Rating: 
Summary: Depressingly poor quality
Review: After receiving the box from amazon, I proceeded with charging the unit for the specified 4 hours, after which I installed the software and connected the unit to my PC via USB 2.0. The PC quickly picked up on it and attempted to install the software, which failed, as Creative chose not to follow Microsoft standards, whatever.I then installed the software manually instead, after having to click past about 5 windows of "please register with us so we can spam your inbox". At this time, I decided to turn the player on, and much to my surprise it comes with quite the little library of classical music, one of which is a childhood favorite, Bach's Air. I tried to play the song three times, with no success. It would either not play the song at all, or skip wildly, no matter that the unit was resting on my desk. Well, maybe that particular song was just corrupt, so I tried to upload some of my own, after four attempts, at each one the unit locked up and required a reboot, I managed to upload an album, which albeit was surprisingly fast, however when attempting to create a playlist out of my newly uploaded songs, the Nomad again froze up and refused to work. I made an additional five attempts at creating a playlist, before packing the unit up and heading over to amazon's product return page. Needless to say, I wouldn't recommend anyone purchasing this product. Had there been strange noises, or obvious defects, I would have accepted a replacement, but this is clearly from a defective and inferior operating system and I for one do not intend on waiting for patches.
Rating: 
Summary: I love it Personally
Review: Well at first I bought a 128 mb mp3 player and I said I need an upgrade. So I looked and shopped and said I will try this one. Personally I think it is excellent. Now the Headphones sound alright but it didnt sound full enough so I switched to a pair of sony's and got that fullness with the bass in it. I have only about 100 songs but it sounds great. Everybody complains you can't drag n drop the songs, well you can. You can actually drag and drop more than one song at a time. That is what I do. Walking around with it in my hand works better than in the pouch. I wouldn't use the software to rip my cds though. If you are like me and actually want your songs to sound great and dont mind taking time then try another program. Then transfer it too the Creative library. I care about sound quality rather then speed and being plain lazy. I rip the songs from my windows media player to wma format then remaster them in easy cd creator so it wont sound so flat and the sound comes out full when you put it on the Jukebox. So give it a try. If you dont like it remember you can get a refund.
Rating: 
Summary: Response to Mills from Canton, MA
Review: This is a pretty good mp3 player. The iPod is much better. However, this review is a response to Mills, who said "With the Nomad, you can put any music in any kind of form on it, while on an Ipod, you can only put the music you download for 99 cents from Itunes on it." You are WRONG. I own an iPod, and you can play any music in any kind of form as well, the 99 cents for itunes is just one more option. In fact, it is a very good option, because it is almost perfect sound quality in a legal song for 99 cents, rather than paying $16 for a cd with only a few songs you want, or downloading a crappy quality song (which is illegal anyways) on KaZaA. So in fact, not only can the iPod play all the types of music that the Creative Labs Zen can play (they can both play all mp3s, wavs, aiffs, etc), but it can play songs downloaded from iTunes which the Zen CANNOT do.
Rating: 
Summary: good value
Review: Just bought one & I've enjoyed it to date. Nice palm sized unit, somewhat bigger then the IPOD but not an issue if you're not going to try & jog with it or something. All reviews I've seen seem to indicate that the creative MP3 jukeboxes have the best sound quality of these 2nd generation jukeboxed (IPOD,Archos,Dell,Samsung). The EAX settings are somewhat superfluous but not really a negative. I've tried the BELKIN FM transmitter unit with it & it worked well when I set it on top of a portable radio, but was awful trying to use in the car which is somewhat of a disappointment. DISLIKES
- the controls are much inferior to the simple IPOD ones. The black flywheel feels pretty cheap & is uncomfortable to use. The locations of various buttons on one side or the other is somewhat illogical
- included CREATIVE software is pretty poor. Red Chair's NOTMAD EXPLORER is great & recommended by about every reviewer to repleace the Creative Jukebox software. NOTE: this will add about $30 to the price to purchase, but worth it LIKES
-great value 40gb vs 10 gb IPOD for the price
-best in class sound
-large easy readable screen
Rating: 
Summary: Caveat Emptor!!! Let the Buyer BEWARE
Review: Let The Buyer Beware: okay so i like this Mp3, Okay so i Liked this Mp3 Player, or rather would have liked to have liked this Mp3 Jukebox for more than 4 months. Thats Right Folks this Mp3 player Croaked on me. The customer service people were curteous but unless i want it repaired for around 50 dollars (that is what they said) i will have to buy another one. this mp3 player was fine and fun to use until it broke. the screen froze up gave me an error and when i used their handy reset button and repair/reboot options it did little else than confirm my suspicions that their mp3 player was little more than a temporary fix. Customer service did NOT know what was wrong although they thinked jogging might have hurt it somehow. i recommend that if you do buy this temporary mp3 player that you keep it in one place Forever.
