Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra

Nothing is compatable. The best features of the early Nomad Jukebox is ommitted. They just stuck a bigger memory into a Zen made it smaller and charged more money, more money for connector cables, more money for chargers, more money for little bags.

I have had this 1st generation hard drive player for many years and it has been going strong for so long. Times they are a changing. These days 30 gb players are common and the build quality (thanks to the knowledge gained in the previous 4 generations of players) has increased dramatically. Its not pretty and like another review of this product, yeah it ain't pretty but its true it does the job.

I've used this player as a music player and a data storage device and it achieved both tasks readily. Support from Creative is good when my first player jammed. They replaced it with no fuss and based on my experience with them I have stuck with their products with the new players I have bought, as well as gifts for friends.

This player is superseded now by its newer video enabled, touch screen, outlive the human race brothers but for its time as the new kid in town it was the business.

The software isn't as easy to use as media player but you get used to it. These days this player has gone the way of so much 5 year + battery powered technology and the battery life is poor at best. It's the battery's fault, true enough as battery cells do die over time but replacement parts for this player now prove to be hard to come by and so the better option for me is a new, new kid in town player. One thing is for sure I'll take a Creative product over any of the iPod offerings for their robust build quality and no nonsense approach. Function over fashion.

I liked my Zen Xtra so much that I bought a second one.

I've been using MP3 format for about 10 years now and I had owned 5 different MP3-playing portable devices before the Zen, but none of them had really proved good enough to become my main source of music. The Zen has changed that for several reasons.

Firstly, it's got huge storage capacity. I have hundreds of CDs and I'm not the type who can put up with music that's been squeezed down to a very low bit rate. Most of what I've ripped already has been at 192KBit/s (WMA) so even at that level of quality I can load-up over 5,000 of my favourite tracks.

Secondly, the quality of output is good enough for me to actually consider connecting my second Zen to my home hi-fi, instead of my CD player - which is something I'd sworn I'd never do, until I listened to the Xtra.

Thirdly, the battery life is good enough for it not to be an issue. I leave the Zen in my glovebox (connected to my car stereo) and it only needs charging one every 2-3 weeks.

There are drawbacks of course. The user interface and the controls mean that finding the right track can take a little while, and it is pretty reliant on the presence of ID tags on the tracks as it doesn't seem to use drive folders for playback navigation. Plus it's too big to slip into any of my pockets.

But overall, the Zen does enough to change my opinion of MP3 players for the better, and I'm even considering buying a third one to hook-up to the stereo in my bedroom!

Never Update the firmware...Good player if you're on a budget and have about 6,000 songs or more... If you are a Pirate like me this is the one to save money, just never update... I got mine for 90$ new!

I bought the Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra mp3 player about 18 months ago when large capacity mp3 players were few and far between. It seemed like value for money at the time at £230 for a 40 gig player. This is not a bad mp3 player it has reasonable build quality, lots of memory and has worked more than adequately, but that said it is not an outstanding player either. The only two points I can pick it up on would be the headphones which I found to be poor, that's not to say you can't invest in a new pair, and the volume. I know that it probably doesn't go that loud to prevent me from inducing early deafness in myself, but I would like to be able to hear my tracks clearly above moderate background noise.

Ok so here's how it goes down. Me and my brother both got one of these for Christmas. As it so happens this was one of the best Christmas presents I've ever gotten. Until about three months later when it just stopped working. The best part about this story is that my brothers broke the next day. I had about 65% to 70% of the memory full when this happened. I sent it in to Creative to get it fixed and they said they would have to charge me $124 to repair it then I would have to put everything back on it. So the moral of this story is that I will never buy anything from Creative again. Oh, and by the way my nomad broke three days outside of it's warrenty.

The Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra ain't that pretty, but my god it does the job well.

This is my first Hard Drive player, and I did a lot of research before shelling out my hard earned. Thus I do not make any comparison with the technical specs of other players as I've never used one. Some folk out there are anti-iPod. I am not, I just believe this suits my needs better.

OK, let's get the bad out of the way - this is no fashion item. It ain't the prettiest in the world and it could be seen as a bit bulky (though I've never tried walking round with any other players on the market). Also, lack of remote on the headphones can be a bit of a drag. However... it does the job SO well!

For £170 it's 30gb capacity is absolutely the best deal out there.

It accepts Windows Media and MP3, which are the formats the average non-techie (like me) is likely to use.

I have ripped CD tracks using Windows Media Player, Winamp, Nero and Creative's own software and all work on this player. Also tracks downloaded from the internet work fine.

Sound quality is good, with a variety of equaliser settings (inc personal). Creative make PC soundcards and speakers so I would expect this.

Battery life is good. But more importantly, the battery is user-replaceable so if it does run down you can just get hold of a new one and fit it yourself.

Solid constrrction, and a semi-hard case, gives you confidence (2 spills to date and no probslem!).

