I received my Nomad II (w/ 32 MB) via promotion through emusic.com. It was my first portable MP3 player, and my first impressions of the player (and the technology in general) were quite positive.

The Nomad II comes in a nice, sleek, (and very small and light) silver plastic casing that feels quite solid to the though. Navigation is provided through a little "joystick" located in the center of the front panel. A nice big LCD screen displays the relevant MP3 information as well as a nice icon driven menu interface. As a nice bonus, when you are sick of listening to the same MP3s over again, the Nomad II sports an FM radio option. Also, another bonus is the ability to record voice memos. Batteries are included with the system (two AAs) as are a nice set of wraparound sport headphones. A remote control, cables, and software are also included in the package.

It didn't take long to get myself acquainted with the operation of the player. The icon driven menu interface provided a very user friendly means of configuring the system (though there is sometimes confusion as to how options are selected and configured.. i.e. up/down selects sometimes, but so does left/right). As mentioned previously, I was very impressed with the size/weight of the Nomad II, and it was put together quite well. The first feature I tried was the FM radio (as I didn't have the software installed at the moment). The reception was quite good, and setting the presets (can hold up to 30 of them) was pretty straightforward. One annoying aspect was that I had to scroll through both the even and odd frequencies in order to head to a station, making the setup time much longer. For example, to get from 88.1 to 88.5, I'd have to scroll through 88.2, 88.3, 88.4, rather than just 88.3. In addition, the player's scan function was a little spotty and often missed its mark. NOTE, there is an update available from Creative's website that fixes this problem as well as some others. I installed it and everything worked perfectly.

After figeting around with the player settings (backlight, auto-off, volume settings, display settings) I installed the MP3 software onto my laptop. The installation process went smoothly. I plugged in the USB cable and hooked up the Nomad, and it was detected perfectly. After I plugged it in, a Nomad agent popped up and automatically loaded the Nomad MP3 manager. this program allows you to control every aspect of the player. You can adjust some settings. A very nice feature is the ability to type in your FM radio presets (saved me tons of time). Transferring MP3 files was a little awkward, and the software only allowed me to transfer one at a time. The USB interface was fast, as a 4minute song took approximately a minute to transfer. The Nomad software also interfaces with Winamp and pops up a screen when you launch Winamp w/ a button that allows you to download the current playlist (if any) directly to the Nomad. I never used the feature, and actually hated it because I caused the Winamp display to disappear. I had to uninstall/reinstall Winamp to get everything back to normal. Essentially, the software is functionally fine, but could need a lot more tweaking and user friendliness tests.

The sound coming out of the player was great. Adjustments to the bass and treble levels are possible, and the headphones hold up well (though they do hurt after long periods of time- sony's headphones are much better). I was surprised as to how nice the MP3s sounded. AS the MP3 plays, the artist/title/time information scrolls by in the LCD. Repeat, shuffle, and random features are all availabe.

I've been very satisfied with this player. It's small, light, affordable, and full featured. Aside from the software issues, I've had no problems with this machine. Well worth the price.



Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 200