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Creative Nomad Zen Xtra 60 GB MP3 Jukebox
By: Creative Labs Average Rating: 3.5 Total Reviews: 121
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 On: 2007-08-07
I just received this MP3 player and I am very pleased with the performance of the player. There is only one item I would have a complaint is that the battery is not very large and because of that the player is not very effiecient if you are uploading music to the player from the computer. You need to keep the player plugged in when you do this process.
There have been a lot of complaints on the Creative Organizer here. I personally do not feel that there is anything hard about using it. A little experimentation with file ripping will tell you what settings you need to make to properly file your MP3s. There is other organizers for the player. Notmad is one that comes to mind.
Either way the player is wonderful and with 60gb you can carry quite a selection of music or audio books.
 On: 2007-07-20
This player demonstrated software bugs through its life, often refusing to transfer files to and from the player. Now, only 2 years after purchase, it has reverted to booting up to recovery mode only. Contacts with Creative customer service inform me that since it is out of warranty, I can pay them $28/hr to communicate with me on the issue with no guarantee that theyll actually fix it. Of course, long distance charges may apply. No thanks.
On: 2007-05-16
The player has a great sound quality and support many music formats but lacks of many many things:
* Bulky
* The Dial is not comfortably placed and not easy to use
* cannot be detected as a mass storage device like Ipod for data storage. it needs a peacial software to see it in "my computer". and that means you have to carry the CD with you all the time if you intend to go around with it (data traveling) yet you still cannot use it as a hard disk. it operates as a storage device. it means if you want to open a file stored on it, you have to transfer it back to your pc. (The worst of all)
* Not durable at all. it fell down from my bed to the ground and it was in its protecting pouch and the internal hard disk is damaged !!! all my data all my music library all my life, gone with the wind. some few players out there like some HD5 senses the fall and immediately takes the head off the disk to keep it safe and protect the data from harm.
* no good support from creative.
* lack of accessories. The cover suffer from scratches and wanted to replace it. guess what !! No covers sold separately !
*** the good thing about it, is that the internal hard disk is a 2.5" HDD (laptop HDD). in another words, you can replace it with a new one or even a bigger space one if you want. in my case i changed the damaged 60GB HDD with a new 80GB HDD and waaalllaaaa ... i have a new MP3 player.
 On: 2006-09-05
I have had the 60 GB zen Xtra for almost 2 years now, and I have no complaints about the sound quality or performance of this player. It is small enough to take jogging provided you have a pocket to stow it in. The only performance issues Ive ever noticed is that the player will sometimes reboot itself while youre running. Im still not sure what caused this, but it hasnt happened for over 6 months and I use the player heavily in this respect, 4-5 times a week, 40-45 minutes at a time. I have yet to fill up the hard drive, and even if I do I doubt Ill ever need another player until I move to a better format than MP3/WMA.
Where I was having problems was the interface between the Zen Xtra and the PC. The supplied Creative software is just plain buggy when it came to playlist handling and just not very user friendly, to put it mildly. I purchased the Notmad explorer, and while this was an interesting stopgap, it too required excessive manipulation to get the music I wanted.
A few months ago, however, Creative released a firmware update to transform the Zen Xtra into an "MTP" or "Plays for Sure" device. This is exactly what I needed as I am now able to use it with my favorite free media player, Media Monkey. The player is synchronized to the playlists, albums, artists, etc that I choose without intervention on my part, and it will even fill the player up to its capacity with a random subset of my MP3 collection, with higher priority given to higher rated songs. Needless to say, I never have to listen to the same thing twice.
So, MediaMonkey + Zen Xtra = Huge Bang for the Buck
On: 2006-08-26
This by far is the best thing ive purchased in a while.Ive had it for over a year now and have about 12,000 songs,thats about 927 cds and never had a problem,in fact ive dropped it about five times on solid ground, do you think it broke, nope runs perfectly..im thinking of buying another one just to have an extra one.This thing is so easy to use too, people must be pretty stupid. well you have my review,5 easy stars.....
On: 2006-06-17
I just received the Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen extra for my birthday and I am very impressed. I have uploaded over 1400 tracks so far and I like the sound and the choices of environment for the sound. Typing in all the titles can be a bit trying, but worth it. This is a great product!!!
On: 2006-04-21
Ive had this player over a year and I love it. I spent six months researching a player before I bought this one. I havent had any problems with the player so far. The product quality and amount of storage capacity for the price beats everything else on the market.
The interface and software is very intuitive and user friendly and allows for an exceptional amount of customization. Editing and organizing tracks is amazing with the software. Ive tried using apples itunes software for my ipod shuffle and it makes me very frustrated very quickly. If you are accustomed to Windows then creatives software will be very intuitive for you.
I like the fact that it has a removeable rechargeable battery- I find Apples tendency to use non-removeable internal batteries disturbing and a sign of planned obsolesence. This player is not designed for rough physical activity like jogging etc- I prefer to use it as a consolidator of all my music that I can play at home, at parties, or while driving, and for those things it is perfect. Untill someone comes out with something better this is the best deal out there.
On: 2006-03-29
Good solid player. Ive had it for about 2 years now and love it so far. The one I got has 40G of space which after 2 years is still not full. It may not be as sexy as the ipod but its a great value for the money. I took it skiing a few months ago, had a large jump and wiped out on the slope. The player case was damaged a bit from the fall but it works perfectly well. Very tough mp3 player.
 On: 2006-03-29
I just recived in the mail a 2nd hand 60gig Zen Xtra
It started up first time no problem, and has perfect full stereo sound, the cd although used, installed sucsesfully and I am finding the software easy to use, uploads as expected do take some time, but this is the case for all players.
I am so far pleased with the product, and it appears to be as good as all the positive reviews say that it is.
Needless to say I will be treating the headphone jack with care, and I beleive that this product should last me quite ahwile.
A friend of mine has an Iriver player, wich I beleive to be a very strong player aswell, he has reported no problems with the player whatsoever, and we have taken it bushwalking / cross country skiing several times, the controls on it are abit finiky but from what I have seen of it this is a good option and should be concidered also.
I am giving this 3 at this stage after a day of using it as I am not sure of its longevity. However I am quietly confident that it deserves a better score.
On: 2006-02-04
I have had this player for almost a year now and love it. no problems to report. It holds a crazy amount of music. It is also easy to download/upload music. buy it. youll like it.
 On: 2006-01-26
Avoid Creative labs like the Plague. I owned their 20 GB Zen Nomad slightly over a year when it stopped interfacing with my PC (forget adding new tunes). Decided to buy a new 60 GB Zen Xtra. Spent a month laboriously loading music into it (the interface is clumsy), but the FIRST time I used it as a mobile play-back device, it locked up unrecoverably.
Calling Creative labs customer support (just FINDING that phone number took perseverance!), it took hours waiting on hold, getting repeatedly disconnected, and repeatedly calling over several days, to finally get a return authorization from Creative Labs.
The manufacturers warrantee is only 90 days, so I decided Id better pay the $53.24 for a 2-year extended service contract. They happily took my money for that, mid November 05, but Ive YET to get a working device (as of now, it is Jan 25, 06).
They promised a return shipping label by email within a day. It took about two weeks, and many more frustrating hours trying reach a human, to finally get it. About two weeks after receiving my return, they form-emailed me that they were shipping me a new/refurbished device. A good ten days later, it actually arrived.
But the replacement device did not work right from the box. I could forgive the dent in the back of the case (so, its "refurbished"), but it was UNABLE TO CHARGE ITS BATTERY from day one. (So its not very portable, you know?)
This should have been obvious to Creative Labs, since an icon normally shows that the battery is charging when it is doing so, and I only saw the icon to indicate it was running on direct plug-in power. Also, as soon as the wire from player to transformer was disconnected, the device went instantly dead.
My difficulties reaching customer service by phone were even worse this second time (again, many frustrating hours over several more days and multiple disconnections).
