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Creative Labs Nomad Jukebox (Blue)

Creative Labs Nomad Jukebox (Blue)

List Price: $349.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: More on the Jukebox
Review: Just some additional notes after using the player some more, to add to my previous review.

First, I was incorrect when I said you could not delete songs and playlists on the player itself. You can, it's just buried on a totally different menu, so that you have to jump back and forth from your active playlist. I guess this is for safety's sake, but it sure makes deleting a pain to do. But you can, that's the good news!

Second, Creative has just released a firmware upgrade that does address a number of issues, and really makes this player rock! The firmware not only lets you use WMA files, it adds the fast forward and rewind feature, louder sound, and gapless playback. This upgrade is a must-have if you get this player!

Still can't bump my review rating up to 5 stars, since battery life still stinks. But this definitely strengthens my recommendation that this is an MP3 player well worth having.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I've had my Nomad Jukebox a year, and absolutely love it!
Review: Although the controls are a little akward and annoying to use at times, this minor drawback is completely outweighed by the other features and overall quality of the Nomad. I have the original 6 gig model, but last I checked, it's upgradable to 60 gigs, since it uses a standard laptop harddrive, which can be changed. I've found 6 gigs to be plenty for when I'm on the go, and use my Nomad primarily in my taxi, where I hook it's line output to the line input on my older Pioneer car stereo. It's truly perfect for 12 hour shifts as a cab driver, and my passengers love it too. The sound is nothing short of awesome if you have good sounding mp3s, since it's sound hardware is basically a SoundBlaster Live. The firmware is upgradable too, so this player can adapt to new file formats as they're introduced in the future.

In order to fully appriciate this player, you should already have a sizable mp3 library. Mine was up to about 120 gigs when I bought my Nomad Jukebox last year. Realise, it will take you a while to get 6 gigs of mp3s into it with USB. Once you fill it up though, it's a real pleasure to remove the songs you're tired of and add more new ones.

The Playcenter 2 software that ships with the Nomad Jukebox is completely awful; so bad I nearly returned mine shortly after I bought it. There are much better programs for making mp3s which I of course already had. Fortunatly, there is also other software available for the Nomad, so you don't have to use the wreched PlayCenter software at all. I've been using Notmad Explorer from Redchair Software for almost a year with my Nomad, and love it. Notmad (for Windows) integrates into Windows Explorer and makes moving files to and from the Nomad Jukebox via USB as easy as copying them to another harddrive, and gives network support that as far as I could tell was absent in PlayCenter. Notmad Explorer also lets you create and edit your playlists so you don't have to do it with the tiny bottons and screen on the player. It also has the ability to edit the ID3 tags of the files on the Nomad Jukebox, a crucial feature that PlayCenter lacks.

The most amazing feature of the Nomad Jukebox, which I rarely see mentioned, is not only is it a player, it's also a recorder, and an exceptional one at that. Using it's analog audio input, It makes recordings that put to shame anything I've EVER heard before. It records to 16-bit wave files at either 44k (CD quality) or 48k (slightly higher DAT quality). I've been using it to digitally record my vinyl and cassettes, and have also made amazing recordings of concerts and band jam sessions with it. The wave files I easily move to a PC with Notmad Explorer to edit and compress into mp3s. I've been making mp3s from analog sources with PCs since 1999, and the quality of the mp3s made from wave files recorded with the Nomad Jukebox are so good it's stunning. I've been collecting records since 1973, so this feature is really a dream come true. Oddly enough, it lacks an input level meter, but the recording level is adjustable, so with a little trial and error you can get it perfect.

Another perk is that the Nomad Jukebox runs on 12 volts DC; perfect for using in a car. The included rechargable batteries are only good for about 3 hours, but they're standard AA batteries, so as better battery technology develops, this too can improve. I'm amazed how many people complain about this, as all things considered, three hours of playback is very good. Few laptops will play mp3s this long on thier batteries, and additional batteries for the Nomad are much cheaper than any laptop battery by a long shot.

The EAX feature that's so hyped I've found to be a complete waste. Why add cheezy echo delay effects to a player that without them sounds excellent?

No, the Nomad Jukebox is not very suitable for active use (jogging, snowboarding, etc), but it's really not intended for that. I have found it to be perfect for bicycle riding around town, as long as the ride is under two hours. I also use it while riding the bus and walking. The supplied carrying case is pretty useless, but since the Nomad Jukebox is roughly the size of a portable CD player, it wasn't hard to find a nice suitable case for it with a strap and room for it's cables.