Pros: sound quality
easy to use interface
Storage capacity
Cons: short battery life
rechargable battery a hassle if u forget charger (D'oh!)
Temporary use only
Rating:
Summary: Fantasic Product
Review: I purchased the Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra 40GB and it is fantastic! I have Windows XP Pro and when installing the enclosed software I did receive a message that there was a problem installing the driver. This was quickly and easily fixed by going to the Creative web site and downloaded then installed the updated driver. I found using the supplied Mediasource software very easy. If you have always on Internet or are logged into the Internet you can use the feature that will download the album & song ID information (this is a free service) with the click of a button. Ripping your songs and creating playlists couldn't be any easier. I found using Mediasource to load your songs to the Nomad Jukebox to be much easier and faster than using Windows Explorer. Just highlight the songs you want to transfer from your playlist or music library then click one button and it's done! Being a Creative product the playback quality is unbeatable. I use my own mid-priced headphones rather than the enclosed earbuds. When I played back a symphony orchestra you would swear that you were seated dead center in front of the orchestra - it's that good! The sound quality with Jazz and Pop music is equally superior. Actually using the Nomad Jukebox is easy and uncomplicated. Finding a particular song(s) or album on the Nomad Jukebox is fast and easy. I like to play my music by album and the Nomad Jukebox plays the songs in the same order as the actual CD. The high resolution screen is easy to read and has a backlight. I can highly recommend this product because of its ease of use (hardware and software), playback quality and value for the price.
Rating:
Summary: The best
Review: So, this is my first MP3 player, but that does not stop me from thinking it is the best available. I have had the unit for just over a month, and I have loaded around 100 of my 400 CD collection with the software that was provided - no upgrades necessary. To rip and fit a CD takes around 3-5 minutes max. I know the rest of my collection will fit. Since I travel long distances for work, and have eclectic taste in music, I can sort and play by genre, artist, album, or song. Admittedly, the scroll joy stick is a little hard to use, and I sometimes select the wrong item in the list, but I can live with that since it is easy to return to the last selection list. It is simple to operate, and the sound from this little thing is great. Headsets, or powered speakers provide greate stereo separation. I use it as my main music source when I am away from the stereo system. Transferring from my PC to my Nomad could not be simpler. It connects through the USB 2.0, so transfer time is minimal. The screen is easy to read - even for someone those eyesight fails at 50+, and the adjustment buttons and bars are easy to access. I am not sure about the battery life. It seems to run shorter than the manufacurers claims, however that is during writing MP3s to the Nomad, which I assume would consume more power than playing. Guess I will find out on my next 12 hour flight in June, but having an airplane power adapter should solve that problem. The A/C cord is small enough to fit in my other pocket! I am considering buying another unit for the spouse. After looking at reviews of the other units within this price range, I am finding no comparison. Also looking at the 60 Gb version, which should store all of my future CDs! The only problem I have experienced to date is that it occasionally locks up when being written to for 100-120 MP3s. The reset button is easy if you have a paper clip or mechanical pencil point, and it boots up fast, so little time is lost in transferring activities. Just a little frustrating, so I just reset it each 8-10 CDs or so. This may be my operating system - using XP Professional. When you select by album, it plays back in the original recording sequence. When you select by artist, you can sort by album or alphabetically by track, so it is easy to find what you are looking for. Selection by Genre works the same way. For play mode, you can select any option from shuffle with and without replay, normal, repeat forever, etc. Only problem with this is that setting the normal after you have selected the album/artist/genre will cancel the selection (or I just have not figured out how to do this yet). So, I go back and re-select and there it is! Selecting a new album switches from the I am listening to within 4 seconds. Not bad. This may slow down some once I load my entire CD set, but I think I can live with this! Ok - so, no, I was not paid by Creative Labs to write this. Yes, I am planning to purchase another for the spouse.