Today (1-25-06) I received my "new" / refurbished Zen Xtra. Guess what? Its the SAME dented player that still doesnt charge its battery! (Maybe youre wondering if Im just a tech-illiterate who doesnt know his way around digital gear. I promise you, Im not. Im a professional engineer who has been working with computers for the last 26 years, and generally am somewhere in the "early adopter" group for new gadgets.)
Creative Labs simply has a horrible disrespect for their own customers. They sell products based on features, and could care less if they work. Check it yourself - call their customer support number, and listen to the recording that asks if you bought your product in the last 90 days, then, if you say "no", they route you to a recording that basically says they WONT EVEN ACCEPT YOUR CALL (unless you lead with your credit card number).
So, did you ever wonder if you were missing something, given some reviewers reports of somewhat better sound quality from Creative Labs products? Forget it. Nice in theory, but a dead player has no sound at all - and thats all Ive heard for the last 8 months, ... well, that and Creatives Labs "on hold" music.
On: 2006-01-17
I was a little nervous about purchasing this item since I have heard some bad things about the headphone jack but I wanted a MP3 player with a large memory that also had a removeable/replaceable battery. This is the only one that exists. A replacement battery is relatively inexpensive, cheaper than having to send an i-pod in to get the battery replaced. Its not a fancy player but its fairly easy to use. Mine has been to Ireland and back and has taken some abuse and works great. I also heard that the battery pops out easily but I always keep mine in the carrying case that came with it and I havent had any problems. I highly recommend this player.
On: 2006-01-08
The Zen Xtra (any capacity) appears to be the only portable MP3 player on the marker that features Time Scaling. Time Scaling is Creatives term for the ability to play a file back faster but without distortion. Voices dont sound like the Chipmonks, they just talk faster. For music buffs, thats useless--who wants to hear a song faster? But for podcast listeners, its quite helpful. A two hour podcast that consists of talking can be sped up significantly.
Its amazing how the human brain adjusts to the faster talk rate, too. Ive read that some studies claim we retain more by listening to a faster rate of speech.
Time scaling means more information in less time. If you have many podcasts youd like to hear but only so much drive time to hear them in, this feature is great.
I dont know why Creative doesnt include Time Scaling on more of their products. Its a firmware feature. They make a ton of devices, but only the Zen Xtra has Time Scaling. I dont know of any other device out there that has it, including iPods.
To experience how Time Scaling works, try it on Windows Media Player 10. Open an MP3 voice recording and go to "Play Speed Settings" and move the slider to 1.3 or 1.4. At 1.4 a 60 minute show plays back in 42 minutes.
On: 2005-12-27
I immediately had problems - during the uploading process the unit repeatedly had to rebuild the library and after just using it for less than a couple of hours it got stuck on the EAX screen (which means you cant switch it off and it wont play or upload songs). The product has also been discontinued so whichever merchant you buy from, youll be stuck with a unit that would be refurbished or worked on - pretty bad if the product was defective in the first place. So rather consider the Apple iPod if you want a large capacity unit - hopefully this product will be longer in existence.
On: 2005-12-02
I did a lot of research before buying, I almost didnt get this because of some of the negative reviews about the difficulty using the software. I am sooooo glad I bought this! I do have to say that the first day - I also believed I was going to have trouble - I have now decided that it was impatience and excitement - maybe that was other peoples problem. Part of it was also just generally not being familiar with some of the terms. Second day - I was fine. Now that I have "settled" into ripping my 1500+ CDs - it is not difficult at all - in fact I think it is easy. I have been to the knowledge library on their web site and eve sent a couple of questions to the technical support and got FAST responses. I am very happy with my choice.
On: 2005-11-09
Besides all the great stuff you can read in other reviews, I find it amazing how few people mentioned the best reason for owning this one: USER REPLACEABLE BATTERY. Most folks dont realize what a hassle it will be to have to send their iPods back to have the batteries replaced when they no longer hold a charge, not to mention the cost. If you own this model, you can get a replacement battery on eBay almost for a song.
Ive owned one of these for over a year, still working perfectly. There were problems with early models, most or all seem to have been resolved.
Oh, and youll do yourself an immense favor, if you invest just a little bit more in a decent pair of earphones and the Red-Chair software to manage your sync/track/playlist transfers from computer to device and back. Both of these apply to practically any player you may buy.
On: 2005-11-07
I gave up and bought an Ipod.
The breaking point came when dealing with the very common problem having to do with the Creatives known issue regarding the tendency of the the headphone jack to break, and fail to function. After almost a week of trying to communicate with Creative, I finally got a tech support person to call me to arrange for repair (the problem has to do the shoddy design flaw which will eventually break if this item is used as intended.)
The customer service guy denied there was a problem, when any google search will reveal this is a huge issue which Zen refuses to address. Paying another hundred something dollars to get the item fixed, plus the hassle of having to reload all of the files again when it was returned finally made me look at the Ipod. Though I bought one a week before the the video device came out, there is no doubt that the Ipod is a vastly superior device..which is both easy to use, and sounds ten times better than the Creative Zen Extra.
One look at the headphone jack design on the iPod, and one can see this issue on the Ipod has been addressed....and that Creative Zens customer service people are now told to tell people that the devise is fragile and cant be used intended. That is absurd.
The rudeness of this jerk, plus the cost of getting a simple repair for over a hundred bucks finally made me an estastic Ipod users.
Save yourself a lot of grief...get the Ipod. It is awesome.
On: 2005-11-03
I decided to ignore all the negative hype surrounding this product and the entire Creative Nomad name and purchase this product this past March. Everything seemed perfect at first and all the positive reviews fitting - file transfer was easy and quick; constructing playlists a breeze; the storage space was outrageous (I still had around 37 GB free); and once a new set of headphones was substituted for those included, I was all set!
Then I began to notice a few "quirks" - some of the wires seemed to be crossed within the unit. For instance, Id push Next and the current song would pause; Id push Pause and the screen would jump back to the start-up menu; and worst of all, Id be scrolling through the song library, clicking "Add to Play" for various songs to be added to the current playlist, when Id click on a song to add and it would instead begin to play and wipe out every other song Id already added to the playlist.
And just last week - the thing crashed. All 23 GB of music: GONE. The unit has been in "Rescue Mode" ever since, with even the options presented to me in the Rescue menu being ineffective. I select "Disc Cleanup" - nothing. I try "Disc Reformat" or "Disc Recovery" only to receive a message saying theres a Hard Disc Error and therefore, even if I did want to completely erase every single bit of information and setting Id saved on the player and start anew...I simply cant. I cant reformat anything to restore the unit to the way it was when shipped from the factory, and I will not be able to recover anything from it. The warranty is long gone, my songs are long gone, and now Im back where I started - researching mp3 players for a better one to buy, but this time I will not be roped in by the price...think about it: its so much cheaper than its peers because Creative apparently intended for its buyers to get only a few months use out of it.
Please heed this warning and look elsewhere for an mp3 player! Even if you save a backup of all your songs somewhere else in the event of a crash and plan to re-upload everything, just remember my situation where even that is not an option.
Very disappointing.
On: 2005-10-31
I have had this product for some time now and I feel that enough weeks have passed for me to make a judgment. First and foremost, a music player is NOT about how sleek, sexy, nifty, polished and beautiful it is.
It is all about the quality of the music it pumps out...and boy does this unit deliver!!! The crispy treble with punchy bass and good stereo seperation is simply awesome. Coupled with EAX technology and custom equaliser, nothing beats this player.
I have had a variety of players, and lately was looking for a replacement for my 256mb flash drive...i disliked the idea of fishing around for songs to transfer onto the little memory. The relatively huge hard-drive has enabled me to transfer my collection of prized originals onto the player, thus keeping my CDs safe.
My brother has an iPod, which isnt too bad sounding, but hey wait...if your battery dies, or your hard-disk kicks the bucket, its not easy to get a replacement after the warranty. I am an electronics technician, so I should know about these things.... batteries DO go awry after a while. And opening an iPod up to change a battery is not nice at all. And the Creative Zen sounds a LOT better. I compared 2 identical files playing through a good set of Sennheiser headphones, which are far better than the ones supplied with the Zen. No competition there. The Creative beat the Ipod hands down.