The provided earbud headphones are of a decent quality (though better ones would be an idea) - and also don't mark you out as a potential mugging target (allegedly the case for iPods).

Easy to use. For loading the tunes, you can just drag and drop from Windows Explorer into Nomad Explorer. Not sure why Creative didn't just make the Zen appear as an extra drive, but it's really no huge hassle. The player is simple to use - I have only just looked at the manual after a month, and there are no features I've not already mastered.

Large, clear display lets you set the contrast to suit (so you can preserve battery life by setting it light).

You can create and save playlists on the move. Search by album, artist, genre etc etc. You can choose to play any combination of tunes (eg play "Classical" genre, or all "Dido" tunes, irrespective of which album they're filed under).

Overall get this if it's an audio experience you're after with ease of use, and you don't care about the looks (or like me you keep it in your pocket 95% of the time).

I have been using mp3 players since the original and worst Diamond Rio, and the Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra is the best I've used.

The sound quality is second to none, as its signal to noise ratio is market-leading at around 100dB. This means that it's possible to use high-quality headphones with the Xtra with very little background hiss - although as high quality headphones are almost always high power devices, quality headphones will shorten the battery life. As with every portable device I've used the supplied earphones are horrible but no worse than any other.

The battery life is also excellent, I've gotten around eight hours continuous use, which is what I'd expect with decent earphones and high-bitrate mp3s. You can get the stated 14 hours of battery with the supplied earphones and low-bitrate music files. The battery is also user-replaceable, unlike competing mp3 players. As it's a LiIon battery (as found in most hard-drive players) it only has around 500 charge cycles before it becomes essentially useless, so if you use it every day this is an important feature.

However, the Xtra does not function as a plain external USB hard drive, so you have to use the supplied software to load mp3s onto the player. As is usual for such software it is horrible, counter-intuitive and a pain to use, and I highly recommend spending $25 on Red Chair Software's NotMad Explorer, which is what the software should be like.

It is also rather large and ugly - if looks are important to you, I would suggest another product.

On early releases of this product the headphone jack was weak and eventually stopped working, necessitating returning the unit to Creative to have it fixed. The problem has been fixed in later releases of the player by strengthening the solder joints holding the headphone jack in place.

Overall, if you don't mind paying a little more for NotMad Explorer or putting up with the atrocious supplied software, and you don't mind having something that isn't as sexy as the iPod, this is an excellent player, and is highly recommended.

After reading numerous other things on the Nomad Jukebox portable MP3 player from Creative, I have to put in my two cents. I have the 6 gig version and I love it!

Excellent sound quality and lightweight all things considered. Someone has said that they are made fragile and I have to say I have dropped mine about 5 times so far, once on concrete and once off my entertainment center and both caused the batteries to come flying out. Still works like a charm over a year later. Makes me wonder what someone has to do to break one of these.

I bought this product because of the Creative name and the storage capacity and I wasn't disappointed on either point. Creative is known for excellent sound quality and they haven't missed a beat with this one. I'm still downloading songs onto my player and only about half way through the drive, time for 20 gigs!

I spent a lot of time looking at MP3 players before deciding on the Creative Jukebox 20GB, and would recommend anyone else who is considering it thinks about what they are looking for?

Are you looking for a sleek and shiny MP3 player to show off to your friends, and to listen to a few tracks on your way to work ? If so, the Creative Jukebox isn't for you.

If, on the other hand, you are looking for the ability to carry your entire CD collection (up to 500 albums, so I'm told) in the palm of your hand, to mix and match tracks from those albums and make up your own playlists, then this is a great buy.

Personally, I don't find the Creative JB too big, like the earlier review said, it's the size of a CD player. I travel a lot and love being able to plug the Creative JB into the back of the stereo or telly in my room and have my entire music collection available.

I've also got lots of preset playlists which allow me to pick the best bits from various albums and put them all together, so I have one list for my gym work outs, for example. The sound quality is very good - you hear things you will never hear on your stereo, and you can add effects like "Arena" sound or "Soft" sound as you want.

The software which comes with the Creative JB is intuitive - if not exactly stunning to look at on screen. It's easy to see what is on your JB, what is on your hard drive and what's on the CD. It also does all the usual stuff of connecting to the Internet to download all of your track details etc, if you want it too. I've had no problems with it, not even when upgrading it.

Battery time isn't great - about 4 hours if you use Ni-MH rechargables (and you will need to !), but is adequate. I've had to use Creative Support only once, when my JB got smashed up in an attempted mugging. They were brilliant ! They managed to recover most of my tracks, dumped it down onto a new JB and sent it back within 4 days (it was within warranty).

One other point to note is that the Creative JB allows you to record from other sources than your computer, like your stereo for example. The sound quality isn't as good, but it helps get round the current fashion for CDs that don't play on computers like Destiny's Child - This is the Remix.

All in all, this is a great buy if you are looking for a "jukebox" style MP3 player - rather than one that carries three or four CDs.