The complaints about CDDB file naming issues really amuse me. It's a user-submitted database, of course it's riddled with errors. Am I the only person left that's not too lazy to type in my own ID3 tags? This is very easy to do with Winamp before uploading the files to the Nomad. One note about ID3 tags: use ID3v1, not ID3v2 if you care about continous play albums, otherwise you'll hear a pause in the music as the Nomad Jukebox changes tracks. This is because ID3v1 uses the mp3 file header, and ID3v2 appends itself to the end of the file, making the mp3 slightly larger, enough to cause a pause. The Nomad Jukebox is the ONLY player I've seen that will not insert a pause between files, but only if there are no ID3v2 tags. Those are easily removed with Winamp as well. I know some people prefer WMA to mp3, but personally I'm not impressed.

In short, the Nomad Jukebox is a remarkably good portable audio component if used with third party software and accessories. It's much more than merely an mp3 player, and well worth every penny. Unlike other mp3 devices, it's fully upgradable, and should never really be obselete. I've nearly stopped burning CDs since I got it, since I can hook my Nomad Jukebox up to nearly any stereo or amplified speakers. I've yet to see a better way to take a large amount of music with you. Sure, the iPod is smaller, but it's features don't even compare to the Nomad Jukebox. Once you've made the jump to this harddrive based player, memory based ones seem laughably limited, and carrying CDs with you, even mp3-CDs, seems silly.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Dies after one song
Review: For me, this mp3 player is great for holding all of my music- I downloaded all my Cd's and still have room for more.

My problem is this: When I unplug it from teh wall to take it out running, it plays, then dies after one song. I replaced teh rechargeable batteries, but it keeps doing the same thing. It just freezes up and I can't press any buttons. Then I have to wait until it says "shutting off, not in use" before I can try turing it back on again.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Excellent solution for Napster fan, but need improvements
Review: As soon as I found out Creative is releasing Jukebox, I had to buy it. I used to have Creative Nomad II. It was excellent to be honest. It had FM Radio, Voice recorder and MP3. As I used it more often, I was frustrated with the memory size and how much memory cost if you want more. Jukebox. It's no problem. Right now, I have 300 individual MP3 songs in there. It plays great and it sounds even better since this unit includes EAX. Preset EQ such as Stadium sound, Concert hall, and so on. Nomad II didn't have this before, so it made a huge difference in listening quality. I really love this player. I also found some problems with the player. It has a better software that handles MP3 Creative PlayCenter 2. But, its interface is a bit ... not intuitive. There are two screens to juggle. There is also no way to manage new MP3 songs from the old ones already inside your player. What I mean is when you only want to add a new song, you either have to remember the new songs or create a new folder and put all the new songs in there. The other thing is that you can not download songs from the player. I think you can only upload it if I am correct.(I maybe wrong.) Jukebox also uses USB to connect to your computer. It's fast, but occasionally it fails when you try to upload a lot of songs. It's not that big a problem, but the thing is that you don't know where you were dropped, so you have to figure out what songs were trasferred and not transferred. Jukebox, by the way,uses its own OS. When you try to do many things fast, it can crash. There is a reset button. It won't erase anything, but you need a very long needle like pin to reset it, but it wasn't supplied by the Creative, so when your jukebox crashes when you are on the road, you better have something sharp. Otherwise, you won't be able to use it. OS is also a bit ... again, not intuitive. It's a bit harder to navigate through the menu, and if you want to erase a song, there is no erase button like Nomad II, but instead, you will have to go through series of menu, then you will have to go back to the playlist to start playing again. Despite all these things, I still love this machine. To me, memory count a lot more than some system glitches. Only thing I hope is a remote. Possibly wireless remote. Jukebox has a Infrared interface beside the USB. So, there is some possibility that Creative will release it. If you don't carry around the unit often, this will help accessing songs from your couch.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Some disavantages explained...
Review: You already know that it holds a ton of music, is easy to navigate, and overall a great mp3 player. There are two main complaints posted at Amazon.

The first is the low battery life. That is true. You can get somewhere around 4 hours. Keep in mind it comes with two sets of batteries, so if you carry both around you have about 8 hours. The reason for the low battery life is that you are running a hard drive! If you mainly use this kind of thing at the home or in the car, there is a AC adapter and I believe Creative has just released a car kit.

Another complaint is the loudness. While it is not near soft, it is not quite as loud as a CD player usually achieves. For me, however, it is usually not a problem. I have found that the SoundJam program (comes with the player) lets you raise the sound of any track when you rip the CD's to mp3.

