mookiekong's Full Review: Creative Technology Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra (30 GB)...
I have some experience with hard-drive based MP3 players. I started out with the Archos 5GB unit, then when the fabulous generation one iPod 5GB came out I got that. After the iPod, there really wasn’t much competition. I had tried and returned a bunch of hard-drive based units including the original 5GB Creative Labs Nomad (terrible battery life) and the original 20GB Creative Labs Nomad Zen. I had stopped using my iPod 5GB because I was traveling a lot and I wanted to make custom playlists while I was on the road, the iPod just did not do that. I upgraded my Archos with a 20GB drive and used that for awhile, but the interface was showing its age, and I was somewhat embarrassed by the large blue bumpers -- but don’t get me wrong, in its time, the Archos was a rocking machine.
I wanted space and I wanted on-the-fly playlists. So, the only thing out there on the market that had both with a reasonable price tag was the Creative Nomad Zen Xtra 30GB. It had the benefit of a removable battery, low price tag when compared to the iPods, and a nice big screen. But, those things were not enough to get over the drawbacks of the unit.
The Hardware
The Creative Nomad Zen Xtra 30GB, from now known as Xtra, uses a 2.5” notebook hard-drive -- unlike the iPod which uses a smaller 1.8” hard-drive. Because of this, they are priced a lot lower than a comparable iPod. At the time the $299 for the Xtra 30GB would only get a 10GB generation three iPod. That is a lot to give up when looking at the numbers! The other thing to keep in mind about the Xtra is that because it uses the larger hard-drive, the unit itself is quite a bit larger than the iPod. I have big hands and holding and using it is quite a chore when compared to using an iPod.
The face of the Xtra is removable with the flip of the switch located on the bottom of the unit. The switch is a tad bit too loose and accessible, resulting in a face cover that would pop off quite often. Underneath the thin face cover is the battery compartment. The battery is rated at 14 hours of playtime and I can attest to getting pretty close to that. Also, while talking about batteries, the unit itself is built so that it stays in a sleep mode for up to 24 hours, after that the unit powers itself off. This is a wonderful feature since the unit can sit in the powered off state for quite a while -- the iPod does not ever shut off completely and will drain if left unplugged and unused.
The one thing that worried me when I had the face cover off was the clear view I had of the headphone jack that was precariously soldered onto the PCB -- it was close to hanging off the PCB and looked in serious need of support. With headphones plugged in, the jack would moved from side to side. Upon further investigation I found on a popular Nomad forum (nomadness.net) that there are some serious problems with the headphone jack on the Xtra. Many people have reported the jack first failing to produce sound on one side, then shortly after that the jack completely dying. This was not a good thing to find out, especially with Creative’s ultra-short 90-day warranty on the unit! (I eventually bought a replacement plan for the unit, “just in case”).
The front of the unit is exceptionally clean and that is because all the buttons are put onto the sides of the unit. Down the left-side are the power button, back button, and volume control. Down the right-side of the unit are the menu button, the scroller, play/pause button, and track forward/back control. On the top of the unit is a mini-USB connector and the dreaded headphone jack. The bottom of the unit has only the face cover release switch. Counting the buttons on the unit I come up with nine different toggles and a scroller -- compared to an iPod’s six buttons that is a lot! The rear of the unit has a sticker and other than that is clean.
Using all nine buttons on the unit can be quite the chore. The volume up and track forward toggle are very susceptible to accidental pushing. The play button is tiny and the back button is in a very awkward position -- considering that it is used so much in the UI (more on that later). The real killer is the scroller. It does not go all the way around, rather it rotates just a few degrees up and a few degrees down. The scroller can be pushed in to do a selection. I don’t know why, but Creative decided to make the scroller with very sharp ridges, making it quite uncomfortable to use since it is constantly poking into the thumb.
The display is larger than the display on the Nomad Zen NX, which was released just a few months earlier than the Xtra. It is of higher resolution, clocking in at 160x104 pixels. It is very readable and the blue EL lighting is kind of cool.
The look of the unit is clean, yet very boring. The anodized aluminum makes it feel very PC and not very cool.
The Software and UI
Any MP3 player now is measured up against the iPod. The UI in the Xtra is unnecessarily complicated to use. Let me give you an example and comparison. If I wanted to look for a song from a specific artist on an iPod I would go to Browse (hit select) then Artists (hit select) then Name (hit select) then Album (hit select) and then hit select to play the Song.
