Rating: 
Summary: The best thing out there yet.
Review: I think that most of the other reviews say it all. I got this thing for xmas (thank my better half) and I had it just in time for my trip home.It as all the featuress that you would want. It's controls are easy to use and esay to find with out taking your eyes of the road. The software is even easier to use, with simple select and transfer to and from the player. The only problem that I have is with the battery life. I was unable to find a DC 12V adaptor that worked with the player so I ran outa juice 4 hours into the trip home (8 hour trip thru PA with bad tunes or none at all). I guess that I should have remembed the second set of batteries. This thing rocks and I would buy it even if i knew I would get only about 4 hours of play on one set of batteries
Rating: 
Summary: Great device unless you are a long distance traveller
Review: I have had my Jukebox for about 2 months now and there are some great things about this unit but also some serious deficiencies, esp. for those planning to use the unit on long airplane flights or who otherwise need long battery life. Most of these drawbacks have been noted by other reviewers, but a couple of them really need to be carefully considered by any prospective purchaser. Positives are many and widely noted already. Capacity is very good a 6GB - but by no means limitless as some reviews claim. If you are a big music buff who likes a lot of variety in the music at hand, you can fill this baby up as I have. However, it beats every other alternative I've found and sure beats carrying 30 or 40 CDs on every business trip. Sound is good. Latest firmware upgrade solves a number of niggling ease-of-use issues. There are really only a couple of negatives, but they may be severe depending on what's driving your purchase. First, assume you will need to pitch the headphones that come with the unit and replace them with something else. Personally, I've used it with both Sony and Bose noise cancelling headphones and either, esp. the Bose, works great in combo with the Jukebox. If you are an airplane traveller, this is the way to go. However, if you are an airplane listener, you run into the big drawback on this unit way too fast - battery life is ridiculously low. I do a lot of transcontinental flying and go from LA to Europe about once a month. My original reason for getting the unit was to save carrying CD player plus 2 or 3 dozen CDs all over Europe just for those 10 to 12 hour flights. But even with two sets of the rechargable batteries, I can't even get half-way to Europe. So I've really been unable to satisfy my original purpose in buying the unit. It has been great in my office, where I can plug it in to electricity, playing out through a Bose Wave Radio and its fine on shorter flights. Overall a super device except for the crippling short life of its batteries. Now, if I can only find an airplance seat power converter that will work for my laptop and the Jukebox!
Rating:
Summary: Most issues addressed
Review: I read every single comment posted here before buying my Jukebox today. Most everything I saw people complaining about has been resolved with 2.56 firmware, and PlayCenter 2.1. The only thing not addressed was the battery life, which is hard to fix with software. You can now scan through songs by holding the skip button. Songs can be put in track order, and the data transfer rate jumped from 500k to over 3m. I love this device, and don't know how I lived with my Rio 500 (even with an extra 64 meg card) for so long. I still plan to use my Rio 500 because it is so much more portable, but this is great for my hour and a half commute to work, and while I'm at work (I'm a programmer, I just sit at a desk all day, so it doesn't have to be that portable). I haven't filled up the 6 gigs yet, but I see this as my only complaint, I really think 6 gigs is not enough. I have over 20 gigs in my personal collection right now, so there is NO WAY I'm going to be able to "Take my whole CD collection with me" as everyone says, but I can take a big chunk of it with me. I looked at some of the other devices (some which go up to 81gigs), but none of them had nearly the same feature set that the Nomad does. Plus I know and trust Creative. I knew with all the people complaining about not being able to scan tracks that it wouldn't take long for a firmware upgrade to come out to fix that, and by time I looked on their website it was already there! Price is not an issue. The Remote Solution 6 gig is still(much more), and it doesn't look anywhere as cool as this beauty. And it's lacking IR, and Line In recording. It has a better battery life but I wan't too worried about the batteries, since I'll usually be plugged in. I know it's missing some battery life, but since I don't care about that, I'm giving this the full five stars.
Rating:
Summary: After Firmware upgrade, one cable little machine
Review: Most of the various complaints you read here in the reviews from this product were once true. Yes, it couldn't FF or Rewind, No, you can't upload songs back onto your computer, No, it doesn't support any other software... These have all been fixed with the most recent firmware upgrade at the product's website. It can now FF and rewind, play Windows Media Audio files, you can upload back onto your computer, and several transfer speed reductions have been made. Also, I heard from people before I bought it that you couldn't read the current battery life, which is not true, you can see it in the EAX> System Info folder. What you are left with is a Discman sized device, though slightly heavier, which can actually hold 150 cd's worth of of music. I've actually begun running out of music before I've even COME CLOSE to running out of space. The quality is excellent, I've been using the headphones which were included and they seem very nice, too. The batteries were said to be a problem, but actually carry it on the train every day and all I have to do is plug it in overnight. So if you know anyone who could use the equivalent of an over-sized CD binder, and have 420 bucks to spend, make someone's Christmas happy.
