mp3 players

So you want to buy an MP3 player? Well if you don't have enough cash for an iPod and/or a general mistrust of Apple products, this player is for you. The Nomad has some definite advantages over the iPod that far outweigh its drawbacks.

First, it has a massive amount of storage at roughly half the cost of the comparable iPod. The 40GB version I have is capable of holding 4000 minutes of music. Secondly, the Nomad can hold both music and Data files, so if you need to transport a few documents between home and work, this player can also do that job for you. Thirdly, music can be copied off of the Nomad as well as loaded to. The iPod only allows the user to load music onto the device (Apple's attempt to prevent indiscriminant copying). With the Nomad, you can effectively use your player as a backup for your music. Finally, the computer interface is very simple and familiar to the Windows user. The Nomad shows up like a hard drive in Windows Explorer, and you simply drag and drop music into the player.

The drawbacks of this device are few, but notable. First, the interface is nowhere near as nice as an iPod. They use a series of buttons and a clumsy wheel. It's not flashy and neat like the iPod, but I don't want to pay double just for a neat interface. If you simply must have that touchy-feely interface, Creative Labs is coming out with a Nomad Zen touch fairly soon. Secondly, the EAX sound features are utterly worthless. Unless you want to hear what your music will sound like in a church or a stadium, you wont use this feature. Finally, the organization of songs on the player could use a little tweaking. Everything is sorted by the ID tag of the MP3 file. iPod does the same thing, but I would expect something a little better from Creative labs, like being able to use folders to organize music.

So to recap:

PROS:
-Huge storage capacity at half the cost of an iPod
-Holds both data and music
-Can copy files to and from device (unlike iPod which is unidirectional)
-Simple explorer interface for moving music to/from device

CONS:
-Unimaginative control interface (will be solved when Nomad Zen Touch comes out)
-EAX audio features are useless
-File organization leaves a bit to be desired.

I'll keep this short and sweet. I've had the Zen Xtra 40GB for about a month. I'm returning it tomorrow (hopefully) to get an iPod.

Pros:
- Plenty of space
- 1/2 the cost of a 40GB iPod

Cons:
- User interface is difficult to use; jog dial isn't very easy to manipulate
- Poorly designed software (buggy and doesn't work 50% of the time)
- EAX sound field manipulation is garbage - don't use it
- Can't use it as an external hard drive w/o extra drivers
- Bigger than shirt pocket
- Sync capability is practically useless and error-prone (200 of my files wouldn't sync thru Creative's driver)

The only redeeming thing about the Zen is a third-party shareware product called Notmad Explorer which is great - but unfortunately it uses the Creative driver and the Zen itself, so it's not much better.

I had been putting off getting a digital music player in the hopes that prices would drop. I finally decided to get the Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra 40GB, which was decidedly cheaper than comparable products from Apple, HP and iRiver.

Boy, this thing is the best! I used to have to lug around all my CDs, but this thing stores my entire music library (THOUSANDS of CDs!). Navigation is easy; you can search by artist, album or genre, as well as create your own playlists. It has something called EAX which is supposed to be some sort of advanced sound technology, but I don't see much value in it. Supports both USB 1.1 and 2.0; I have 1.1 and it took about 48 hours to put about 8,000 songs on it from my computer. If you listen to it about 4 hours per day, you'll need to recharge the batteries about once every 5 days (do the math if you listen more or less than that).

In summary, I LOVE this thing! It has all the functionality that I need, and it is BY FAR the best value. There's no other product that can store 40GB of music for less than $300. P.S. I listen to it while programming at work, and I've found that jazz boosts my lines of code per hour and cuts down on the number of bugs! ;-)