So I decided to go after this unit which has a replacable battery, and an easy hard-disk upgrade!
I have heard a lot of nonsense about this player, but I honestly have never formatted the drive, nor had it freeze on me, and the pocket, which admittedly made a large unit bulkier, does have a window through which I can see the screen. I do have to remove it to charge the unit up, but I usually leave my player on a metal plate to facilitate heat transfer should it get warm, so this is not actually a big deal.
The biggest problem i had is the fact that I am left-handed, and felt that the volume control was a bit awkward for me, but the contours on the buttons helped me get through this problem easily.
Installation was a snap, and transfering files easier...
I have had no problems yet with the drive or earphones, and I take this unit in the car wherever I go. I just leave the setting to play any song and it shuffles my huge collection effortlessly. Battery life is also quite good....10 hours is enough, I can just plug in and charge when I get home.
This unit has also made a large number of trips with me to the gym, although admittedly it is usually clipped to the side of the treadmill.
I have not had cover pop-ups, freezing, clicks, and all the other assorted problems other users have. I guess mine must be one of the newer ones...
This is simply one of the best purchases I have ever made...bar none. simply good old-fashioned build quality, brilliant sound, nice interface...what else could one want from a player?
Recommended !
On: 2005-10-29
After reading some horror stories here I was a little aprehensive about picking this item up, but with the huge stroage capacity and considering the price difference between this and the iPod it seemed like the better choice.
I must say that I am pleased with this MP3 player. Easy to find a song in a list of thousands and the file transfers are very fast! The down fall is the short battery life (10 - 14 hrs depending on the frequent searching over the internal hard drive.) This is not a joggers player, and frankly I dont like the idea of bringing it to workout at all. Its a little larger than the smaller storage players and it does have moving parts (hard drive) so I would reccomend being a little more gentle with it than other storage media devices.
Dont be scared of this player. It offers huge storage at a great price. If you think you have a large CD collection you want to treansfer- this player will swallow them all without a problem and still have room left for more.
On: 2005-10-25
OK THIS THING IS AWESOME!!!! I have had it since last Spring and it is awesome. The storage capacity is so good I can use it as an external hard drive as well. The sound quality is good but nis could use some more bass. but that can be fixed with a pocket amp that you plug into your headphones. It can be slow to upload if you use USB 1.1 but 2.0 works at like a song a second. The headphones that come with it are crap. But with the $300 you saved from not buying an iPod you can afford a nice upgrade. There are no games with it but a little messing around and you can get flash games to work as long as they are simple graphics wise. (you have 60 gb to spare so make em as long as you want. It also comes with a removable battery so you don;t have to pay $150 to replace it only about $45. If your are very brave, like me , you can put a couple in a portable dvd player and you have 360gb with which you can have movies, games or anything else. That is actually a pretty stupid idea. You can just buy a laptop. Scratch that. Still buy this player. it is amazing.
On: 2005-10-15
I bought this player about a year ago, and the headphone jack gave out. I never dropped it or jarred it. I used it at home to play through my stereo, so I could put together long play lists. I never even used it in my car. So this thing has never had any physical disturbance at all.
Its a shame, because this sounds excellent. But I am one of many who have had the headphone jack problem. Creative takes no accountability for this problem. Even though this is due to faulty manufacturing, if the warranty runs out, tough luck.
Even at the new low price (seems like theyre dumping these things) and their claim that this problem is fixed, I would suggest not buying this (or any Creative Labs product) for two reasons:
1. Dont buy this model because you may be buying one of the defective ones that has been in a warehouse for a few years.
2. Dont buy anything from Creative. They dont take accountability for their defects. They should have figured out which units had the defect, and recalled them, regardless of the warranty period.
There are many vendors of portable mp3 players, beyond Apple. I am not an iPod fan. I think they have had their problems, and have had a class action lawsuit because of the battery issues.
The Toshiba Gigabeat seems pretty good. Good form factor, reasonable price, good sound quality (95db S/N ratio -- Creative boasts an "up to 98db S/N ratio". What does the "up to" mean? Also, this is useless when the headphone jack is so feeble!)
I hear good things about iRiver too, but I have not done much research.
Do not buy this device, no matter how cheap it is. Youre better off paying an extra $100 and getting a quality device. Youll spend DAYS uploading your CDs to this device, only to have the headphone jack break on you (hopefully during the warranty period). Dont take the gamble. Creative is a run by a bunch of weasels that do not take accountability for defective products.
On: 2005-10-09
This is my first MP3 player and I did a lot of research before deciding on the Zen. Overall Im very happy with it so far.
Pros:
Its visually appealing and has the look of quality. If it didnt look good I wouldnt want it no matter how well it worked.
Software worked fine after a little trial and error. (typical)
Case is nice with an open window.
Sound and volume are great.
Battery life fine.
No proprietary software for music.
Cons:
Seems like it could have been just a tiny bit narrower. Present width makes it fine to carry but a little bit of a handful when using the controls. I do notice however that the more I use it the less I use the controls.
A "stop" button would be useful. I power off for this and when turning power back on it returns to where it left off.
Overall, I am very pleased with this unit.
On: 2005-10-06
ok, a lot of you are agonizing over whether to buy this product or the ipod. i, too, thought about buying the ipod. after all, it looks way hipper than the nomad. (plus, all my friends have ipods and i want to belong.)
however, i couldnt shake the indisputable fact that i could buy a better-sounding player for less money.
some of the criticisms of the nomad dont hold up under scrutiny. for instance, somebody said he got the ipod because creative didnt support lossless compression, and his keen sense of hearing was so demanding that only lossless compression would do.
what a pretentious pile of poo. first of all, its easy to achieve auditory transparency with an mp3 if you use a sufficiently high quality setting. anyone who claims he can still tell the difference just by listening is full of the same contents as the pile noted above. second, the nomad has a 98% signal-to-noise ratio, which is the best on the market. the ipod has a 90% s/n. if you could REALLY hear the difference between a transparent mp3 and lossless compression, you would have no trouble at all hearing the difference in playback quality.
how durable is it? i took mine with me to iraq this summer. a guy i worked with had one there as well. we wore them day in and day out, through sandstorms and temperatures in the 120s. as anyone whos been there can testify, the dust is fine as talcum powder, and it gets EVERYWHERE. it wreaked havoc with the printers, but both nomads did just fine. and i wasnt even using the protective leather case after i snapped off the belt clip (oh yeah, be careful sliding into the backseat of a suburban while wearing your mp3 player).
now it spends the day in my car; then in the evening, it plugs into a 40w powered speaker system with a subwoofer, doing double duty as my home stereo. ive taken it camping a couple times, where ive carelessly left it out to collect dew the next morning. still it continues to sound terrific.
considering the mileage ive gotten out of this thing so far, its a bargain at twice the cost.
On: 2005-10-02
This is my first MP3 player, and I have done a TON of research on mp3 players before just going out and buying the first thing that looks fancy. I needed something that wasnt gonna bust my wallet, but has lots of space. 60 gigs for that price, who could refuse?
so i did some more research and came to the conclusion that this was much better than the ipod, wich was more expensive at 40gb. It has a replacable battery, wich is great, because you can buy backups and just replace them when away from home. the included "leather" case makes it much bigger than it already is. first thing people say when they see it is "HOLY CRAP THATS HUGE". i could have bought some accesories to help it seem... better. IM VERY GLAD I DIDNT.
About a month after using this thing, never dropping harming stepping or even SCRATCHING the player, it stops working.
poof. no more worky. when i jiggle it around a bit i hear things moving inside. i come to the conclusion that it is faulty soldering. this was one of the only cons i ever read about when i did research, and trust me its a bad one.
