Rating: 
Summary: The sad tale of my dead Nomad(A warning)!
Review: After I bought my Nomad, I discovered it needed a lot of work on my behalf to load and store all the music I wanted to feed it .But the down side of transfering and naming over 80 cds worth of music was well worth the effort.I travell a lot and the convenience of only having the Nomad and a pair of portable speakers in my bag, was increadable. I always had in the back of my mind the thought "what happens if it dies on me?all that time and effort wasted." So last night I went to use my Nomad and I noticed it had a small hole on the top side surface .It almost looked like a cigarette burn.When I tried to turn it on nothing happend . I then smelt burning and saw a small plume of smoke coming from the hole! I do not know if it is my falt because I probably left it on for a few days plugged into the mains.But it ihas died! and I have lost all the MP3 files stored in it. I have all the music on CDs so that is not the problem.I just cannot imagine going through the effort of loading 80 cds worth of music again. I am giving it 2 stars because I am angry,but I was used to the slowness and I have loud headphones.
Rating: 
Summary: I still cant HEAR YOU!!
Review: Most of the basics you already know from reading descriptions and reviews of this product. So let me say this: I'm not a volume freak, but this player is simply not loud enough. Full volume is the minimum aceptable setting. For $500 you would expect a device that sounds better than a Rio 500,for example, but that is not the case. The strorage is great, the firmware is being improved and is downloadable, transfer time is very quick. Inital load time (from power on to first sound) is unacceptably slow, but you can live with that. But the volume is a real problem. Creative simply has to do something about that.
Rating: 
Summary: Awesome---With a glitch or two!
Review: I purchased my Nomad Jukebox last month at Best Buy. Setup is simple, the software works great. Biggest disappointment, they want you to charge the batteries 12 full hours before using. I'm sure everyboby is doing that, ha ha. Even though I followed instructions the best play time I've gotten is appr. 3 hours. They send you a second set of batteries, but they have to be charged in the unit so I usually keep recharging the same 4 over and over unless I have say 16 hours between uses. I've got 1400 songs on mine and still have appr. 300 mg left. It plays beautifully, the sound is great, downloading is a snap. The biggest quirk I have found is when setting up a playlist I spend a few minutes doing that, it plays the first song or so and then says the playlist is empty. Other times it plays for hours so I haven't figured that out yet. Each time you gear up it takes more than a minute to load the library, a bit annoying. One of my biggest deals is with Creative, I have e-mailed them a question a month ago and have yet to receive a reply. The unit runs on 12 volt DC. The AC adapter puts out 12.29 volts DC. I ask them if I could run the unit on a standard cigarette lighter wich puts out appr. 14 volts wth the vehicle running. Haven't tried it yet, don't want to burn up This $500. toy just yet. I recommend it, but it needs longer battery life, tech support that will answer your questions and it will be hard to beat. Also a separate charging cradle for the second set of batteries would be nice. Nice heck, it's a necessity.Rick Hood
Rating: 
Summary: Best Mp3 player on the market
Review: This Mp3 player almost does it all. Huge storage, very easy to use, can plug it in your car or home stereo. Sounds better than any other Mp3 player that I have heard. Only thing that it lacks is a fast forward button, but I can live without it. Very, very happy with this purchase.
Rating:
Summary: Just a tech tip to the unhappy buyer listed below
Review: I've already posted an extensive review on the page for the silver Nomad (why they list these apart is mystery to me), so I won't repeat it all here, but I did have a tech tip for the very unhappy purchaser listed below who complained about the unit locking up. There is a tiny reset button on the underside of the unit. Just push a straightened paper clip through it and the unit oughta start right up, with no loss of data. I am shocked if customer support did not tell you to do this before doing all sorts of other stuff, so that doesn't bode too well. Mine also locked up on the first day (and, strangely, never did again) and I noticed that there was no mention of the reset button in the instructions.
Rating:
Summary: A great player with room for some improvements
Review: I bought this play with high hopes and most of them are met. The unit plays well. The battery life is a little weak, but Creative Labs is very thoughtful and includes a second set of batteries. It recharges fast enough and I usually listen when it's plugged in anyhow. Be carefull of using regular batteries, they will be drained within 2 hours! On the good side, this does as expected, plays many hours of music, sounds great and is easy to navigate. The down side is: I would like to see bettter support through the webstie from Creative Labs. This is a costly item, it would be great to have Web chat or something to get simple answers The software is not the best. When I try to rip Mp3's from a CD the first track is always messed up. I have to rip the first track from the CD to the hard drive and then trasfer to the CD. This is annoying because I am trying to save space on my hard drive. .wma files are supposed to offer better sound quality at lower kb rates, so therefore smaller files so more can be stored on the Jukebox. But, I can't seem to get the same quality when ripping from CD to .wma with the Play Center software included. I get better .wma sound using Windows Media Player, but again that goes to the hard drive then to the Jukebox. i also can't figure out how to trasnfer from the Jukebox to a PC. The Jukebox comes with a couple audio books that I would like to put onto PC and make room on the Nomad for more music. Overall the next version of the Jukebox should be great. It needs a bigger drive, maybe 20 gig. It also could use a tuner for FM signals to make it more of a complete product. I would also love to see a digital out to plug into a good quality stereo. I would say people should hold off buying until the next gen of players are on the market. But, if you want something that holds 150 CD's now (600 if I could figure out how to get the higher quality .wma files on it), it's as good as it gets.
