Rating: 
Summary: Wait for the second generation
Review: This is still a first generation product, with first-generation problems - a poorly-designed menu system on the player, flaky USB communications, shaky software, limited battery life, a size that barely qualifies as portable... Specifically:o It supports saving data files (theoretically making a nice backup device), but will drop the connection if you try to transfer a file >200MB or so. o The database gets messed up with "duplicate" information (e.g., the same title appearing twice in the same album). o The processor is underpowered, leading to problems if you try to, say, scan through the library while a VBR MP3 is playing. ... and any number of minor annoyances. I'm returning mine - I'll try again when their 2nd generation jukebox is out, if I don't try the new Rio jukebox first.
Rating: 
Summary: Superb Product
Review: This is what portable digital music is all about. The Creative Labs Nomad Jukebox (20 gigabyte version) delivers what you want: excellent sound, portability, and an awesome amount of storage space for your music library. The 6 gigabyte Apple iPod may get the hype, but I would have blown by that storage limitation long ago. The device interface is intuitive and organizes tracks by artist album and genre. Contrary to what another reviewer stated, you can play an album easily by highlighting the album name and pressing play. The included software works easily to tranfer tracks from your PC to the Nomad. It would have been nice to include a synchronizing feature ala Apple's iTunes, but it's not critical. And while USB transfers are slower, once you tell the software what tracks to move, there's no reason to watch it happen. Go have a cookie and come back when it's done. Battery life, as previously alluded to, is an issue. The included batteries give you four hours if your lucky, so get some more 1800 mAh aa's and keep a bunch charged. Not a fatal weakness to be sure. It's very helpful that the Nomad charges your batteries while plugged in. Overall, I'm impressed with this device. No more do I need to pick 15 tunes to put on an mp3 player before I hit the door. I always have all of them with me, and about 10 gigabytes of space (!) left to add more. The sound is excellent, the technology totally sound. As a bonus, those hundreds of mp3s you've been accumulating are backed up all the time. Get one. You'll love it.
Rating:
Summary: Store your entire CD collection.
Review: This product offers a compact way to store an enourmous amount of music. Anybody who is shopping for a 20GB MP3 player knows that much, so what are the drawbacks (or advantages) of this item? First of all, the power supply (with converter) is somewhat large. However, the player does come with 2 sets of rechargable AA batteries. The batteries are supposed to last 4 hours, but I haven't been so lucky. Secondly, be prepared to devote a large amount of time to transferring your music to the player. It's no slower than any other MP3 ripping process, but its gonna take some serious time. I think I spent 2-3 hours a day for about a week to get all my CD's transferred. I believe you can utilize an online service to recognize the titles of your songs, but I typed them in manually. Finally, its a little difficult to find the songs you're looking for once they're stored. You have to deal with a small screen, with limited input keys (due to the overall small size of the machine). But these are really my only complaints. And I think I'm being picky. Overall this player does everything its advertised to do. That's why I gave it 4 stars.
Rating:
Summary: Good item, buggy software
Review: This thingo gives you a lot of storage space for the money. After a week, its playback functions work well and I am enjoying the music stored on the Nomad hard drive, played back on my stereo system. All in all my experience is positive. My main complaints: a. short (90 day) warranty. I hope it holds up over time (runs warm in the case, this makes me kinda nervous). b. Buggy software. It crashes my computer every now and then. It refuses to play back MP3 files stored on my hard disk. The Cd ripping introduced some noisy artifacts when I tried to rip a WAV file. Then the CDDB feature refused to work properly. Right now I am ripping Cd's using Real Jukebox, and then transferring the results to the Nomad via the Nomad software. This takes more steps, but I get the album and track info with no problems, and problem-free ripping. c. An undocumented feature: You can use it as a hard drive to store/backup other kinds of files, once you diddle with some software settings. But the file management capabilities are still pretty limited. I wish Nomad would write a program enabling this device to be "seen" by the computer as an extra drive with its own drive letter.