Thanks to this faulty soldering buisiness, i cannot play any music. it stops at the loading screen. restarted, didnt work. tried to remove all music, didnt work. cant reformat the hdd, stalls at loading screen. contacted creative through email, wich just happens to take a day or two for them to reply, and they told me to do the same thing 3 times in a row. "UPDATE FIRMWARE, TRY REFORMATTING, TRY RESTARTING, CHARGE THE BATTERY" ... i cant even turn it on past the loading screen. yeah ill get right on that.
After several emails(and several days), i recieved a number for a RMA, wich stands for "repair sh*tty product" or something, i dont know. anyways, it takes the time for you to ship it to them(unless you wanna pay hella money, thats like a week or two), plus 1-10 buisiness days for them to process and maybe fix it. these things only have a 3 month warrenty period, so thats kind of rediculous.
im very very upset that the first creative product i purchased was a dud. waste of money for me. your experience may be different, but i suggest doing wayyyy more research than i did (2-3 hours every day for 2 weeks) if you dont want to get screwed. at the moment, im looking for a reliable product that has at least 20 gb storage. yet to find one that im really willing to put money into.
very happy when i got it, very pissed when i have to see it every day on my computer desk, bulky, defective, and very much so useless.
On: 2005-09-24
The Zen Xtra is awesome! Dont pay twice as much for an IPOD that wont let you shuffle through a single artist or play WMA format digital audio.
I was already to buy an IPOD to help support Apple against Microsoft but they rip you off with the prices of their add ons and the IPOD itself (see further down).
I did a lot of research before buying this player because I dont have much money. I wanted to get it right the first time. I bought mine through Amazon for about $197 after all the rebates, giftcards, tax and discounts. The lowest I could find the Ipod 60 GB from a reputable retialer was for about $400.
Yes, the Ipod does photos, which is cool, but if you have no need for the photo feature and you have a gigantic music collection this is the way to go.
I have around 600 CDs and it took up about 30 GB. I have a lot of Jazz and live jams (10-20 minute songs) and that throws everything off as far as the 16,000 songs at 4 minutes each that they say it will get. What they say is accuarate but I dont know any one who has over 300 cds and they are all pop songs at an average of 4 minutes each. I estimate that I will get between 12-14,000 songs on mine (I am at about 10,000 right now).
The amount of music you can put on this thing is amazing. There is no hesitation when finding a song (even with 10,000 songs) although the interface takes a little getting used to (especially in the car, while driving) but is works well.
One nice thing I didnt realize about this item is that it comes with a ton of classical music already on it.
The replacable battery is a nice feature and the fact that it comes with a carrying case is great. Unlike the IPOD, Creative gives you some extras and doesnt try to sap every last penny you have!!!!
I was a bit bumbed when I bought it because it doesnt have a ton of extras you can buy, like with the Ipod, but I have come to realize it is all extra crap you dont need (except maybe the Boise sterio, mmm.....).
Just bought a bunch of cords to hook up to the back of my sterios with a headphone jack end and it is great.
DONT buy the IPOD cord that is like this. It is $20 and you can find it (Sometimes in the same store) for $3-7 and they will be variable lengths.
I also went to Car Toys and got my cd changer replaced with the same cord to play the Zen in my car. It sounds just like a CD.
DONT buy the FM transmitter or the cassett adapter. They are horrible. If you dont have a way to hook up the cord in your car, buy a cheap car sterio with an Aux input on the face and use that.
Being able to use WMAs instead of MP3s will give you about a quarter more room on your player and there is no sound difference!!!!! that is a total myth. I did a lot of sound checks and researched it on the internet.
I honestly have no complaints with the Zen Xtra and for the money it is the best 60 GB player on the market for music. You wont regret it.
On: 2005-09-23
First of all, I sat at my computer for about four hours just reading reviews of the Creative Nomad Zen Xtra and the ipod before reluctantly choosing the Creative product (for sound quality, price and extra storage space). Ive had my player for almost a month now and none of the nightmarish tales from the negative reviews have yet happened to me. Frankly some of the reviews that trashed the Zen Xtras features were just plain inaccurate.
Either people loved the player or hated it. Im one of the buyers who love it. Im not a techie. I have trouble figuring out new appliances, but this simply is not as unfriendly a player as some people painted it. Actually, it turned out to be so much easier to use than I had ever expected.
I read over and over about how terrible the Creative software is. I will admit that I never even have used the Nomad Explorer program (which may very well be awful) - mostly because Ive never had a need to, as everything I want is in the Creative MediaSource program. Which is simple, intuitive and includes a great feature - Gracenote, which automatically fills out song, album and artist info for CDs that you are ripping. Gracenote can find the info on even the most obscure imported promo discs! It has really saved me hours of typing.
Onto the player itself...so many people said that the music just is dumped into one great big folder and that you cant listen to an album as it appeared on the CD - that the songs were alphabetized, not set according to the original track listing. I have found that, yet again, this simply isnt true.
If you go into the Nomads main menu and click on music library then albums and pick an album, out of the 100 CDs I have already ripped, all of them are set on the player in their original track order. The player did not alphabetize the track listing. I did nothing unusual when sending the tracks to the player. There were no settings that I had to change to achieve this result. The only places on the Nomad where I find tracks in alphabetical order and out of album sequence are when I go to music library then artists or all tracks.
The Nomad will sort the songs according to either playlists, albums, artists, genre or all tracks (you decide). You have plenty of ways to view and play your music library. So it really is very organized and easy to find music within the player, even when you have thousands of songs (I currently have only about 2000). The ONLY problem that I have had with finding songs was a lot of MP3s that I downloaded have either missing artist info, or there were misspellings that can lead to a little confusion. But thats an issue with downloading music, not with the player itself.
The biggest thing that I had to overcome with the Nomad was the lack of a stop button (as another reviewer stated, the ipod has no stop button either), but thanks to the person who mentioned that all you had to do was pause the track then hit the skip forward button to stop it, I was saved a lot of aggravation.
The leather case is nice and DOES feature a window so you can see the screen. The snap closure DOES cover the plug hole where you would charge it, but this is not an issue for me, as I dont charge the player while Im wearing it, so the case really doesnt need to be snapped shut for my applications.
I have NOT had any problems with the headphone jack or the front cover popping off. I dont see how the cover would pop off while it is in the case anyway. No problems with the scroll button either, and Im a fairly clumsy gal with not too much dexterity.
There was a lot of chatter about the ear buds...The ear buds that came with it have great sound - especially for ear buds, but they are simply too big and I simply cant get them to stay in my ears for more than five minutes without falling out. I went ahead and sprung for a pair of $40 Sennheiser headphones that really have terriffic sound when paired with the Creative player (and music that has been ripped at a decent bit rate).
It did take me a little time to figure out how to set up playlists. Which I was trying to do through the MediaSource program until I realized I could do it right inside the player. I selected the songs, saved them as a playlist and named the list - no major ordeal.
I do wish that it came with a better paper manual. I just dont like reading manuals on a computer screen.
The Creative Nomad Zen Xtra, definitely has more bang for the buck. Im glad I ignored all of the ipod hype, as I do believe I wound up with the superior player. I take my $2 cassette adapter, pop it into the tape deck in my car, plug it into the headphone jack of my Nomad, hit play any track, then BAM! I have the worlds best jazz, funk, country, easy listening, oldies, classic rock, hip hop, bluegrass station in the world.
On: 2005-09-22
I find nothing difficult about the NOMAD(including the software). I find nothing wrong with the quality. And nothing wrong with where the buttons are placed on the actual hardware.
Its a fine product. Well worth my money spent. Ive already got 1000 songs on it and intend putting my entire cd collection on it eventually. It should hold about 14,000 songs when all said and done.
Oh yeah, I also use my NOMAD to transport files, pics and programs to and from work and home. What a great benefit to the NOMAD that the I Pod lacks in as of now.
One last thing for the price of my NOMAD 60GB, I couldnt even get a 20GB I Pod.
To me I Pod is for those who are either legitimate Mac followers/believers or for those who love to be what I call fake/trendy.....meaning they need to have it to show off in society because they want to be cool and hip. I dont need a piece of hardware for that!
