WHAT IS THE Nomad II MG?

The Nomad II MG is Creative Lab's top of the line MP3 player. Based on features and specifications, this mp3 player came out on top when I recently decided to purchase a mp3 player. Key features and specifications include:

64 mb memory built in
Open smartmedia slot (up to 128 mb with most recent firmware upgrade)
Upgradeable firmware
FM tuner
Voice recorder
USB Docking station/charger w/two NiMH rechargeable AAA batteries included
Signal to Noise ratio above 90 db
Backlit LCD display, displays ID3 tags, volume, battery status, many other settings
FM recording
Musicmatch software for the PC, Soundjam MP for the Mac.
Collapsible headphones
Built in microphone
Weight with batteries 3.6 oz.

"In the box" you'll find the Nomad II MG player, docking station, headphones, protective pouch, ac adapter, installation cd and MP3 content cd, usb cable, two AAA NiMH batteries, manual, and quick start guide. It does not include a remote (available as a $50! option) or belt clip, and the case that comes with this player is so poorly designed you will probably never use it. As best as I can tell, you have to have a USB port to use this player.
This is my second MP3 player, the first was the Compaq IPAQ MP3 player, which I "won" on the Qool.com web site. But I have two teen age children and eventually decided we "needed" a second MP3 player. The IPAQ is a very good MP3 player, but I wanted a player with more features. (See my epinions of the IPAQ or Qool.com for more information). Where I find significant differences between the two players, I will mention them.


HOW IS IT SUPPOSED TO WORK?

Setting up the Nomad II MG and software was not difficult. The Nomad II MG comes with a 46 page manual and a useful one page glossy fold out "Quick Start Guide" that shows how to connect the player to your computer and install the software. The steps for hardware installation included installing the batteries, putting the player in the docking station, connecting the docking station to the ac adapter, plugging the adapter in, and connecting the usb cable to the docking station and your computer. Since I was in a hurry, I put alkaline batteries in the MP3 player rather than wait for the NiMH batteries to charge up first. Installing the software was straightforward, I put in the cd and followed the onscreen instructions. Soon thereafter I had downloaded songs to the player, and was listening to music.


DOES THE MP3 PLAYER WORK?

Yes. I installed the software and docking station on on a system that included an Abit motherboard, 1.1 GHZ Athlon processor, 128 mg ram, Soundblaster Live, ATI Radeon (32mb) video card, and two 8G hard drives, running Windows ME. I also purchased a "Simple Technology" 64 mb Smartmedia card from Sam's Club for $60 and installed it in the player. Installation of the hardware and software went smoothly and took less than an hour. Some comments on this player:

Downloading to the player

Downloading songs to the MP3 player built in memory goes really fast, only a few seconds per song. Downloading to the smartmedia card was slower, but still only about a half minute per song was was required.
For comparison, downloading songs to the Nomad is significantly faster than downloading songs to my Compaq MP3 player.

Sound Quality

Sound quality is very good, but not quite as good at the Compaq IPAQ. The Nomad II MG headphones are
not as good as the earbuds that come with the Compaq MP3 player. The headphones are OK, certainly better than the $10 headphones you might pick up at Walmart, but are not worthy of a $200+ MP3 player. The headphones are lightweight and fold up for easy storage. Volume settings range from 0 to 50. Most people will set the volume between 32 and 42, anything above 45 is loud, but not earsplitting. There are 5 preset equalizer settings (off, Pop, Rock, Classic, and Jazz) and a "user" setting that allows the treble and bass to be user adjusted. I prefer encoding songs in wma (windows media format) at 64kbs, and find I can get about 100 minutes of near cd quality music into 64 mb of space. If I use mp3 format, I encode at 96kbs, and get about 60 minutes of near cd quality music per 64 mb space.

Controls/Display

There is a 1" diameter backlit display on the front of the MP3 player. When playing songs, the display shows battery status, song name, time elapsed, song order, repeat "mode" setting (repeat current track, repeat all, and repeat random), equalizer setting, whether the song is stored on the built in memory or the memory card, and whether the "lock" switch is set.
The controls are on the left and right side of the mp3 player. Some of the key things you can do with these controls are mentioned in the descriptions of the controls below.

On the left side, starting from the top is:
1. A rocker style volume switch. Push the top (+) or bottom (-) of this switch to increase or decrease volume. In combination with other buttons, this switch can adjust other settings, like bass and treble.
2. A mode button, to switch between MP3 playback, FM radio, an "Adust Settings Mode, and Voice Recorder mode.
3. A repeat button, which is used to switch between the repeat modes mentioned above. Holding down the repeat button for a couple of seconds puts the player into a mode that allows equalizer settings to be changed.
4. An "A-B" button. This button is used to mark a start and end of section of a song that you want to repeat, and to start and stop the player from repeating this section. This button is also used to "save" FM stations to one of the 32 available presets.
5. A sliding lock switch. Once this switch is set to "lock" accidentally hitting the buttons won't change anything.

On the right side of the player are the following buttons:

1. Play/On button. Also used to change from one preset station to the next.
2. Stop/Off button. Hold this for more than 1 second to turn the player off.
3. Forward button. This button is used to skip to the next song, or to adjust the FM frequency when setting one of the 32 presets. Used in conjunction with the A-B button.
4. Reverse button.
5. Record/Erase button. Press this button to start voice recording, (press the Stop button to stop)

As you can see, there are a lot of things you can adjust with the player, far too many to mention here. If you are like me, you won't remember everything, and you will need to occasionally need to go back and read the manual to do things like adjust the back lit display, record off the radio, adjust the FM radio sleep time,etc. Don't lose the manual! I am not an expert in intuitive design, but I suspect Creative could have worked on the controls a little more to make everthing more intuitive.

Software

The Musicmatch software works well. I found it much easier to use than the Rioport software which came with my IPAQ mp3 player. The software also encodes songs into MP3 and windows media format. The music content cd which comes with this player includes over 50 songs of various styles, rock, pop, latin, jazz,and many others. The songs are provided by several companies, Emusic, SpinRecords, Epitonic, and a half dozen other companies. You probably haven't heard of any of the songs, but they give you a place to start if you don't have many MP3's to install on your player.

Docking Station

I really like the docking station. Putting the mp3 player in the docking station allows you to download songs to it, and it servers as a charger for the included NiMH batteries. This recharger will recharge the batteries from completely dead to full in 2 hours. A status red/green status light tells you whether the unit is charging (red), or if the charge is complete (green).


WOULD I BUY IT AGAIN?

Yes. The sound quality is very good. This player is easily expandable with affordable, industry standard, smart media cards, and software upgradeable. Creative has already posted firmware upgrades on their website, indicating they intend to support this player into the future. The street price is $220-$240 as I write this. If you can't afford this model consider the other Creative Labs models or the Compaq IPAQ. Buy.com and Computers4sure.com offer the Nomad II with no memory for a little over $70. Adding in another $60 for a 64 mb smartmedia card gives you a pretty good player, if you don't need the docking station and battery charger. You also don't get any built in memory with this model. As I write this, Amazon is also selling the Compaq IPAQ for $125 (after a $50 rebate), which is a pretty good price for this terrific sounding player.

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): $220