Rating:
Summary: MP3 Perfection!
Review: Why anyone would think that this is a bad product is crazy. This is the best thing since sliced bread. The moment I saw it, I knew I had to have it, and I was not disapointed at all. The headphones aren't good quality (say other reviewers), but really, if you buy a portable CD player or any other portable device, you can't expect top-of-the-line headphones. So buy better ones for a few bucks. That's what I did. All in all, I have definately gotten my money's worth. I can take this on planes, trains, or automobiles, and really, you can't do better.
Rating:
Summary: In a league of its own.
Review: Forget about memory card-dependent MP3 players. This is a new generation, a quantum leap forward at a very reasonable price (more reasonable than you might think, as no expensive memory cards are needed). It will hold *ALL* your music, not only in MP3 format, but in WMA format (this compression tech is superior to MP3 and will supplant it) as well. Downloading from your PC is a breeze with the USB connection, and the unit's controls make individual song search & access fairly simple. The size is fine (though clearly the Diamond Rio, et al, is a smaller pkg), about what a portable (Walkman-style) CD player measures. Battery life is okay (rechargeable) and it will run endlessly on 12V or AC power. The headphones are just marginal. Its one drawback is its moderate volume on playback; if you want to really hear the music on the subway, it may not rock your world.
Rating:
Summary: Great product, but it has a few flaws
Review: Overall, I am very happy with my purchase of the Jukebox. However, there are a few minor annoyances which warrant improvement. Many have been voiced here, and I found them to be very true. Pros: Holds a ton of music, easy to use OS, sounds excellent, fast transfers, gets a lot of comments from "The Jones'" Cons: Headphones are too small/tight, carrying case won't carry headphones, load time when starting the device is long, battery life is short, mac software does not do all that win software does. It may be just me, but I would love for a way to be able to list artists under genres rather than just albums, and I haven't figured out how yet. If you want something that will hold a ton of music and sound great, this is the device for you. It won't be your jogging partner, but it will sound great in the car (find a car adapter at radio shack or wait for the official one). I reccomend a good pair of headphones with it, I purchased the Sony MDRCD580 Digital reference headphones for $80.
Rating:
Summary: Delivers as promised
Review: The reason people get this over (or alongside) other MP3 players is that they need the storage space. I am still in awe of how much music you can fit in this thing! Here's a breakdown of what I think: Sound: Very good. Sure, the EAX is a little gimmicky, but at least you have a good equalizer. I don't know why people complain about the lack of volume, this thing is as loud as my discman. The headphones are better than average. Battery Life: Decent. People complain that AA alkalines don't work with it; of course they don't, the instructions tell you as much! You get two sets of good rechargeable NiMH batteries. Interface: Very good. Easy, intuitive and packed with features to organize your music. Manual: Very good. Those who think this is a bad manual should look at the Rio 500's (an otherwise fine machine), which gives new meaning to aweful. Software: Very Good. Easy and fast.With the new firmware update, even faster! Overall, I am very happy with this product and recommend it highly!
Rating: 
Summary: Great idea and concept - but software just doesn't cut it
Review: Is the Creative Labs Nomad Jukebox a nice machine ? Yes, it sure is. But it doesn't live up to the expectations. Mainly because of a number of software implementations (or lack thereof), which might be overcome in the next releases of the Nomad Player software and the bundled PC software Package 'Playcenter'. For now, the Nomad Jukebox package doesn't cut it for me, and as such, I have returned, for the first time in my e-shopping life, a product because it didn't met my expectations... A large array of magazine advertisements and articles would let you to believe that the Creative Labs Nomad Jukebox is the best of the best of MP3 players. Well, because you can read all about the good stuff about this player in other places, let me focus on the 'features' that ruined my experience with this device. Missing from the package: the line-in cable to record music onto the Nomad player. When I buy a 400+ dollar device, I don't want to have to run to the store to buy a cable to hook the Nomad to my tape deck - especially not because the recording capabilities are one of the advertised features. And, by the way, the cables to connect the Nomad Jukebox to your speakers (or amplifier) are also not included. Unable to record MP3 format. Yes, the Nomad Jukebox can record through it's line-in jack, but only in the bulky WAV format. You then have to upload the file to the PC, convert WAV to MP3 format, and redownload. Ugly. Probably caused by the fact that there is not enough cpu horsepower in the Nomad to encode in MP3 format. This limits the amount of music that you can record on the Nomad Jukebox, as a WAV file is 20x larger than the same MP3 file. No battery life information. There is no way to see the charge-status of the batteries in the Nomad Jukebox. So you don't know if your batteries are fully charged while you are connected to an AC outlet, and you don't know how much longer you will be able to listen to the music while playing on batteries. Ugly - I thought every battery powered device offered a battery status indicator. Ugly filing mechanism. When