On: 2005-09-21
Love the 60GB of storage. My only gripe is that you need to load their software to transfer music. I like other models where you can plug the unit into any computer and immediately it launches file explorer...
On: 2005-09-05
Teenager #1 re-installed the software which brought up the necessary icons etc. to allow the music to be transferred to the player. It took awhile for him to figure that that was what needed to be done. After he did it, he had no trouble in the tranfers. He said it was similar to his Ipod. He was able to keep the classical music that came with the player on it as well. I havent really played with it much, but I have 6 soccer practices to sit though this week, so I plan to get to know it better. Ive installed Christmas music which crosses many genres. It sorts the songs by their genres. Kenny G is jazz. Windham Hill is new age. Away in A Manger is on the player 6 times but crosses many genres depending on the artist.
The sound is great. Im using Rio earbuds that curve around the ear. Anybody note that the Creative Zen 20GB is clearing out on Amazon for $214.99? Teenager #2 wants the 5GB Creative for $199.99 on Amazon. I may have to talk with him about 15GBs more for $15.00 more. Of course theres no FM tuner on the 20GB, & no fun colors, but theres room for more music!
Keep our southern neighbors in your prayers.
On: 2005-09-04
I first ordered this player back in December 2004 and had to quickly send it back because the hard drive was defective. I accepted a replacement model from the web site and started having problems with loading my music onto the player. The customer support for the player was good. They responded quickly to my emails and helped me to get the player to work properly. After having it for only a few months I started to notice minor malfunctions that I could correct by removing the battery. The malfunctions became worse and I found myself reloading the operating system over and over.
I had the unit for five months when it completely locked up on me. The suggestions that customer service made did not help me. I was instructed to send the player in for service. I was also told that there would be a $40.00 charge for labor. They checked the unit, determined that the hard drive was defective and stated that I owed an additional $124.00 for parts. I reminded them that the unit was still under warranty for parts (one year) although the labor warranty (90 days) had expired.
The player should have lasted more than several months. It was priced cheaper than the iPod but it was still a costly item. I was extremely disappointed with the reliability of the player.
I am glad to hear that some customers have had good experiences with the player. I did not. I guess that I was unlucky. If I had it to do all over again, I would go with another player.
On: 2005-09-01
A few years ago, I purchased the Creative Labs Nomad Zen Jukebox (20GB) and fell in love. Solidly build, great sound, and a great scroller wheel that made it easy to sift through a large playlist. Even with the larger size, it made the iPod look (and sound) inferior.
Since I enjoy hi-fidelity mp3s (at 256kbps data rate), and I have a huge CD collection, I quickly ran out of room on the 20GB model. So I figured I would get the Zen Xtra 60GB model. This was a mistake. This device is poorly made and poorly designed.
The first mistake they made was to replace the very solid and easy-to-use scroller wheel, with a cheap "quick scroller button". It takes forever to get through a list. First it starts out slow, then it scrolls too fast, and you miss the selection you were aiming for. It feels cheap, and pressing in the button doesnt work 1 out of 5 times. FRUSTRATING.
The second mistake is the firmware. This thing crashes all the time. I dont know why they retrogressed on the firmware. My 20GB Zen Jukebox only crashed if it ran out of batteries and I charged it with the USB cable. The 60GB Xtra model will crash if I add things to the play list. Its really frustrating. Sometimes I have to add things to the play list 4 times before it works without crashing (when it crashes, it reverts to the last working playlist). I keep looking for a firmware update on the site, but appearantly its the same version they shipped my unit with. Appearantly, they either dont know how to fix these crashes, or more likely, dont care.
I have not had the issue with the headphone jack breaking. I think they may have (quietly) fixed this issue. From what I read, people with this issue also complained that the players cover didnt have a window cut-out (duh?!?), but the one I have does. Ive had the player for over 18 months now, and have had no problems with the headphone jack... But who knows. I may have problems down the line.
Another problem is that there is an audible pause between tracks. When you listen to an album that has no pauses between tracks (like "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway"), you will hear an audible pause between tracks on this device. The 20GB Zen Jukebox didnt do this, but this 60GB Zen Xtra does. This is extremely annoying, since I mainly listen to progressive rock, and most progressive rock albums have tracks that blend into each other, and should not have pauses between tracks.
I think this was a case of one product manager trying to out-do the other one. Trying to make a cheaper unit, instead of leveraging all of the good features of the 20GB Zen Jukebox model.
They should have just upped the hard-drive size to 60GB and kept everything else the same. They got too greedy. I wouldnt have minded spending an extra $20-50 if they kept the nice scroll wheel and the more reliable firmware (actually, that would be cheaper!). Maybe the original firmware couldnt manage 60GB of data fast enough, but it didnt CRASH all the time.
Overall, instead of leveraging the success of the 20GB Zen Jukebox, it seems some "smart" and "ambitious" product manager at Creative decided to one-up another product manager, and create a "cheaper" device. This is frustrating. Its frustrating to see how competition amongst employees at the SAME company creates bad products. Instead of being a team player, the lead product manager for the 60GB Zen Xtra decided to compete and re-invent the wheel. The customer who was dazzled by the earlier Zen players, and ended up buying this piece of shizz, is the one who is hurt.
Anyway, Im stuck with this thing. I have to carry around a paperclip in the case, because it crashes so often, I need to be prepared to reset it.
I hope the product manager who decided it would be a great idea to cut corners got NO KUDOS for doing this. In fact, this person should be fired or demoted. This thing is a disaster. If it wasnt for the superior sound quality of Creative Labs mp3 players, I would have an iPod...
I dont think most music listeners are audiophiles, so I think an iPod would do, even though it costs much more.
-- UPDATE 10/13/2005 --
In the past week, my Zen Xtra has been showing signs of the headphone jack problem. When I use headphones or plug the unit into my cassette adapter in my car, it crackles, and sometimes the right channel is dead. I need to rotate the 1/8" plug, and then it will come in when it is in the right position. If I even touch the unit, it will crackle, because the soldering on the headphone jack is defective.
So yes, even the newer releases of this product suffer from this issue. I am absolutely LIVID. Creative Labs has essentially sold me a worthless product, unless I enjoy listening to only the left audio channel.
DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT. I retract the 2 star rating. This deserves 0 stars and a CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT!
I bought this 2 years ago (warranty is OVER), and spent over $400 on this. I spent countless hours uploading my CDs to the device. I will not send this in for $100+ to get the jack fixed. People who did that only had the jack break again after a certain amount of time. I found instructions on the internet to fix this problem (its a COMMON problem!) but from what I read, one has to be careful, or else one can ruin the backlight.
This is very dissapointing. I will never buy another Creative Labs product. This company rushes products out to market without testing them, and takes no accountability for defects.
Its mindboggling that a company would put a 60GB hard drive in a device, pay very good attention to sound quality, and then not invest in decent soldering for the headphone jack.
The headphone jack is the Achilles heel of this device. With a broken headphone jack, that 60GB of music is worthless.
I basically paid $400 for 2 years of an mp3 player, and now I have an extremely overpriced portable hard drive.
DO NOT BUY THIS unless you are OK with something that breaks in 1-2 years.
On: 2005-08-27
I like the sound quality on this player without the EAX features: It is rich and full and resonant. I like that the hard drive doesnt freeze or crash like my Ipod, and I like that I dont have to regularly erase and reload my library. Also, the battery life is much better on this product than the ipod. I fell asleep with the player on accidently, and eight hours later, I woke up and the thing was still going strong! Boy, was I glad to see that after dealing with 4 hour battery life with the Ipod! I also like that you can create playlists on the fly and that you dont have to constantly empty the Now Playing Folder like you had to for the old WalMart only Creative Nomad Jukebox 2LX. And praise the Lord, I havent had the dreaded headphone jack issues that some have had in the past, though I should say that I bought this straight from Creatives Ebay Store as a refurbished unit (presumably, this issue was resolved in the refurbishing process). I also greatly appreciated the low price ($212 for a 60GB unit!)