Rating:
Summary: READ!
Review: I love this thing to death(5 stars), but the headphone jack breaks very easily. If you purchase this item, make sure you reinforce it(from the inside) right away! Otherwise, I had no problems, I love(ed) it...
Rating:
Summary: Impressed!
Review: I just sold my Archos 20GB Jukebox Recorder after not being satisfied with it's slow loading & difficult navigation, not to mention it froze quite a bit. I was in search of a new item to take it's place as my new MP3 Player/Harddrive. For an early Christmas gift, I got a Zen Xtra 40 GB player. I refused to go for an iPod, I am not going to spend all that money just for the Apple name and because it is "trendy" to have that player. This was the closest alternative and best buy for this type. After receiving my Zen Xtra 40GB MP3 player...I will just say this: I will NEVER go back to my Archos again!! So easy to set up, had some problems with my Archos. Stayed up all night trying to figure out that thing. Just easily drag and drop files into the Nomad explorer and from there you easily alter ID tags and sort your music according to your liking, by artist, song title, genre, etc. Not only is it functional and runs super smooth & fast, but it is also eye candy. Very sleek & stylish as well as the screen options and visuals it has. The leather case it comes with is pretty nice, similar to a PDA style case and does hold and protect it perfectly. All the buttons & neccessary lil' gadgets are on the sides of the player which is nice for when you are holding it in the palm of your hand. The sound quality is also nice...after I hooked up my Sony headphones instead of those factory earbuds it comes with. Lots of sound options, has an equalizer almost like Winamp with the options. Navigation is so smooth and finding files is a cinch. Also navigating while playing music is a plus unlike my previous player. It was impossible to do so before. Oh, and the screen saver feature is pretty sweet ^_^ Another plus in my book, NO file limits!!! I was limited to 999 files in a playlist with Archos' OS, now I can have as many as I want. I have over 2000 files in my playlist at the moment and the random does a nice job mixing it up. I am quite happy having over 10 gigs of music stored on this baby as well as a few gigs of media files in the data folder. Now I can transport files to friends house with ease. When plugged in, it doesn't lag the computer like the Archos did...unless you are doing a MASSIVE transfer of data in one load. After playing with this little device, I don't know why I would look at an iPod with the same space when it costs $500 and I got mine for a little more than half that price! I really have no complaints over this unit. I really do recommend this to anyone in need of a new player. In fact, my boyfriend is now going to invest into one of these suckers as well...now he realizes that this is the best choice over his current Archos and the iPod he was eyeing.
Rating:
Summary: Beware - no customer support
Review: Stay away from creative - far away. They only want your money. The unit itself - a creative zen 20 gb - has a few quirks but operated sufficiently. However, it did not hold up well and each time a repair was made, we were charged $100 minimum. Now, just over a year later, the headphone jack no longer makes contact. We were told "This unit is no longer supported" but we were offered a REFURBISHED unit (now, where did that come from?) for a price more expensive than a brand new 30 gb unit. I thinks its time to get an iPOD.
Consider me a disgusted, former customer of Creative. I will never buy their products again. I expect a several hundred dollar item to last longer than a year and to be supported as well.
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