files are copied from the PC to the Nomad Jukebox player, the filename (and directory structure) on the PC is lost. So if you organized your MP3 files on your PC by means of directories and filenames, you will find this a very unpleasant surprise. While downloading songs, the Nomad Jukebox makes its own filename for each MP3 file, based on the information in the ID3 fields of the MP3 file. And let me tell you: most MP3 files you will have do not have this TAG properly filled out, so make sure you have a few extra days to correct all this on your PC before downloading your music to the Nomad Jukebox. Getting all the ID3 tags of all your MP3 files right is mandatory if you want to use the Nomad Jukebox, a long and tedious job. Download issues Because of the 'Ugly Nomad Jukebox Filing Mechanism' as described above, downloading your music collection from your PC to the Nomad Jukebox is likely to fail. This download stops whenever 2 files with the same 'new derived filename' are detected. And given the fact that all your PC directory and filename information is trashed, and the filenames are deducted from the embedded ID3 information, this is very likely to happen a few times to you. Unable to search for songs. On the MP3 player, you can not search for a song (with the name), or for any keyword (i.e. word in the title of a song). The only searches that are supported are artist searches. Euh ? Did somebody fail to implement all other software routines ? This is very user un-friendly. Unable to navigate within a single track: you can't fast-forward within the same track - real annoying if you are listening to a one-hour radio show or another lengthy piece of music - you always need to (re)start from the beginning of the song. No way to update song information on the Nomad Player. OK, here is the deal: you are listening to your music while traveling, and you notice that the song-information is not accurate. You want to correct the name of the artist, the song, the album, the genre, or anything about the song. Impossible. You need to note it down on a piece of paper, change it on the MP3 song on your PC, and redownload the song to the Nomad. Very user un-friendly. In essence, this also means there is no syncing of any information between the Nomad and the PC - you can only download (wav, mp3) and upload (wav only) between the PC and the Nomad Jukebox, there is really no syncing like with a Palm-pilot to ensure that information is updated once you change it on the PC or the player. Uploading MP3's doesn't work. Surely a software issue, implemented to restrict digital copying ? Frankly, I don't care. When I go down to my friends with my MP3 player, I want them to be able to read/copy what I have on the hard-disc. And I want to be able to hook my player to their PC, download songs, and later on (if I like them) upload them to my PC for backup purposes. I can do this with all removable media MP3 devices, why can't I do this with the Creative Nomad Jukebox ? Hey, perhaps some of these features are available on the Nomad Jukebox, and I just didn't find it. That's definitely possible. The printed documentation included in the package and the software demo included on the CD-Rom are definitely not complete...
Rating: 
Summary: Some good, some bad
Review: I had high hopes for the Nomad Jukebox. I purchased it because of theglowing reviews I found everywhere, especially on Creative's excellent support newsgroup.Maybe my high hopes set false expectations, or maybe I'm just though to please, but I was not thrilled with my purchase. I purchased it hoping to go jogging with it, but learned from comments on the newsgroup that because of the shock I better not use it for jogging if I wanted it to continue to work. It was also a bit too bulky and heavy for jogging. I thought maybe I could at least use on the treadmill at the health club (i.e. put the unit on the treadmill newspaper rack instead of carrying it) but I never got a chance. Before I tried using at the treadmill, I downloaded the new firmware and installed on my unit, and after that it would not boot! Creative's tech support said "Wow, I've never heard of a problem like that." To their credit and Amazon's, they were both very willing to allow me to return it, either for repair (at Creative) or replacement (via Amazon.) Amazon immediately shipped me another one when they got my email, but ironically they misshipped (I don't blame them, I've order many times from Amazon and this was the first mixup.) By then, I decided to simply "return" it for good and wait for the item to "mature." I told them not to bother sending me another, and I returned both the dead unit and the misshipment. Additional info about the NJB: The carrying case does not have a place for the poor quality headphones, and you can't listen to the NJB when it is in the case because of headphone jack gets in the way (unless you turn the NJB sideways, then the case won't close.) On the positive side, it is a really nice to have all your music in one little box you can carry (almost) anywhere, and if I wanted to use it for different reasons (i.e. not jogging and I carried a backpack that had a pocket to carry it, and the firmware upgrade had worked) I could probably recommend it The newsgroup is a big plus. On the other hand it is a first generation unit and I think within one year there will be some much better offerings from Creative and other companies. If you'll be kicking yourself for spending the money today when the unit you *really* want comes out in a year, don't buy it today. If you won't mind shelving it in a year to buy the latest and greatest, go ahead and get it; you'll probably be happy you did (but not for jogging!)
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