The main issue that I have with this product is that it could have been designed better. You have to pop off the cover to put in or replace the Lithium battery, and the cover comes off a bit too easily (though not as easily as some have reported). It seems more fragile than the well made Ipod. The unit is also a bit on the sleek side, and it isnt as pretty as the Ipod.
I should also add that the EAX features are almost worthless: The sound is noticeably better with the EAX off than with the EAX on. It only comes in handy when you are listening to lectures, and you want to use the Time Scale feature to speed up or slow down the voice. I like that option very much.
But in terms of performance, this unit rates higher than the Ipod. Yet as good as this player is, it has been surpassed by Creatives own Zen Touch 40 gb, which has the strengths of previous Creative Mp3 players and is a sturdier product than the Zen Xtra.
But for the price, this unit is hard to beat, and I recommend it.
On: 2005-08-24
I finally broke down earlier this year and bought myself a hard-drive-based MP3 player. First, I did some looking online. Naturally, Apples iPod tops the lists and reviews, and I considered it. In my opinion, Apples player is overpriced for the capacity it offers, so I crossed it off the short list. I looked at reviews and forums for other players out there and eventually settled on the Creative Nomad Zen Xtra 60GB model.
My choice was based on the fairly high reviews the player got, the commentary about its excellent sound quality compared to other players (including the iPod), the capacity per dollar, and the Creative Labs reputation for PC sound technology. I found the player for a relatively low price around the $260 level ($259.99 if you must know). Compare that to an iPods capacity and price.
iPod fanatics have sneered at this player elsewhere because it doesnt have a FireWire interface. So what? USB 2.0 is plenty fast enough and not that many non-Apple machines have FireWire because its an expensive and not-that-impressive technology. I can download an entire album to the player in under a minute. Theyve looked down on it because it cant serve as a plug-and-play storage device. Big deal. If I wanted handy storage Id buy a thumb drive or flash card reader. Theyve derided it because it doesnt have Apples "wheel" or software. I can find any song I want on the Nomad as quick as any iPod user, so I dont see an advantage there. In fact, the only advantage I see to the iPod over the Nomad is that there are lots of iPod-specific add-on products out there and few (if any) for the Nomad... not that Ive had a need for many add-ons anyway.
The Nomad screen is backlit and easily readable. It took some fumbling around to get used to the menu system (about 5 minutes), but now that Im used to it I no longer have any confusion in operating it. Loading music is fairly easy and fast. Creative ships a media organizer program that allows you to drag and drop files or folders of music onto the players icon for immediate transfer. It takes maybe a minute to transfer a typical album (~5 seconds for the average song). Transfer is done by USB 2.0.
I have heard some complaints that the transfer software is buggy and unstable. I havent seen that so far. Its worked smoothly for me in the last 6-7 months since I bought the player.
The player allows you to play music by artist (i.e., all their albums), by album, by genre, etc. You can store non-music files on the player if you want, but you will need the driver software on any machine you want to access the files from.
The capacity of 60GB is amazing. So far, Ive transferred all the MP3s I had on all my computers to a single 160GB hard drive on the PC. Ive also transferred over a 64-CD holder full of MP3 CDs to that drive. Even doing that, I havent hit the 60GB mark yet (though Im in the 50s at least). I still have another binder or two full of MP3 CDs and a couple of racks full of CDs to rip, so Im sure Ill eventually load the thing, but its awesome to imagine that every CD and MP3 file you have can exist on this player (even the ones you dont like).
Sound quality is as good as people say it is. With the EAX effects turned on, it gets even better. The provided headphones do a decent job, but when I paired the player with some Shure E2C headphones, I was even more impressed.
If I have a complaint about the player, its the "apparent" flimsiness (i.e., appearance only) of the selection wheel on the side of the device. This component, compared to the metal case and very solid feel of the Nomad, feels somewhat flimsy and weak. Then again, its lasted 6-7 months and hasnt had a problem. I cant say the same for my brothers RCA Lyra, which is already having problems and is only a month or two older.
Unless you like paying more for the Apple iPod, or you see some iPod-only accessory that you just "have" to have, Id suggest saving your money and picking up a Nomad Zen Xtra or Nomad Zen Touch. Youll be getting a player with at least as many bells and whistles with a lot lower price tag.
On: 2005-08-20
I bought this player because of the size and price. my brother has a 60 gig ipod photo and i didnt like the software for it or the click wheel on it. The creative is awesome its reall easy to use the software is really easy. It has a case included with it which i would use. the customer support is real good. only problem i have with it is cant figure how to make playlist on the player but they are easy to make with their software and import to the player.
On: 2005-08-12
i bought mine last december after going over specs from different mp3 players.i originally wanted an ipod because of the hype but the capacity of the zen xtra really convinced me to do otherwise. a decision which i am so happy i made. its now 8 months and 10,000 songs later and my zen hasnt done any of the written complains of other owners. the software was so simple and easy to use unlike what others say. and the sound quality was what you expect from a company who makes high quality sound devices. its just superb.most of all if you are a serious audiophile and you own cd collections containing 2 or more connected tracks like live albums which dont have pauses in between tracks, this is the player for you.the ipod would have a 1 second pause after each track so if pauses annoy you when your listening to your favorite live albums the ipod is a bad decision.i could comment on the ipod because my wife bought a 40 gb ipod 2 months after i bought my zen...and i have three words that separates the zen from the ipod..."ADD TO PLAY" this means that even if you are curently listening to a particular album or song you can add albums or songs and the zen xtra would play this after the current album or song is over.dont get this wrong with the playlist function.the ipod doesnt do this.when you are listening to a song and want to add songs you have to wait for the song to finish because if you select another song the ipod would stop the recent selection and play what you selected right away.with the zen you simply select the add to play function and the song you selected would play after the current song is done.no need to make playlists beforehand.
lastly, the price is just great.
dont be fooled by the hype.
On: 2005-08-04
Having gone through MP3 players from three other companies in the past few years, the 60GB Zen seemed poised to hit the ultimate sweet spot--enough memory to hold my entire CD collection, at a low price.
I fear theres a catch, however, and that lies in how the player organizes the music...or rather, doesnt! On my previous players, I could always set up a folder system in which I could physically arrange my tracks as I would like to play them by default, and then be able to drill down however far I needed to, e.g. "Soundtracks" -> "Hong Kong" -> "James Wong" -> "Green Snake". Creatives interface has none of that. ALL TRACKS are dumped into a single directory, and rather than keying to the filenames, the player catalogues everything by ID3 tag.
Which might have still worked in clunky fashion, except theres only one layer of organization to the players library menu. The upshot is that if I want to locate that same album above, I have to select "Soundtracks" and scroll through ALL soundtrack albums to find the one I want, or select "Artists" and scroll through ALL artists to find that one composer, or select "Albums" and, yes, scroll through ALL albums on the player to locate that single one.
This may not be an issue if you have a modest CD collection. If, however, youre dealing with thousands of albums and hundreds of artists, the Nomad Zens Music Library interface is the stuff of nightmares.
On: 2005-08-04
I listen to audiobooks while traveling and this is the perfect device for my needs. It holds tons of books and I dont have to cart around tons of cds. The 14 hour battery life is also huge advantage. I carry a car charger but have rarely had to use it.
On: 2005-07-08
Totally disappointed in the product usability, even simple MP3 players from 3 years ago much better. All operation of this MP3 relies on visual unfriendly menu. The submenu choosing button impossible to convenient control. No lock button, just software lock, software control over speed and pitch. All functioning based on choosing from a menu on the screen. Visually impaired check well in a store before you buy it. The navigation inside menu cant be learned buy hurt , too complicate, the mp3 is not recognized as a hard disk devise in your PC so you need to transfer files using the creative software which is not simple and has a problem to work with "jaws". No speaking menu exists for this devise.