Rating:
Summary: I used to carry crates of CDs and LPs...
Review: when I DJ, but now that I own two Nomad Jukeboxes, I carry a hell of a lot less... 2 Nomads and a crate of Albums I haven't had time to burn to MP3 yet. I encode all my MP3s at a very high (256kb/s +) bitrate, and other mp3 players just couldn't handle the size of these files, when I saw the Jukebox, I thought my prayers were answered, and in many ways (all but one) the gods of music smiled down on me. People have complained about the size of the units; they are the same size as a portable CD player, not very large at all. Granted they are not as small as other players, but then again, they do not have a harddrive in them holding up to 6GB of data, most topping out at 96MB. The sound quality is great using the 2 line out jacks on the rear of the unit, hooked up to a mixing board and amp, you would not know that you are not listening to a CD. The headphones are garbage, throw em out and buy a better pair, but otherwise Creative has paid alot of attention on the sound quality, and it shows. My only gripe is the unit is VERY SLOW. Once you load it up (i have over 800 titles on each) and create a bunch of playlists, it can be almost painfull to bootup and start playing. Searching for songs can be trying at times, but once you get used to its quirks, it is acceptable. I have yet to see anything that can compete with this unit, and I look forward to firmwear updates to speed the unit up a bit (PLEASE!). Note to Creative: Speed it up, and get the 5th star :)
Rating:
Summary: Good: # of MP3 it can hold. Bad: Battery Life
Review: I bought this MP3 player during Fall of 2000 and expected to buy the car kit along with it, so I don't have to waste battery. Well it wasn't available anywhere. So I had to use battery, good thing they gave me 8 rechargeable batteries. I love it that it will hold all my MP3 and I don't have to make CDs anymore, but I despise the way it eats away your battery. A 2 hour battery life is not very good if you traveling a very long ways. I hope that they can come out with batteries that would not drain as quickly. Overall, if you can shell out $*** then this MP3 Player is the one to get, but be warned: IT WILL EAT YOUR BATTERIES.
Rating: 
Summary: Buyer beware bad work and idiot tech support buy at own risk
Review: First off when you call with a problem with a product you have only had two days and you know more about it than the Tech Support people, you can definitely count on bad times. I had my "dream machine" for less than 2 days when it totally locked up. It sat and tried to start up and that was it. When I called the support line I got some fool who told me I needed the firmware upgrade. I informed him I had already downloaded the upgrade and that is when my problems began. His solution? Run it again! I then asked him how I could do that when the machine is totally locked up and unable to connect to my pc via the usb port. His answer? Send it back it had a bad reaction to the firmware upgrade. They would then send me a refurb. No thanks. I returned it and am still waiting for a refund from Amazon. I hope I don't get a hassle from them too. This is Creative Labs people not some start up with no idea of what good workmanship and tech support should be. I am thoroughly disappointed and not going to ever throw money their way again. Buyer beware bad work and idiot tech support buy at you own risk!
Rating:
Summary: Unit is too bulky, battery life sucks, & OS too slow !!!
Review: I anxiously waited for this product to come out and as much as I wanted to love it, I just couldn't get past the three major flaws I've listed below. I wanted an MP3 player that would hold a lot of music so I wouldn't have to keep running to my computer to transfer in new music every time I wanted to listen to something different. This unit does do that, but you pay a price for it. (1) The unit is awkwardly shaped, heavy, and rather bulky. I thought I could get used to this by telling myself that the unit would be like holding a portable CD player. Wrong! It weighs nearly a pound! What's worse is that this units shape makes it feel a little awkward to try to carry it in your hand. I always feel like I'm going to drop it because of it's weird, hard to grip oval shape covered with a slippery plastic case. I just don't enjoy walking around with this large heavy thing in my hand. (2) The battery life is one of its biggest drawbacks. You only get 3-4 hours of usage from a single charge! Talk about stressful! When I'm away from home I'm constantly worried it's going to die after running out of juice again and it leaves me searching for a place to charge it wherever I go. Making sure you always have extra charged batteries with you at all times just adds to the stress! I can't tell you how many times this thing has gone dead on me when I've been out and about. Listening to a portable music player should be fun and a relatively carefree process, and this thing just does not give me that kind of an experience. (3) It takes forever for this player to boot up and load the music! You have to sit and wait a couple minutes during this process before you can start doing anything with it! This is a real drawback if you are the type of person who would be turning it on and off through out the day to listen to a few tunes when you have a little bit of time on the go, like on your lunch break, in between classes or meetings, out doing quick errands, or using it in your car for numerous but short trip where you would have to shut it off upon arrival. This problem simply makes me not want to use this unit when I normally would with a standard MP3 player. I end up just leaving it my bag most the time if I know I'm not going to have a lot of time to listen to it, and with the size and weight issue I don't really enjoy hauling it around in my bag either since I already have enough to carry as it is. ***Basically, this unit was designed to be a stand alone MP3 player plugged into a wall with speakers plugged into it, NOT as a portable "on the go" music player -the unit is just too much of a hassle for it to be truly portable.
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