Here is one great part about the Jukebox - free upgrades from the website! In the first upgrade they added the ability to search in a track. What they add later depends on the input given to them by customers.

Overall, this is a great player if you can shell out the . . . the cash. . . 6 gigs of music will support almost all musicfans. I encourage everyone interested to check out the official website: www.nomadworld.com.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Nomad Jukebox - the best Mp3 player as of now...
Review: I've been waiting for something like this for forever. I've gone through my share of MP3 players, minidisc players, walkmans and discmans, but so far nothing has had the versatility that the Nomad Jukebox has. My problem is that whenever I travel I insist that I can't survive without bringing my entire CD collection, and it's annoying (and risky) to lug around that many CDs. Minidiscs provided a solution for a while, but it was to much hassle to spend so much time recording & editing the minidiscs manually without the help of a computer program. MP3 players like the Rio 500 & Nomad II are great for day use & jogging, but most of the time 1 hour just doesn't cut it. MP3-CD players don't seem worth it to me because you still have to buy a CD burner & carry around CDs. The Nomad Jukebox is for people who want a MASSIVE amount of music (6 GIGs, 100+ hours, which is 100x more than most Mp3 players, at around the same price) for use over a long period of time or at home.

The Jukebox comes bundled with software for PlayCenter 2 (for the PC) or SoundJam (for Macs) to use for ripping CDs & Mp3s from your computer to the Jukebox. It also comes with decent headphones (loudness is NOT a problem) & a carrying case, plus all the necessary equipment for setting it up. Setup is pretty easy, and using the software is a lot more intuitive than I though it would be. It takes me around 5 minutes to rip a CD from my computer the the Nomad. The best feature by far is the OMD description searcher-- if you're online while your ripping CDs, the OMD finds the album name, year released, genre, artist, & ALL the track names, so you don't have to type anything in. You can also rip Mp3s from the Nomad back to your computer. The songs in the Nomad can be categorized under Albums, Artists, Genres or Play Lists to make it easier to navigate. It supports data, mp3, wma, and wav files (plus many others). You can download updates [from the web] for better software or firmware for the player, so even if something isn't perfect now, in the future improvements will be available. The player also has an infrared port on the front for future additions (like a remote control). It comes with 2 hours of free music (mostly classical) and some Audio Books. It includes jacks for line-in recording from radios, microphones or stereos, and line-out hookup to stereos or speakers.

Of course, the Nomad Jukebox is a very new kind of Mp3 player, so it has a few MAJOR flaws:

1) BATTERY POWER- Hard Drives tend to suck up an endless amount of power, and that's exactly what the Jukebox is-- a Hard Drive disguised as an Mp3 player. You can ONLY use the 4 rechargeable batteries that Nomad gives you (AA size) to run it without the AC adapter, and those only last around 2 hours by themselves. Nomad includes an extra set of 4 to replace them, but you always have to make sure they are fully charged. Maybe in the future there will be more options (battery pack?)

2) WEIGHT - It's around the size of a first-generation CD player, and it weighs around 2 lbs with batteries. This isn't really a problem for me, but it depends what you want to use it for. It's not meant for use while jogging or biking, etc-- it's more for use over a long period of time away from home, on the bus/plane/dorm/in the car, or at home, plugged into the AC adapter and a pair of speakers. Besides the weight, in my opinion, it looks VERY nice- it has unique, smooth design, coloring and shape (and the LCD screen is easy to read).

