Rating: 
Summary: Buyer Beware!
Review: I've been using the 60GB Nomad for 4 months now and my experience has definately not been a good one.First: The included software is possibly one of the worst applications I've ever encountered. It has not worked properly since I've gotten the thing and to make matter's worse, it screws up differently depending on which computer I run it on. On my newest machine it neither transfers music to the Nomad, nor will it allow you to have a simular song name no matter who the artist is. It simply overwrites the older version! Absolutlely terrible! Experienced Nomad users recommend you purchase another program from a 3rd party, but why should you have to? If Creative Labs can't get this part of the package right, why should you buy anything from them in the first palce? Second: Battery life is a joke! I have yet to get 5 hours out of a charge, and that is with all the audio effects turned off. Third: The included case didn't even fit the player. Another waste of money. Fourth: The side mounted controls are in the perfect place to be hit by accident. The front mounted controls on other players are there for a reason. The selector switch feels as if it will break with only a few weeks of use. Another example of Creative's poor design. All in all I can't recomend this player to anyone. I'm not an Apple fan by a long shot, but you definately get what you pay for, and in the case of the Nomad, the lowere price is offset by the 3rd rate quality of the overall package. Creative Audio should be ashamed of themselves. This is just an attempt to cash in on somebody else's good idea. Definately check out players from other manufacturers first.
Rating:
Summary: 2 Zen Xtras broken within 2 months!
Review: Like most people I narrowed my mp3 player search down to this and the iPod. I figured, sure the software (iTunes), interface, and design of the iPod blow the Zen out of the water, but all that cannot be worth all the extra money. So I went with the Zen thinking that as long as it plays music and sounds good, I'm fine with it. First, I install Media Source, which erased the tags of about 2500 mp3s which I had so easily organized in iTunes, which was my player until I got the Zen. Oh well, I spent the hours re-tagging everything. Then, third day I had the thing, it crashes for no reason. Just won't work. I take it back to Best Buy and get a new one for free. The new one works for about a month and a half and then goes down the drain. The headphone jack just won't work. So I think, "two broken for no reason within two months. This is bad." Luckily with my second Zen I bought a service plan from Best Buy, otherwise it would've been $350 gone! Best Buy let me pay the difference between the Zen and the iPod and I am now the happy owner of an iPod.
Those of you thinking - as I did - that the iPod is not worth the money, you are wrong. Size is not a huge factor. The Zen is bigger, but not too big for pockets, etc. However, the design is not as solid. For instance, when I dropped my Zen on a soft surface, like a bed, the battery case would release, and out pops the battery. This happened even more in my pocket. Also, the scroll wheel is awful. If you hold it down and wait till you get to the right band, it usually goes way past it. Also, its too centered on playlists. If you play one song, it will play that one and then stop. The iPod will continue to play until you stop it. This means you don't have to constantly build playlists. The Zen plays music and sounds good. It is cheaper. But its design, software, and interface flaws are more significant than one would think, and these flaws are emphasized once you use a product like the iPod. I was willing to deal with these negative attributes and save money until two of them broke on me. And for PC people, another reason I went with the Zen originally was compatibility. The iPod works perfectly with PC. Of course you have to pay for the Firewire to USB cord, or the Firewire port. But if you wanna transfer music at a reasonable speed with the Zen you have to have USB 2.0. Unless your computer is pretty new, you'll have to buy a USB 2.0 port which is the same price as Firewire, and they're basically the same speed.
Yes, the Zen does not match the iPod in many respects, but it still plays music and it is a boatload cheaper. However, when two break in such a short period of time, one realizes why it is so much cheaper. I can't recommend this product due to my experience with it.
