Have 100 CD's worth of music, will travel.
Written: Jan 08 '02
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Pros: Massive storage capacity, excellent features, portability.
Cons: Eats batteries like popcorn, minor issues with Windows XP.
The Bottom Line: High capacity and great sound, but at the price of very limited battery life.
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| Action_Snark's Full Review: Creative Technology Nomad Jukebox (6 GB) MP3 Playe... |
Once more into the epinions breach, dear friends.....
I asked for and recieved one of these spiffy little Nomad Jukeboxes for christmas. I've had an overall positive experience with this product, though it does have some shortcomings that I feel hurt it in the long run. What are you wasting your time plowing through my introduction fluff for? The real meat and potatos of the review is down below!
What the devil is it? Obviously, it'd be handy if I told you about this little Creative critter. The Nomad Jukebox is in essence an MP3 player with a built in hard drive. The model I'm reviewing comes standard with a 6gb hard drive, though it's storage capacity is slightly less than that due to the space that the player's firmware takes up. According to Creative's propaganda, this little beastie can store about 100 hours of CD quality music. This is pretty accurate, provided you encode your MP3's at 128kpbs.
The features: The Nomad Jukebox comes loaded with features. The Jukebox features a parametric equalizer, EAX environmental audio capabilities, and a whole schmorgasboard of other electronic ways to bend and mutilate the sound that comes out of it. The player can output from either it's standard headphone jack, or a pair of output jacks. The jukebox is also capable of recording and encoding sound by itself, and a microphone/line in jack is provided for this purpose. Features rate a near stellar 9 out of 10 for being pretty much the most versatile and full featured MP3 player I've run across.
The interface: Of course, with a 6gb library to work from, we're going to need a way to organize and navigate through all that music, correct? Correct. The player organizes files by album, artist, and genre, and allows you to navigate through them along those lines. Loose files are not allowed, everything is categorized into at least an album entry. Getting around the player is accomplished using a pair of up-down arrow keys on the top of the player, as well as a trio of small multifunction buttons and a small LCD screen. The LCD screen is quite crisp, and is backlit to aid you in navigating your music collection in the dark. Interface gets a 7 out of 10 for being well done, but nothing super-duper special.
What's in the box? Of course, with the player come some accessories. Included in the box are:
8 NiMH rechargable batteries
1 AC converter for charging
The player itself
Instruction manual
Quickstart guide
USB cable
Headphones
Software CD
Now for the downside... Of course, with a big feature set and massive storage capacity, something's gotta suffer elsewhere, correct? Correct. First off: Battery life. Creative says the player will eat it's way through a set of batteries in about 4 hours under normal conditions. This is pretty accurate, though a bit optimistic. This thing eats batteries like it has to pay for any electricity left in them.
The Creative Playcenter software that is used to transfer files to the player also seems to have some issues. It refuses to rip CD's directly to the player, and constantly pesters me to update, despite the fact that I have the most current playcenter and firmware versions.
The battery life issue I can forgive. It says right in the manual that the Nomad was not designed for long endurance use. It was designed for high capacity storage, and delivers on that. The flaws in Playcenter are unaccepable, but are mere annoyances (I have far more effective and efficient CD rippers and encoders at my disposal) so I will not slam them for flaws that only cause minor harm.
Overall: I've rambled on a bit here, but I felt the need to cover a myriad of topics. I'd recommend the Nomad if you want access to a lot of music at once, or want to be able to listen to very large MP3 files. (I have several live DJ sets on mine, and the smallest of those clocks in at around 90mb or so.) If you are looking for something for sport use, look elsewhere. The Jukebox is not designed for such use. It's too large and bulky, and is not skip-proof. The Nomad is ideal for use about the house or office. The biggest place that the Nomad Jukebox stubs it's toe is in it's lack of endurance. It's an excellent MP3 player, provided that you are never far from a power outlet. I'll recommend it, but with the caveats of it's limited endurance and unsuitability for sport/active useage.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 239
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Action_Snark
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