The Nomad Jukebox is the best in its category of high-capacity Mp3 players-- It holds 100 times more music than a normal Mp3 player, and its price has been drastically reduced, making it a lot more affordable than it was before. Overall, I am very satisfied with it. It is the best option for anyone who's ever wished they could bring all their CDs with them without actually having to CARRY them... and I think that I will be using it for a long, long time from now.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Best MP3 player for its time
Review: When this item first came out, it was the best thing ever invented. I had it for about 8 months before I upgraded the hard drive to a 30gb. I took this thing everywhere with me (even to bed at night). It became an obsession. I purchased the car adapter kit from jukeboxaccessories.com so that I could take it along with me for long trips and listen to kiyosaki audio books.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Great when Jukeboxes were first coming out
Review: Well, I own the original Nomad Jukebox 6GB, and I've had it for a year and a half. No lie, a year and a half, functioning. But I'm upgrading to a Nomad Jukebox 3 in a couple weeks. I'm obsessed with music. Anyways, Lets start with the main annoyance, the battery life. You can get four hours if you're really lucky, but count on three and a half. If its plugged into the wall though, you obviously wont have to worry about anything. The player itself is pretty shock-proof; I haved dropped it many times, and it still works to this day. It IS a bit bulky but hey it's better then carrying around 150 CD's. You will have to restart it alot, especially when the batteries get low. Don't even bother with that stupid reset pin, just yank out the batteries. The sound is more than great, I can definetly give it that. People shouldn't complain about the headphones supplied with it, because honestly; who actually USES stock headphones? Of course they [are bad]. The sound is nice and loud, and the presets make it even better. Navigating on the player was always pretty easy for me once I got the hang of it, and the green backlight is nice, you'd be suprised how bright it is. The Playcenter 2 thing is the only thing I have ever used so I can't complain about it. It's kind of annoying at times though, be prepared to restart your computer once in a while. As for transfer speeds, my computer is ancient so I know nothing but USB 1.1. It's pretty slow compared to a nice computer with FireWire or USB 2.0 but I usually only rip CD's so it doesnt matter. As old as this MP3 player is, people will still get incredibly jealous of you. It all depends what you're looking for. With things like the iPod and the Nomad Jukebox 3, and even that hideous looking Archos thing, this MP3 player doesnt really stand up to the competition. However it IS cheaper then most of the new jukeboxes, and if you can stand the battery life and you're on a budget then this is a great MP3 player to invest in, if you TAKE CARE OF IT! If you arent to short on cash and you're big on features, memory, and battery life then I suggest looking elsewear. The Creative Nomad Jukebox 3 is a good alternative in that case.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: nomadwoild?
Review: I BOUGHT A NOMAD JUKEBOX ABOUT A MONTH AGO, HAVING READ YOUR REVIEWS I AGREE WITH THE FACT THAT IT IS A BIT NOISY AND TAKES FOREVER TO START UP,WHICH CAN BE A LITTLE ANOYING WHILE DRIVING.
THE JUKE BOX ,I HAVE IS THE TYPE WITH THE 6 GIGA MEM.
I AM USING IT WITH THE NEW SOFTWARE FOR WINDOWS XP.
I ENCOUNTERED A MAJOR PROBLEM THREE WEEKS AGO, WHILE RIPPING A CD TO MP3,THE JUKEBOX WENT DEAD,THE LCD SCREEN WAS DEAD AND UPON RESTARTING THE JUKEBOX,I DISCOVERED THAT MY PREVIOUS MP3 DOWNLOADS WERE ERASED.
I WAS DISAPIONTED AND HAPPY.
THE SAD PART WAS THAT I HAD TO DOWNLOAD EVERYTHING TO THE JUKEBOX FROM THE START.
THE HAPPY PART WAS THE FACT THAT INSTEAD OF HAVING ONLY 6 GIGA,
I NOW HAVE 12.7 GIGA TO STORE MY MUSIC IN.
THERE ARE NO MORE PRELOADED FILES, I LOST SOME FUNCTIONS,AND EVERYTIME I START THE JUKEBOX IT OPENS THE SAME PLAYLIST, OF A COUPLE OF ALBUMS, WITHOUT STORING THE LAST PLAYLIST.

I HAVE A COUPLE OF PICS TO SHOW THE CURRENT MEMORY STATIS OF MY JUKEBOX BUT UNFORTUNATELY I DO NOT KNOW HOW ATTACH THEM TO THIS FORM.

I'D BE HAPPY IF SOMEONE COULD ADVISE ME ON HOW TO FIX OR RESET THE JUKEBOX TO ITS FACTORY DEFAULT.

BEST REGARDS,
FAISAL.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: software definitely needs improved
Review: i have a 20 gig model. (it is a [LOT] of space) if i put everything i got on it, in mp3's i got it about half full. howeve, the software is a major headache. i've gone so far as to download a plugin for my musicmatch jukebox player to move files to the nomad. i try to use the included software, and the id3tag reader crashes on any tag with () anywhere for example "jessica simpson - irresistable (so so def remix)" a major headache. the player itself sounds good, but if your batteries are dead prepare for the biggest headache of all, my player when the batteries are removed, it loses the entire library! the space is still taken up in the player (no items displayed in library), and i have run disk clean up but now that doesn't seem to be an option in the eax menu (help me!) i like te player sound, the digital effects don't really impress me. however once in a while i'll turn on the club setting and put the player in my car with my kicker L7 and 2400 watt system, jus to anger the neighbors. if someone can help me find disk clean up again i'd be very appreciative.


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