Rating:
Summary: A must-have, but not without problems
Review: This was an easy choice for me, because it's currently still the only 20GB player on the market. If, like me, you have lots and lots of music, size matters. As big as this is, I expect I will upgrade in 2-3 years when they have 50-60GB models. If you really like music, this unit will reorganize your life. You can carry around all (well, an awful lot, anyway) of your music, organize it into as many different playlists as you want, and play it pretty much anywhere. Of course, there are also some annoying problems, but don't let that stop you from getting an amazing device like this. The best parts: (1) Sound quality. For all but audiophile equipment, the limitation on sound quality will either be the MP3 file (if it's a low-grade one) or the equipment you play it through (mass-market stereos and headphones, etc). If you hook this up to an expensive audiophile system, you will hear its limitations, but it plays compressed sound files anyway, so that's no surprise. (2) It goes everywhere and hooks up to nearly anything. Having line level out as well as a headphone-out jack adds to its versatility. I use it when I work out or go walking, at work with headphones or through the computer, with my living room stereo through an RCA cable, in the car with a casette adapter, and with the boombox I've got in the kitchen, also with a casette adapter. Having the same set of playlists instantly accessable all of those places is simply amazing. (3) A surprisingly usable interface. I had a flash-based MP3 player a couple of years ago, and based on that, I thought it would be really hard to find and play music amongst hundreds of albums. The interface makes this pretty easy. Things that have bugged me in the 6 weeks I've had this: (1) battery life could definitely be better. I wish it could use lithium-ions. (2) Interfacing with the computer. I'm not in love with the interface of the PC software, the transfer speed is sluggish, and I've had some stability problems, though nothing that renders it unusable. (3) It takes 20-30 seconds to boot up when you turn it on, and sometimes the buttons are kind of slow to react. (4) It's kind of chunky, and heavier than I'd like. (5) It skips a little sometimes when I'm out walking. I'm not a jogger, but if you want to jog with a player, this might not be the one. (6) This may just be me, but I've had some trouble matching it with good headphones. It works great for rock and electronica with the Sony earclips I use for working out, but it sounds really fatiguing when I pair it with my Grado SR-60s at work for listening to jazz and blues. I think I'm going to pair it with a headphone amp from Headroom and try some other headphones (Sennheiser HD570s, AKG K501s, etc.), to see if I can find the right combination. Overall, though, I definitely recommend this player, even though I hope they will do some things to improve it when they come out with their next model. It is an outstanding device, and I would by another in a second if anything ever happened to it.
Rating: 
Summary: Worst Bussiness Transaction Ever Had
Review: TMCONNECTIONDOTCOM service was not great then send me a defective product and when I returned It they said that was not the product they sold me. I am still fighting with this company to get my refund do not advise anyone to do bussiness with this company
Rating: 
Summary: Like Having a 400 disc cd changer in the palm of your hand
Review: Well, its not that small, but still, its size versus what it can hold is incredible. I guess I'll start with the software. The Playcenter software is wonderful, implimenting CD ripping, MP3 encoding, and the usual transfer. The ripping runs much faster then any other software has. I was able to rip an entire 1 hour cd in just under 7 minutes (using a 40x read drive). The encoding is also supurb, converting WAVs and WMAs into MP3s with great quality and without the clicks and crackels. And its incredibly easy to install. Just pop the CD in, click next a bunch of times, and there, you're done. The player itself can be a little confusing at first. But once you get the hang of it, its really a sinch. When you first turn it on, it displays the active queue screen, this is where the music you are currently playing is displayed. You hit the 'LIB' button and it brings you to the screen where all your music is displayed according to category. From here you can choose a Play List, an Artist, and Album, or a Genre to play. Just move the cursor to your choice, and hit the play button. The screen switches to the Active Queue, and the first track begins to play. Simple as that. The sound quality is also amazing. Using EAX and 4-point surround, i got great quality when hooked up to my harmon kardon 5.1 receiver. The sound was rich and full, no scratches or skips, just great surround sound music. There are very few downsides to the Nomad Jukebox. For one, it does use a hard drive, which uses moving parts, as opposed to using memory cards, which don't have any moving parts. This is a disadvantage, as you need a skip protection (as if 5 minutes wasn't more then enough anyway) and any forceful hits to the player (dropping, etc.) could cause damage to the HD. Secondly, it uses the USB to transfer data. Not that the USB isn't fast, but an IEEE-1394 connection would probably have been better. Last, the price... its slightly pricey, but its well worth the price. If you are willing to pay, then I would say, definetly get this, its the best money can buy.
Rating:
Summary: The ultimate portable walkman. Period.
Review: When I heard this puppy could hold 500 hours worth of CD quality sounding music on it, it wasn't a question of if, but when I was going to have it. It's simple use made it one of the easiest purchases I have ever made. Other reasons to buy it? Never having to buy batteries again. It comes with 2 sets of rechargable batteries, providing up to 8 hours of listening enjoyment. It *never* skips, unlike CD players when walking, or exercising. Your CDs will last longer, since you will have transferred the music to mp3, and then onto your portable walkman, you'll no longer be switching out your cds to play another one.
Rating:
Summary: I'm Happy With It...
Review: When I was thinking about purchasing the 20 GB jukebox back in December, i was deciding between it and the I-Pod. Overall, I am pleased that I chose the Nomad because I would have used the full capacity of the more expensive I-Pod 5 GB hard drive already but on the Jukebox I still have a lot more room. There have been a few annoying things about the Jukebox:
1) It doesnt put your songs in alphabetical order
2) Occasionally there are some buggy issues with it where it will shut itself down after I transfer songs to it from the computer. Also, of my 850 songs, it refuses to play one of them even though its in MP3 format
3) it turns on too easily
4)The battery gauge is completely inacurate (even tho the battery kife is pretty potent at about 4 hours per set of batteries) In conclusion, the few flaws do not mar the great looks and monstrous storage space of the Nomad Jukebox 20 GB... its a great value and it is of good quality.
| 