Rating:
Summary: Large disk space doesn't make up for a shoddy product
Review: I had the 60gb Nomad for about a week. And I've now had the 40gb iPod for about a week. Figured I'd do a comparison. For me, tech doesn't have to be pretty as long as it's functional. And being that I have a 15,000 mp3's (50GB), I went with the Zen first so I could hold all my music on it. I wanted to like the Zen, I really did. Alas... INTERFACE
iPod comes with iTunes, a pretty decent player, great for organizing and tagging your audio files. Works just fine with Windows. Get some Mac reader software, and you've got a device that behaves just like a spare hard drive. Installation was easy and hassle-free. Nomad comes with Creative Media Center, a player that didn't recognize 90% of my music tags... and in fact, erased 90% of my music tags. The Media Center, in fact, was such a resource hog that I uninstalled it, which screwed up my computer even more, requiring me to run a System Restore. Oh, and it crashed a lot. The Zen itself never behaved correctly in my USB 2.0 slot... often just disconnecting at random and cutting off transfers with an "unknown error" message. Gee, how helpful. SIZE iPod is smaller than an audio cassette case. Zen is about the size of a standard walkman. ACCESSORIES The 40GB iPod comes with a case, earphones, a headphone remote extension, iPod dock, firewire cable, a charger, spare foam thingees for the earphones, plastic clips to cover up naked connections, a 4-port firewire adapter, and a little bag to carry the accessories in. The iPod case covers up the screen, which is a bit inconvenient. However, the ipod is easy to remove from the case, but can't fall out on it's own. The belt clip is quite sturdy. The iPod comes with address book support, an alarm clock, a calendar and games... I've also managed to download the weather and the news on it. The Zen comes with a case, earphones which I never really used because they were too big and sounded bad, a USB cable, a charger, and... um... no, that's it. The Zen also comes with a case that covers up the screen, but you can't remove the Zen from it's case without unsnapping it, which (because of the location of the snap) is very hard to do without taking the case off your belt - which is disturbingly easy to do. I never trusted the Zen case enough to use it. And the Zen can't really do anything else but play music - however, it's easier to delete / edit / organize tracks directly from the Zen than with the iPod. Generally, you have to have the iPod plugged into your computer to delete / edit tracks or playlists. SERVICE Turns out the headphones / remote extension that came with my iPod was defective - my left earphone would sputter and go out whenever I just breathed on the wires. I called Apple and got put on hold for a while - but they sent me a replacement that arrived in four days. My Zen wouldn't interact with USB 2.0 correctly, the battery life was about four hours, and in the last couple days that I had it, it seemed that (you guessed it) the headphone jack was giving out. After two e-mails and two phone calls to tech support, Creative finally told me my Zen was defective and sent me over to "Customer Care." "Customer Care" apparently assumes you're a thief, as they won't send you a replacement Zen unless you A) mail it back first, or B) let yourself get charged for it AGAIN, and only get a refund once they receive the defective part, accessories and all. "Customer Care" is also only open during regular business hours, and the "Customer Care" representatives... well, let's just say they don't inspire you with confidence. In fact, they screw stuff up. A lot. Like freezing the price of the Zen on my checking account twice despite the fact that I told them not to. Having to call them four times just to get a UPS label to send the defective Zen back. Oh, and did I mention they lost my returned Zen once it arrived? No, I don't think I did. Oh, and I had to do a Rod Steiger routine on the "Customer Care" guy to get a full refund. I really wanted to recommend the Zen. I really wanted to like the Zen. But it just doesn't compare to the iPod at all. Creative, for that matter, doesn't compare with Apple at all. Apple makes a product that seems to have been tested backwards and forwards in order to provide the end user with the best possible product. Creative makes a product that doesn't live up to any of its hype, and seems slapped together as an afterthough. In fact, thanks to my experience with the Creative's "Customer Care," I'm never buying anything from Creative again. Apple, on the other hand, has guaranteed my future business. Sacrifice the 20gb of extra space and the bit of extra money and get the iPod. The Zen is not worth it. At all.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Macintosh compatible?
Review: Having read a number of reviews that refer to this unit as the "iPod Killer"... Having used Creative Products with my Mac previously... Having bought Creative products from the Apple store... According to Creative Labs, this unit is NOT MAC COMPATIBLE. I have news for you: it IS Mac compatible, but Creative Labs doesn't seem interested in supporting it. The odd thing is that I got a driver to make it work from Creatives website - and it was a lot of digging, as there is nothing that links to it. You're going to have to search some forums, but you can find a driver. Now I love this thing. The Big question? Why don't they support Macs? Is it a alck of interest on Creative's part, or is it a licensing issue? Ask them!
Rating:
Summary: The honeymoon is OVER
Review: I have had this thing for about 4 months, and despite a few idiosyncracies I have LOVED it....until NOW that is. Suddenly, and for no apparent reason, the headphone jack has gone wonky. This player has spent it entire life inside the protective case, has never been dropped, and has only seen use as a car player where it sits in a dashboard cubbyhole that fits it so well its practically womb-like. I have unable to contact Creatives customer support (it's President's Day today so they are closed.....no mention of this in their voice-mail que, you just get randomly disconnected for no apparent reason and with no warning), but being that the unit is JUST over warranty (only 3 months, which is weak in the extreme) I am not very hopeful. After reading this and a few other review sites, it appears that I am not alone, as many other users seem to be having the same problem.
