One Tough Player
Written: Aug 08 '04
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Pros: Excellent durability. Performs well. Usable with Linux.
Cons: Ambiguous main button. Windows software was stupid (but I think that about all Windows software).
The Bottom Line: This player has been a good investment. I use it a lot and it has not let me down.
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| cxed's Full Review: Creative Technology Nomad IIc (128 MB) MP3 Player |
Durability-
I bought the Nomad IIc a couple of years ago and it is still going strong. The amazing thing is that it has survived some rather spectacular disasters. When I go cycling in places without cars, I sometimes like to take my player along. Since not many places don't have cars, I don't have so much experience with this and I put the player in my shirt pocket. I jumped off a curb and the player jumped out of my pocket and smashed on the ground in 3 pieces. I thought it was history, but the pieces were the main unit, the battery, and the battery cover. I put it back together and it worked fine. Later that same ride I was coming down a hill at around 40mph. I was tucked in for an aero profile with my body angling down. The player then just slid out of my pocket. Doh. This time the player hit the road and slid for about 100ft. I thought, ok, there is no possibility of it ever working again. After finding the battery and cover again, it powered right up and continued playing. Of course my player is covered in nasty scratches, but functionally it is as good as when brand new.
Software-
I am a software engineer and the main thing that annoyed me with the software was that they tried to use some kind of funky interface with rounded application borders. Using the user interface that users expect may not be as exciting, but it minimizes confusion and errors.
Linux-
The software didn't bug me too long because I don't use Microsoft. I am a Linux user exclusively and I have occasional access to Apples. When I first got my player, I had to do crazy things like run a USB packet sniffer in Windows to figure out what the player and factory software were doing. I then sent this data to the Nomad driver developer, etc, etc. Eventually I got it working and was able to write excellent software to load and configure my player. For example, since the radio presets always seem to get messed up, I wrote a script that would automatically refresh them whenever I did any transfers. I think the Linux driver is more developed now.
One interesting and pleasant surprise is what happens when you plug the Nomad into a Mac (with OS X at least). No software installation is needed. iTunes just shows you the contents of the player's memory locations and you can edit the contents as easily as it can be done.
Button-
One thing I'm not keen on is the main button. Sometimes you want to press up and you get left. It would have been better to have 4 separate buttons.
Voice-
I like the voice recorder in theory, but in practice, it produces a format that I've never been able to rescue into something usable. I got some phone messages that I wanted to permanently record for legal purposes. I put them on the player easily enough, but I really was at a loss when I tried to get these into .wav, .mp3, or ogg files. Pretty disappointing. Using a proprietary format for this was a stupid thing to do. I can't see the advantage for anyone.
Tuner-
The tuner isn't the most sensitive among FM tuners, but it's ok. I find that when I listen to the radio in my office, I have to put the player in a very specific place. Walking around outside it does ok.
Battery-
Some say this unit is big by modern standards. Perhaps so, but I'd like to see it bigger, enough for another AA batt. As is with my rechargables, I get maybe 4 hours of play time. Not bad, but I feel I have to swap batteries enough to justify a bigger power reserve. Still, it's a solid state device and I can't really complain about it's power usage.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 130
Recommended for: Athletes - Lightweight and Portable, Perfect for the Gym
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Epinions.com ID:
cxed
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Member: Chris X
Location: San Diego, California
Reviews written: 10
Trusted by: 1 member
About Me:
Linux warrior fighting against software tyranny.
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