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Creative Labs Nomad II MG (Blue) with Docking Station

Creative Labs Nomad II MG (Blue) with Docking Station

List Price: $399.00
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Best MP3 Player that isn't a Jukebox!
Review: About a year ago, I shopped around for many MP3 players. I have even bought many. All of the Rio's were fine, but didn't have many features and had less then perfect sound quality. The previous Creative Labs MP3 players were fine, but didn't have the overall quality needed in an MP3 player. The Nomad II MG is in my mind the best MP3 player ever created. It has enough memory for three CD's worth of music (with smartmedia card), voice recording, FM tuner, an easy interface, and never freezes like other MP3 players might. Also it supports upcomming formats. If you worry about the sound quality, it's the same as a CD player, plus you don't have to buy the songs. My only gripe is the crappy headphones. The sound quality is there, but not the solid materials you would expect. Buy this product or the Nomad Jukebox. It will be worth it!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Big Bang for the Buck
Review: After an exhausting search of the MP3 market I decided to go for the Nomad IIMG and I'm glad I did. The user interface is excellent and the sound quality is superb. If you look at the other packages on the market you'll be hard pressed to find a better deal for the money. The cradle has a dual function, recharging the player and connecting your pc via USB port for file transfer. With the flash memory on the unit upgrades to futures are a snap.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Almost A Great Product
Review: Almost everything about this product is great WHEN it is working. After a couple of weeks of use, my Nomad crashed. Installing the latest Firmware upgrade did not bring the Nomad back to life. I was told by a technician that is was a defective unit and that I would have to return it for replacement or repair. Weeks later, I received the "repaired" Nomad. It still wasn't working properly. Another call to technical support resulted in being told to install the latest Firmware, which I did. The Nomad worked well for another couple of weeks and crashed again. Re-installing the Firmware did not work. Another call to technical support resulted in being told to lock the controls and leave the Nomad in the docking station for 24 hours. I wanted to do an exchange and have a new unit sent to me, and then I would return the old one. I was told this couldn't be done because they were out of stock. The technician told me leaving the unit in the docking station for 24 hours would restore it. After doing this, it still wasn't working so I tried re-installing the Firmware again. This did the trick. The Nomad is now back in business. But for how long?Obviously, this is a wonderful product that hasn't exactly been perfected. The next time it crashes I am going to insist upon getting a new unit.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Where's the wired remote?!?!?
Review: Everything about this player is perfect. The specs speak for themselves. It has voice recording (perfect for recording lectures or business conferences) and then uploading to coworkers/classmates. It comes with 64MB built in memory with an extra slot for even more memory. It even comes with docking port and rechargeable batteries. It has everything an avid music listener meets "Bill Nye the Science Guy" could want. These accessories are usually stuff that comes with a CD player or a Mini-Disc player. Finally, MP3 players get the accessories that other portable audio devices get.

However, there's one thing missing that's been really inconveniencing me. I don't know about the other Nomad II MG users, but the lack of a wired remote is its Achilles Heel. Even though they say it's an "optional accessory," it is nowhere to be found. You can't purchase it anywhere. They[Creative] says it's still in development but you won't be able to switch between radio and mp3s or switch songs without it. It's been really a hassle to reach in and change stations and/or songs especially on the New York City subways. It's just a minor accessory that could've make a world of a difference.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Serviceable, but room to improve
Review: GOOD FEATURES:

Great software: Transfer, archive, rip, download. All wonderful.

Lots of memory: 64 MB with room for 128 MB more. I got a viking 64 MB card--I can just fit Banco de Gaia's Igizeh on to the card with a few MB to spare. That leaves another 64 MB free in the body of the player for whichever other trance tunes I happen to have lying around!

Plenty of FM presets: 32! Wow! Maybe in San Francisco I'd be able to use half of them, but not in the vast cultural wasteland of greater-metro LA.

Batteries: Comes with rechargeable AAA, but can use regular cells if no time to charge.

ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT:

Headphones are painful. snag my beard going on. hurt ear canals after a while. Plan to buy your own.

Useless case. You cannot access controls when it's in case. Case has no belt loop. Phones must be removed to open or close case. What a waste! They should have either excluded the case or included a useful one.

Installation. The software that shipped wouldn't install under Windows ME. The autorun program just hung. I had to install components manually, using the RUN feature of the start menu. The Digital Audio Center software never did run right, but a 15 MB download from Creative replaced that software with some that did OK.

Audio Recording. Consider this a machine for making notes to yourself, not recording a lecture. Weak pickup, no provisions for external mic. No options to vary record quality, rate, or stereo/mono. Then you u/l the recordin as a NVF file. Still looking for a way to pull one of those into Sonic Foundry for editing.

Docking Cradle. The mating connector is flimsy and slightly loose. I can imagine breaking it off if not careful. Concerned.

OVERALL:

I bought this as a dance machine. Works well. Small. Unobtrusive. I can pop in a memory card with a set of tracks & then let the rhythms carry me away w/o disturbing anybody else with loud music. No moving parts. No skipping. I do need to get a better carrier.

