Human or Machine?
Written: Oct 07 '00 (Updated Mar 15 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Light, easy to use, great sound!
Cons: Expensive, but you get what you pay for.
The Bottom Line: Great music can come in a small package. The Normad 64 is unbeatable in terms of portability and ease of use.
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| Andrew_Lim's Full Review: Creative Technology Nomad Jukebox (32 MB) MP3 Play... |
In the quest for perfection, mankind has over time, created audio devices that are increasingly portable, more feature-packed and less expensive. (well, that’s debatable) The history of audio devices goes back a long way, starting first with the bulky and somewhat undependable cassettes, moving on to Compact Discs, a more durable and convenient way to store information. In more recent years, even Compact Disc systems are being assaulted by competition. With a new wave of products, commonly known as the MP3 players in production, Compact Discs are at risk from being phased out completely. Sadly, it appears that the artists of various songs are under the same threat simply because songs in the form of MP3 are readily downloadable from the net without cost from providers such as MP3.com and Napster.
“MP3” is actually an abbreviation for “Moving Picture Experts Group Layer 3”, which quite simply represents a new form of audio compression that reduces the size of audio files from the Compact Disc by more than 10 times. Thus, a song taking up a hefty 50MB is consequently reduced to an MP3 taking up only 4MB. Despite the reduction is size, there is little apparent loss of quality. The sound is clear, but may appear muffled or lack bass, compared to those on the Compact Disc, since some of the “fidelity” has been sacrificed.
Check this out…it all comes in the package!
-Creative Nomad (32MB Internal Memory)
-Extra 32MB External Memory card
-Docking Station
-AC/DC Adapter
-Parallel Port Cable
-Installation Disc with Digital Audio Player and Voice Recording software
-MP3 sample Disc
-Instruction Manual
Is the Nomad a human or a machine?
The Creative Nomad 64, like most other MP3 players, does not contain any moving parts, but instead possesses a chip for storage, housed in a sleek and new-age casing. This MP3 player, weighing just a tiny 64 grams and having dimensions of 58mm, 85mm and 17mm (W, H and D respectively) is no baby. It has power comparable to broiler-room sized computers of the past.
A fully featured system, the Nomad 64 comes with the typical buttons (Play, Stop etc) a small equalizer with 4 presets, (this has to be improved) a small screen that displays part of the name of the song, the artist name and the time elapsed. It also includes an FM tuner for those who desire a little more than the songs they have as well as a little microphone that allows you to record messages, with their length only limited by the amount of memory remaining.
The Nomad 64, as the name implies, has 64MB (megabytes) of memory that allows you to store a little more than 15 average songs of CD quality, with a bitrate of 128. Only 32MB of this memory is fixed in the system. The other 32MB resides in a Flash Memory Card that can be replaced with another of larger capacity. As such, the Nomad 64 is quite easily expandable, but media is extremely costly. This entire system runs on 3 Volts, supplied by two amazing “AAA” size rechargeable batteries that can be recharged by the included docking station. On a full charge, the batteries often last more than 5 hours, depending on conditions.
The docking station is one of the most important accessories of the Nomad 64. Besides allowing you to recharge your batteries, this device allows you to transfer MP3 songs from your computer onto the Nomad. After all, an MP3 player that lacks the ability to communicate with a computer is as good as a “white elephant”, even if a little smaller.
According to the manual, the casing of the Nomad 64 is made of Magnesium, which possibly means it is far from durable. After having mine for about 6 months, some of the finish seems to wearing off. Here’s something I wouldn’t try myself, but according to chemistry, the Nomad casing (made of a reactive metal) can actually be ignited with a flame and it will give off a dazzling white light! Being composed of non-moving parts, the Nomad is durable in its own right. No guarantee though, but a few knocks wouldn’t warp this system while it may perfectly destroy a Compact Disc player that is composed of many movable parts. On various occasions, my Nomad switched itself off after it was dropped and it refused to power up again. In such instances, your best solution to the problem is to remove both batteries from the compartment and replace them again. If abnormalities still occur, format the entire system (Internal and External memory) and download all the MP3 files again.
It’s good, but some things still suck!
The software that comes in the Installation Disc works in tandem with the Docking Station and the Parallel Port Cable to ensure that older songs can be replaced with newer ones on a regular basis. However, this very process can be a pain in the neck for many users. While the interface of the software is very intuitive and easy to use, it is, in my opinion, very primitive and bug-filled. Often, the computer registers that the Nomad is not connected to the computer or that it is turned off, even though it is not the case. In order to guarantee successful communication, the Nomad must be turned on, but it cannot be in the process of playing any songs. In addition, the adapter must be plugged into the wall, and the power turned on.
The contacts on the docking station as well as those on the Nomad system are highly sensitive and transfer will not occur unless these are clean and free of dirt or dust. A wipe with a dry, soft cloth almost always ensures success, but this tactic has never proven to 100% effective.
As mentioned above, the Nomad communicates to the computer via a Parallel Port Cable, which in most instances is the exact same port to which your printer is connected. It is always difficult, if not frustrating to fumble through masses of wires just to swap one cable with another. From personal experience, the Nomad system does not appear to be compatible with IBM systems, laptops especially. I own an IBM iSeries 1400 and have never been able to make it fall in love with my Nomad. Apparently, the software is not at fault here. The main problem seems to lie with the port on my laptop, which is probably proprietary and not compliant with the standard Parallel Port Devices.
In closing…
Creative Labs has produced the Nomad II since then, which it claims to be more powerful and “advancement proof”, which means that it can still be compatible with a wide variety of formats in the future. The Nomad Jukebox would be a nice consideration for anybody with deep pockets. It has 6GB of memory, which should be able to store more songs than one would ever desire. However, both the systems mentioned above are still very expensive and would not be affordable to a large percentage of the population. In my opinion, the Nomad 64 is very powerful and has enough features to satisfy even the sophisticated. I would whole-heartedly recommend this MP3 player to anybody on the move, but wanting to be close to the world of music. It is almost weightless and is compact, to the extent that I am sometimes oblivious of its presence. Undoubtedly, the Nomad would be a perfect substitute for a music system anywhere.
By: Andrew Lim
Revised 15-3-01
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
Andrew_Lim
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Member: Andrew Lim
Location: Singapore
Reviews written: 40
Trusted by: 81 members
About Me:
Veterinarian working at RSPCA (Burwood), Australia
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