On: 2005-07-02
I have had this product just over 4 months and it has been amazing. True it is not without its faults, the buttons are kind of awkardly placed, it is kinda bulky, and it isnt nearly as "sexy" as the Ipod but it has provided me with everything i could hope for in a DAP. Many times i will be playing with my friends Ipods and try to do something that i do regularly on my Zen xtra, and find its impossible. the xtra provides such a wide range of possibilities as to make an ipod user faint.
and a note, the dreaded headphone problem that so many people have faced was in fact fixed. Almost all Zen Xtras on the market today have reinforced headphone jacks.
On: 2005-06-27
I did an enormous amount of research before buying the Nomad Zen Xtra 60 GB Jukebox. From the reviews I read this seemed to be the ultimate "Bang For The Buck" mp3 player out there. One day I checked on the Amazon website and finally saw the deal I had been waiting for. In addition to a rebate, Amazon had offered a $25.00 credit toward any other purchase on the Amazon website. That finally pushed me in to buying. When the player came in I was a happy camper thinking of all the good times listening to my favorite songs that were now in store for me.
A buddy and I had planned on going on a fairly long car trip and so I loaded some great tunes in my new gadget and thought this will make the trip much more enjoyable. About two hours down the highway the player stops playing. It looks as though everythings ok, like the song is playing, but alas no sound. Later after shutting the player down I tried it again but still no sound. I leave it on and after about 15 minutes its as though someone turns the volume up and sound starts coming out. After 3 or 4 songs the volume again goes out. My friend asks me "How much did you pay for that" and I embarassingly answer "Oh, close to $300.00 dollars." Imagine how I felt.
After the trip, I update the firmware thinking that will fix it. No, the volume still drops out. Then I erase everything on it and update the firmware again, but it still has the same problem.
Then later as if to further define the quality of the product the display screen starts fading out. So now in addition to not being able to hear music half the time I cant see the display. Thank goodness I still have time in its short warranty period to send it back.
If Creative goes out of business I will not ponder two seconds as to why.
Keep all this in mind when you decide to make your purchase.
On: 2005-06-24
One of the cons listed in a previous review of this item indicated that the carrying case "should have a clear plastic window". The 60 Gig version which I just received comes with a carrying case that does have a window cut into it (although its not plastic, just a hole) designed to allow the screen to be seen; all the buttons are accessible with the case on, and both the USB and headphone jacks are accessible. The power jack is NOT accessible with the case closed, but simply unsnapping the top solves that.
I am still loading my collection (about 800 CDs, ripped at 128kbps quality), but so far am pretty impressed after listening to a few test tracks. I havent had a chance to play with the EAX settings much, and dont know that Ill use them regularly. I prefer the buttons and jog wheel design over the 5GB Zens touchpad interface -- I had a lot of trouble getting the touchpad to do what I wanted.
The only disappointment I have is that you cannot charge the Zen Xtra with the USB. With the 5GB Zen, I was able to leave the plug-in charger at work, so I could listen to music all day without having to worry about battery charge, and then charge off the USB adapter at home (where I have my main library of MP3s and CDs and wouldnt have to use the player in the first place). Without this feature, Im either going to have to invest in a second power supply cable, or simply remember to charge my player every night so that I have power for a full day of work... Or make a habit of taking the power adapter everywhere...
Still, though... 60 Gigs for only a few bucks more than what I paid for the 5GB Zen? I shouldnt have been swayed by the pretty purple facade of the smaller device, and gotten this one from the start.
On: 2005-06-07
I have had this player for a little over a year, bought originally through Amazon, and found it to be pretty much everything that I wanted. I have loaded about 11,000 songs (variably recorded between 192kbps mp3 and 128 kbps wma) into it and still have about 6gb of memory left, enough for probably another couple thousand. I have used it almost on a daily basis, more often than not I use it plugged into portable speakers, the sound has been excellent. I ditched the accompanying headphones early on in favor of better quality Bose ones, far more comfortable. I dont fiddle with the audio options much, just switch the advanced EQ to pop or rock and Im set. I was never able to figure out the smart volume feature, the match volume worked fine if I ever wanted to use it but the smart volume settings for train, car, plane just seem unnecessary; as are the sound environment settings for cathedral, auditorium, bath room, etc., it borderlines on silly. Perhaps in a future version Creative can focus on sound quality and not sound effects. The Creative Mediasource and Nomad Explorer software included was easy to use once you figure out the basics; I especially liked the Nomad Explorer software, which allows you to use drag-and-drop to put the music from the player back into your computer (or another) and vice-versa. That was a deciding feature between buying this and an Ipod, the ability to transfer the music out of your player, something you cant do (at least not easily) with an Ipod. It also plays wma files, something that also cant be done with an Ipod. My only concern now with the player is the battery, while initially I had a good 14 hours of playing time, now Im lucky to get a couple hours before it quits. Anyways Im now looking for a replacement battery so hopefully Ill be good for another year, by then maybe Ill be ready for an 80 or 100gb version as Im sure theyre around the corner. Otherwise this has been a great player, well worth the money and much more practical than an Ipod.
On: 2005-05-31
Dont believe the negative reviews. I have the 40GB Ipod of Apple and this Zen Xtra of 60GB. So I will try to set the plusses and minusses together.
It simply is such, that there is not super perfect mp3 player on the market today that combines only the plusses on both models, so if you are still looking for an as good can be one, I recommend both types. Its up to your taste. To me, they both work to my satisfaction. Isnt it incredible, to fit hundreds of cds in them without loosing soundquality?
The ZenXtra is a lot cheaper, but not less versatile. The very big plus is the search option (song, artist, album), with the scrolling wheel on the side. The Ipod 40GB does not have this option, maybe because the clickwheel goes very fast to the song you are looking for. Some like the clickwheel better, but the negative point is, that with a case around it you need the remote control to operate it, because then the clickwheel is covered. Not with the Zen, you can reach the wheel on the side also when the protection case is there.
Fair enough, the Ipod looks a bit more sturdy, and the Zen Xtra case is a bit more fragile plastic. So keep them in a protection case and you dont have to worry about damage anymore.
For both models, you simply have to make sure your music dbase is consistent: not Abba and ABBA and AbBA or so, because then it will place songs under those differentartists. There are a lot of tag editors for free on the net anyway, so it pays to do it right from the start.
Ok, the Ipod with 60Gb (which I have not) has colours, not the Zen, but the price is almost double! The screen on the ZenXtra is fine, blue, and clear. Both models (Ipod 40GB and the ZenXtra 60GB) are sort of equal in size and weight.
The ZenXtra has EAX, a system that can control a same volume for the songs selected, very handy!
Both models have good sound quality.
For software, it both worked for me. I have not discovered how to put data on and back on the Ipod, but I managed to put a DVDmovie on my Zen as storage in the datalibrary, and back again on my computer.
If I would have to buy a 60GB model again, I would always go for a ZenXtra. The only reason to go for the 60GB Photo to me is the colourscreen and the model which looks a little bit more flashy. But hey, it also cost money! Apple is not cheap.
On: 2005-05-22
This is the 6th month with (or was) my Nomad Xtra. I absolutely loved the product and it was totally worth it... until now. I remember correctly that I didnt drop it even once, and I went extra protection for my Nomad. The cover kept popping off but I didnt care, putting it back on wasnt much of a chore. But the headphone jack went awol and I was in the middle of a song when it went totally blank. I thought it ran out of battery until I realized that I left a few minutes ago fully charged and ready for my day. Then I went everywhere online to see what happened and saw countless ppl with the same problem. I was sad. I lost hope in the product, I even tried calling customer service who advised me to "stick my headphone end into the jack and wiggle it violently" or "bang the jack against the wall." it scratched and scraped my player but i just wanted it to play. After a month of grueling I pondered whether to pay 175 bux to fix a product that wasnt really reliable, or buy an iPod 20GB. I went with the 20GB and to say it still hasnt had any problems. Go iPod or Dell, iRiver at least. Save yourself while you can.
On: 2005-05-08
I spent about 8 or so hours online researching all the mp3 players available. I was looking for a 20 or 40 GB player, but ended up getting the 60GB because it was only about $30 more than the 40GB.
