The Nomad II made by Creative Labs, has a lot going for it. First off, its sleek, looks good, and the size sure beats that of your old CD player you used to jam in your pocket wherever you went just to hear that tune you loved. Straight out of the box the Nomad II is plug-and-play entertainment. Simply install the software, connect the cables, and you're ready to listen to high quality digital music on the hottest player out there.

Now there are ups, and surely downs to this new form of audio media called MP3. With Napster installed, and your computer connected to the internet through a fast connection, you're ready to fully experience the digital world. Any song you can think of from those old Pink Floyd vinyls you used to own, to pre-released CD's from the hottest artists of today. There is a lot of controversy about the MP3 format of music, and surely about its legality, but if you want to take the safe route, even "ripping" (transferring CD tracks to MP3 format on your hard drive) tunes from your favorite mix CD, and putting them on the Nomad II is the way to go; just look at the bulky competition.

There are downsides, however to the glory of the Nomad II. First off most MP3 players have built in memory of 32 or 64 MB, with a flash slot for expanding your players memory in 32MB or 64MB increments called flash cards (a 32 MB card usually sells for around 90$) The Nomad II however, has no internal memory, ONLY flash memory; it comes with a 64MB flash card holding about 12 songs at 128kbit/sec (bitrate for digital media.. higher rate means better quality but also a bigger file).

If, however, you decide to "re-encode" your songs at 64kbit/sec (an adequate bitrate that still allows the song to sound good) you will first need an encoder/converter (I know Sound Jam MP for the Mac has one included with the package) but you will be rewarded with being able to hold up to 40 or so songs at this smaller bitrate.

Overall, I'd say the Nomad II is the best player on the market for MP3's right now, short of the Nomad Jukebox which costs roughly 150 dollars more and holds a whopping 6 gigabytes of digital media. With an FM radio, voice recording, and 64MB of memory included this player will more than get you started on the road of digital music. Now all you need is to get rid of that conscience of yours so you can download files from Napster with no regret.

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 275