Five star concept, four star execution. Eagerly awaiting the Nomad III.

(If you'd like to correspond about this review, click the "about me" link above to get my email address. Thanks!)

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Read this before you buy
Review: Hi All,
I purchased my Blue 2 from Amazon and I must say there are loads of things that one must know before even thinking of buying this toy.
First: Reasons to buy.
1) Superior sound quality. I mean really really amazing. I plugged mine into a reciever and OH man....totally worth it
2) looks impressive
3) Really Light
4) Display is appropriate too
5) Good battery time
6) Charges really really quick
7) Transfer speed too good to be true
8) Good Software (Me a windows user)

Now some things to consider before you buy
1) 2nd day out of the box and the contact was loose on one of the batteries. Tried to fix it and broke the contact while changing batteries(I dont expect something that expensive to have a defect like that)
2) Four days out of the box (battery contact already gone). The display became totally un-readable. This prompted me to contact Support
3)Huge company like Creative doesn't have a 1 800 number ..I mean PLEASEEEEEEE. Anyway after waiting for about 1 hour (thank God I have a speaker phone) Finally sent it over.

4) New one which was re-furbished by the way arrived in around 3 weeks time.
5)After two days found out that the head phone jack of the player caused the right speaker (or headphone speaker) to mute while the left kept playing (Totally Totally made me angry like crazy)
6) Sent it back again but this time Creative paid for the shipping and as per today waiting for another re-furbished one.

That was the whole story. If I was to be given an option of getting my money back I would do that and I'll tell you what always buy Sony products when it comes to portable sound. CREATIVE people..u still need another 10 years to capture the Portable sound market.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A Very good product with a few downfalls
Review: I bought my Nomad II mg from Best Buy as an open item. They sold it to me for $100 without the docking station, software, headphones, or accessories. I had to contact Creative labs to get the docking station. I have my own headphones and downloaded the software online. Originally, they wouldn't/couldn't sell me the docking station. They usually will replace docking stations but not sell them if it is not a replacement. How dumb is that? You need the docking station to download music until the traveler's usb cord becomes available.

My impressions: I love it. 77g w/o batteries and 100g with batteries. It is light and easy to carry. I would like a belt clip but I bought a tune belt for mp3 players so that will work fine. I am using earbud type headphones so there is plenty of volume. I bought a Sandisk 64mb smartmedia card and it works fine. Note: you should go to the website (nomadworld.com) and update your firmware on your player. It gets better reception and supports resume playback. The FM reception is relatively good. I find that it is just as good as a boombox.

I had to reinstall the playcenter software once before the program would recognize my nomad. After that, it downloads songs lightning fast. I would guess about 10seconds for a 5meg song. You can also rip songs directly from a cd to the player.

Overall: 4 to 4.5 stars out of 5. Since this is my first mp3 player, I can't compare to others. BTW, works great for running with the tune belt.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A Rocky Start, But An Awesome Player
Review: I received my Nomad as a christmas gift, though it didn't work right out of the box. After calling Creative a few times, I finally got through(If you have to call them make sure to call about 15 mins before they close because you have to answer a bunch of questions). They told me that the rechargeable batteries that came with the player might have been totally dead. So I tried putting some normal alkaline batteries in, it finally worked!! By the way, if you have to do this be careful not to leave the alkaline batteries in too long or else the dock will start to charge them. But, I still can't get the rechargeables to work(Creative said by putting them in the player and taking in and out of the dock they will get charged enough to be recognized by the dock and computer), so you can buy a charger for them or just buy some rechargeable batteries. Besides the batteries not working(that's why I took off a star, actually A 1/2) this is a great player. It displays the song title, lights up, has an equalizer, and just looks cool and is smaller than I thought. But, make sure you read the instructions to figure out all the cool features.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: pretty darn cool
Review: I recently purchased the nomad II MG player and I have to say it was a great buy. As was mentioned in another review it would've been great if Creative had supplied a remote for the player. I'm sure it is on the way though. The radio is certainly an asset, and personally, I love the docking station and rechargable battery. Overall, this is a must have.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: nice feature set, VERY POOR quality and customer service
Review: I recieved my Nomad II MG as a Christmas present from my husband. Within a week, one of the battery contact fingers literally fell out of the player, leading to 3 months of hassle with Creative Labs before they finally soldered it back in and returned my unit to me instead of the new unit promised. Now, 6/8/01, the docking station will no longer charge the batteries. CL wants the docking station, player, etc. to troubleshoot.

CL made lots of promises to me about when I would get my player back, and broke every one of them. If it's going to take 3 months, tell me. Don't string me along week by week with lies. I anticipate the same type of customer service experience from CL this time, especially since I see from the other reviews here that my bad experience is not unique.

I have had numerous Sony walkmen, cd players, etc., and never had any problems with them. I have a TWELVE year old Sony CD player on my desk right now that still works perfectly! I will not buy another Creative Labs product. This is especially disappointing given the cost of this product. For $250, I expect something better than this.


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