I am trying to avoid trashing the product completely, at this point, but this is unacceptable. $500 for this thing, and because they used a 5 cent jack instead of a 10 cent jack, its almost useless. I have found enough other users complaining about this same thing that it appears Creative a serious design flaw here, and while I have been willing to live with, forgive, and even praise some of their other design choices, this is WHACK.
Rating: 
Summary: Awsome... for 2 days
Review: This is my second Zen. They are so awsome they deserve a chance i thought. The first one (second gen) was dropped out of my pocket while on a movie vehical, still worked. Stepped on it, still worked. After 5 months, it stopped charging and totally crapped out at around 9 months. I thought "hey, i treated it like crap i must of broke it" so i got the Xtra. I totally loved the thing for the 2 DAYS that it worked. I was just sitting, listening to my jams and the sound just... went off. The headphone jack randomly crapped out on me. I sent it back and im getting my cash back... i dunno what im going to do now... iPods are too much and they have sucky battery life. Maybe i'll get a cd player... or a portable record player...
Rating:
Summary: Creative products and support need work
Review: WOW - things have certainly gotten worse since my original posting. I have had the same experience as many others here with Creative, saying my not dropped player is out of warranty, 20 bucks to look at it and who knows how much to fix. Fortunately Amazon has decided to replace (sure hope I have better luck) but sounds like the headphone jack goes out after about a month on a lot of these players. Given the amount of time Amazon has had to spend on this and Creative's very poor build quality and warranty track record I wonder if I would continue to partner with them. The cost to Amazon has to be getting high now. I simply cannot believe a 400 dollar unit has to be treated like it was porcelain (not acceptable).
Rating:
Summary: Not impressed
Review: Get to know the Rescue Mode, you'll need it alot.
Rating:
Summary: Headphone Jack / Jog Wheel
Review: Not sure how to rate this.
I bought the player for my husband at Christmas and he loved it...Downloaded nearly 300 albums since opening it...The sound is great and size is comparable to all except the slim ipods but that is okay. There are concerns though. The side jog wheel is kind of tricky and cheap feeling - if you don't press it just right you wont be able to select the menu options - works about 75% of the time but can get frustrating. The other concern is the reason I am on the site today. We have to exchange it (I hope so anyhow) because the headphone jack has stopped working and music is not coming out of the left side of headphones and speakers. I can't believe is under a month of use it seems to have broken. Concerns me even if I do get it replaced but he has had a blast with it and it has such an upside we will see if we have better luck with a replacement...
Rating:
Summary: Nomad vs iPod - My Comparison
Review: If you read the reviews for both the iPod and the Nomad, it is obvous that there are a fair share of lovers and haters of both MP3 players. Both players have people who have no complaints and think they have the best MP3 player available, and both have those who were never able to get there's to work properly or those who's broke after little use. But here is what I have found: - For those who complain about the leather case: The iPod's is no better. - For those who complain about the buttons/jog wheel/interface: they both have their problems. The iPod may have a better jog wheel (it may not), but if you read the iPod reveiws, people have lots of complaints about the vitual buttons and poor button placement. I have no complaints with the Nomad buttons. - About the batteries: The more full your hard drive is, the more battery power you use. This is a fact. Fore those who compain about Nomad battery time - you will have the same problem with iPod. But at least the Nomad battery is easy to remove when it eventually dies. The iPod battery needs to be replaced by the manufacturer for $99 - and it supposedly only lasts a year and a half. Also, I can charge my Nomad anywhere, but the newer iPods need to charged in their docking stations (from what I understand). The Nomad is a clear winner in this category. - Software: Sure, the Creative software is not perfect, but neither is Apple's. I have had no problems or complaints. You can use any MP3 encoder you like (although I have no complaints with Creative's - it uses the Fraunhofer IIS encoder, which is a pretty good one. Dragging and dropping works fine with the Nomad Explorer (I have had occasional crashes, but they do not bring the computer down with them - I just open the Explorer up again and continue where I left off). With iPod, I have learned that the software can only be used on one computer. Installing it on another computer or reinstalling it on the original computer will cause the iPod to reset itself and erase all of the music when you connect it to the computer with the newly installed software. I consider this a major problem. - Size: Sure, the iPod is smaller, but not so much as to influence my decision. Neither machine is large or bulky. - Price: $500 for iPod (40GB)
$350-400 for Nomad (60GB)
This is a no-brainer. Overall they both have there pluses and minuses, and everybody's experiences with these machines are different. My take is that with the Nomad you get more Storage and less headache for the dollar.
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