, etc.if you want the songs in true order, you have to select "play now" on one album, then "add to play" on each additional album.
I bought this a couple months ago, and aside from two annoying quirks I love it. :). Since I use this to have music at work when I'm on brake, it becomes rather irritating to go to turn on the player, only to find that the battery has drained itself b/c the player decided to turn on w/o prompt.
The zen is superb, it's reliable, it's solid and easy to use, and I just don't see the point in changing to an ipod purely for aesthetics. I still haven't filled up the memory on it, I've never had a day's trouble with it, and it's easy to use. I love my zen, and I wouldn't be without it. I'm starting to find it a bit bulky now in comparison to some of the smaller, sleeker-looking players on the market, but I still have the attitude "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". I've had my Zen for over 4 years now (hard to believe I've had it that long).
What it has going for it:. It doesn't skip (but then, I don't jog with it), and the display is easy to read. I have been living with this player for three weeks and have nothing but positives. Of course, it's possible the player won't outlive the battery. But I must admit that people who aren't computer savvy might be hopelessly frutstrated. I don't need to send it off and pay $50 - $100 for a replacement. 5) The software is pretty easy to figure out.
My case has not popped open. I spent more for Bose In Ear TriPorts. 3) The build seems solid. BUt hey, I figure since it's not the toy everyone else wants, it's theft proof.
The combination is superb and better than I thought possible with portable devices. Before I bought this I read reviews at Amazon, Cnet, and other places. 2) It sounds great. 6) Ok, it's heavy compared to an ipod: and uglier, too. There really should be a section in the next-to-useless booklet that explains step by step exacly how to transfer an album to the player and then play it. I shouldn't have to go to Creative's website to get this information. The included ear buds sound ok, but the fit seemed insecure.
4) I can replace my own battery, thank you. Being new to portable music I didn't want to shell out $$$ for an iPod, but I wanted the massive storage space. WOW. 1) Better price bargain than any competing device (I got it at an after-Turkey Day promo for under $100). I have no desire to watch videos, listen to FM, or share files, so this Zen Nomad seemed perfect. Some unkind things were written.
The battery is easily removable and replaceable ($20), compared to an iPod which requires service from Apple if the battery dies. The cd-ripping software froze about half the time for me, and the sync tool didn't seem to work. Software, software, software. My Zen has 22G of music on it in one big folder, and it takes minutes to load the folder up. In short, if you're concerned about hardware and you're willing to put up with the hassle of getting this truly awful software working, get a Zen.otherwise just sped the few bucks extra to get an iPod.
You can't even browse the device as a hard drive: you have to use special Creative software that provides a pseudo-explorer-like interface. After installation of the firmware and operating system (available from Creative's web site), I was good to go with 60G of storage. Get used to long delays and frequent freezes and crashes, especially if you have many songs. The same goes for the hard drive - I bought a Zen xtra with a broken 30G hard drive, and was able to easily swap it out and replace it with a standard 60G laptop hard drive that was sitting around. The cons:.
Creative's PC software is HORRENDOUS. First, the pros:.
We were devastated. If you don't care about the "ipod" name brand, I highly recommend this one. A week later he closed his car door on his jacket pocket - the pocket containing his Jukebox. No problems since. After a few emails back and forth with Creative, they gave me an authorization for repair; I sent it to them and received the repaired unit, like new, in about a week. Fabulous. I bought this for my spouse for Christmas.he absolutely loved it. It was busted, would not work at all.
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