Doing the similar on the Xtra is tenfold more button pushing: Select Menu (push in scroller) then Artist (push in scroller) from resulting menu select Open (push in scroller) select Name (push in scroller) from resulting menu select Open (push in scroller) select Album (push in scroller) from resulting menu select Open (push in scroller) select song to play (push in scroller) from resulting menu select Play (push in scroller).
As you can see there is a menu that pops up after selecting anything. I can see how Creative could see this as something useful since from the menu I can add to the current playlist, delete song, get information, preview a song (which is actually pretty cool) and other functions. But in the real world it makes listen and picking out music a real pain in the butt. It also does not help that all that scroller pushing further tears into the thumb from the sharp ridges.
The main menu system is rather well laid out, everything is tab driven and most functions are readily available.
The Xtra needs drivers and is not a USB Mass Storage device. Along with special drivers it also needs software to operate. The software thing is not a big deal, except that the software -- Creative MediaSource -- is garbage and is terribly hard to use. It, like the Xtra, is a bad Xerox of Apple’s efforts. Although it is much better than Creative’s previous software PlayCenter, it is still unusable in most cases and somewhat buggy. After installing it and trying it out for a little I quickly removed it from my system and picked up a wonderful piece of software named Notmad from Red Char Software (www.redchairsoftware.com). Notmad makes managing the Xtra as simple as drag and drop.
At the time that I was traveling, I was using a Windows machine most of the time. But now that I have stopped traveling as heavily I have moved most of my functions over to my iBook at home and PowerMac G4 at work. The unfortunate thing about this? The Xtra does not work with Macs and it was the only thing that I needed my work Windows notebook for -- to encoded and manage music on the Xtra. Worst than that is that the Xtra supports protected-WMA files but not protected-AAC files from iTunes Music Store, the music store from which I get most of my music. Because of this I had to burn all my purchased music to CD then rip it to MP3 so that I could use it with the Xtra. Whether it is a limitation of the store I shop at or the hardware is up to you.
Audio Quality
The one high point about the Xtra is the audio quality. Creative is an audio hardware company and this is the part that they got right without a doubt. The audio that comes out of the Xtra is crisp and warm. Everything is defined and not muddy. Even without using the EAX equalizer the sound coming out of the Xtra is wonderful. The headphones, actually earphones, that came with the Xtra are of the quality where you can toss them back in the box and start using some better ones.
Talking about EAX, this is Creative’s way of adding value to the unit, but it does not really add anything -- except for the equalizer. There are modes where they add echo to simulate listening to music in a theatre or in a living-room. But the usefulness of this function is debatable. Using EAX will drain the batteries 14 hours of running time much quicker (using the EAX equalizer I clocked in around 6 hours of use before it died). Don’t get tricked into believing that EAX is anything useful with its large logo on the front of box. It is merely a gimmick.
What Now?
So, after using the Xtra for a year plus a little bit, it naturally dies. The hard-drive reported that it was broken to me and would not start up. And here is where the happy ending comes in. I take the unit back to the place of purchase and present my replacement plan. Apparently the Xtras are going out of style and Creative is not supplying them anymore (but you can probably find some for a great low price now). So, I got a 15GB third generation iPod in exchange for the Xtra. Yes, I cannot carry all of my 20GB of music with me with the 15GB iPod, but I really don’t need to. I created a nice playlist that has all the songs that I want on my iPod and I keep it sync’d with my iTunes on my iBook now. And I definitely will be using the new iPod more often than the Xtra since it is so much more of a joy to use and ties in so nicely with iTunes Music Store.
Conclusion
“You get what you pay for” is probably the best slogan for the Creative Labs Nomad Zen Xtra 30GB. Yes, per gigabyte the Xtra is quite a deal. But when it comes to actual usage and music listening it is more a hinderance than a joy. I would only recommend the Xtra if you are on a shoestring budget and can find one on clearance now that Creative seems to be phasing them out. Otherwise, spend the extra money and get an iPod. The audio quality on the iPod is a little less than the quality of the Xtra, but the pure user friendliness and industrial design of the iPod is well worth the extra money.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 269 Recommended for: Music Lovers - High Capacity Storage for an Entire Album Collection
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