Every mp3 player has its pros and cons, I can live with the cons of this player, no problem. I chose the Zen Xtra because:
1-It has the most bang for its buck..
2-It comes with a battery that you can replace, Ipod doesnt and neither do some of the others.
3-It comes with volume normalization, others dont. I have obtained mp3s from all over the place, and some are way louder than the others, this will set them all at the same volume.
4-You can buy a car DC adapter, some others dont.
5-The sound is very crisp...I did buy some $30 headphones, and the sound is fantastic. But even with the earbuds that come with it, the sound is still very good and crisp.
I dont know why people complain about the software, Im no computer person and I figured it out in no time. Its a bit bigger than the Ipod (and they say you cant run with it), but its not crazy big at all and I dont run with music anyway. My carrying case (included) has a window for the screen and Ive had absolutely no problems with the player. The battery life is about 8-10 hours, depends on how much fiddling you do with it.
Other than that, all I can say is that Im very happy with this product, no question. I picked it up for $279 at buy.com I think. I would highly recommend this to anyone.
On: 2005-05-03
Hello,
I am seriously considering buying the Creative Nomad Zen Xtra 60 GB MP3 Jukebox, but I could not deal with not being able to have my music organized by album with songs IN THE ORDER THAT THEY COME ON THE ALBUM. Can it be possible that they designed this product with no way to have your songs stored in the correct order by album?
Someone please tell me there is a way to have songs organized by artist with all songs from each album together, in the order they are supposed to be!?!
Thanks,
Hannah
On: 2005-05-01
OK, I never thought Id buy an MP3 player like this. But with the storage capacity, I can back up my laptop when on the road. As an MP3 player, the unit works great, the software is EASY to use, and loading MP3s from my laptop takes seconds.
Im not thrilled with the ear buds they include, but thats a personal issue between me and my ears. It certainly will accomodate any set of headphones with the standard 3.5mm jack.
Organization is easy, and you can sort by album (plays the album from front to back), artist, track. Ive used this at the gym, and have (oops) dropped it a couple of times, no problem. The protective cover seems to work. I wish there were some third party silicone type covers, I think that this would give the unit a little extra protection. Maybe soon?
Battery life really is 12 hours. Ive timed it twice and as long as you arent constantly using the backlight on the LCD screen, you will get 12 hours. Compared to the 60GB iPod, price is 33% less (the picture resolution on the iPod is poor at best anyway). If youre looking for an easy to use, light on the budget MP3 player with tons of storage, you really should consider the Creative Nomad Zen Xtra!
On: 2005-04-28
Yes the songs are listed by title but you can easily go into the albums and view them that way if you wish. I recomend this player to anyone who really needs all the space but if not i recomend going with ipod, zen micro, or zen touch. I love the sound quality on this unit!
On: 2005-04-24
Ive heard good things about this mp3 player and Im very close to buying one, but I saw in one review that the player sorts the songs in alphabetical order so an albums tracks cannot be listened to in order. Someone please post if this is true, and if theres a way around it so that an album can be listened to in order.
On: 2005-04-03
I recently purchased this mp3 player and am very pleased with its performance. For those of you trying to make up your mind about which mp3 player would be ideal, you just cant beat this one when it comes to quality and space.
Quick rundown:
The player comes to about 57 GB of space, which should accommodate just about anyones musical library. There is easy scrolling capability, easy and rapid uploading (the majority of my time was spent simply ripping the CDs onto the computer, but once the songs are on the hard drive, transferring them takes less than 1 second per song), and an amazing battery life.
The instruction manual is not too extensive so I found myself playing around with the buttons to figure out how to add songs to the "Selected Music" list (just a list of songs you want to currently hear, kind of like an impromptu playlist, if you arent up for just letting the player randomly select from among the entire music library) and how to change the playback settings (Shuffle, Shuffle/Repeat, etc.)
The battery life is great, as long as you dont do a whole lot of scrolling through the menu or library to find different songs/artists. I hooked the player up to the computer and the adaptor, both so it wouldnt run on battery power and because of the added ease of using the mouse and keyboard to select multiple entries and name playlists, then transferred. My suggestion is to upload songs onto the computer, then arrange them into playlists (as simple as selecting multiple songs while holding the Ctrl button, right-clicking on them, and selecting "Add to playlist" and then selecting which playlist to add them to), and then when youre on the go, you can play your music by these pre-set lists according to genre or whatever your taste may be, if you arent up for jumping around randomly from song to song throughout the entire library (a feature which had me too often skipping songs I wasnt in the mood to hear - I couldnt go from Beethoven to 50 Cent to the OJays, so I just made "Slow Jams", "Hip Hop", etc. lists and now I dont have to waste battery power by endlessly skipping around). Obviously, the less you hit the buttons to skip songs, go back to previous songs, use the backlight, or scroll, the longer each charge will last. For example, I had the alarm set on the player (another feature!) but the volume was so low I didnt hear it come on sitting next to the bed; it played all night for at least 11 hours before I discovered it, and it still had 2 out of the 3 bars in the battery icon lit up.
Uploading is extremely basic - once the program is installed via the accompanying CD-ROM, just open up the browser and select both the source folder (such as My Music, or even a music CD in one of the drives) and the destination (the player). Then you highlight the source files to transfer and hit the button, and away you go - each song done in less than one second. Another program included is the Nomad browser, which essentially is just a way to look at all the files you have on the player through your PC - refresh the screen and it will show the newest songs uploaded, and use the browser to change or update song information, such as album information or genre (Im just very anal about having everything spelled correctly and the use of upper and lowercase letters, so I just had to go through and edit everything).
Additional features include something called EAX, which is just a way to modify the sound of the songs - you can select such environments as "bathroom" or "concert hall" and the songs take on this hollow, echoed vibe, if youre into that. So far Ive uploaded around 1600 songs, the equivalent of approximately 100 CDs, and Ive still got 90% of the space left. The sound is great, as is the value, and the player charges rapidly (about 2 hours).
My only complaint would be the ear buds - theyre way too big and uncomfortable, but that was easily fixed by substituting my own. The case is handy, and despite what other reviews say, there is actually a rectangle cut into it - you DO NOT have to pull the case off to look at the LCD screen, and the case slips onto the player very easily and has a handy clip.
On: 2005-03-07
did a ton of research, wanted the gigs. so i went with this. can buy it for cheaper at shopping.com even though i love amazon. horrible organizational features and i get the feeling its delicate so u wouldnt wanna bring it to the gym or anything. i mean it is what it is. sitll a good buy in my opinion, just look at the gigs!
On: 2005-03-06
This is simply an amazing little music machine. The first thing that struck me was how good it sounded....easily comparable to CD players when playing WMA 320 or MP3 320 KbPS files. The Creative folks made their reputation on sound playback (their trademark product in the pre-MP3 era was the SoundBlaster sound card), and this is their top of the line player. Capacity per dollar is unequaled, this means you can load it up with MP3 at 192 or 320 KbPs instead of having to settle for 128s. I have over 7200 songs loaded, most at MP3 192 KbPS or WMA 160....and I still have 20 gigs left. IPod does NOT support WMAs which means you have to pay top dollar for downloaded music...and have to settle for inferior sound quality. The whining about the software/firmware that others have expressed is way overdone....Id say if you already have a huge MP3 library it may be an issue, and then youd be better off buying the Notmad explorer. If you have a bunch of CDs, and youre gonna be burning em mainly to load em on your player, then this works fine. The new case (which comes free) is well designed. Obviously the issue of battery life (around 12-14 hours/charge for me) and replaceability (a replacement is around 25 bucks on EBay) make this the clear choice for anyone buying a hard drive jukebox over 30 gigs in size.
On: 2005-02-24
A big fan of the Nomad Jukebox 3 (I have 3 x 40GB models to support my music habit...), I put off buying the Zen because it didnt support FireWire. But I just bought one, fired it up, and I think its fantastic. Ordered a second one the next day.
It was recognized immediately by my Windows 2000 box, the installation was painless, the software options (that I didnt want) were non-invasive, and it set up just as easily and quickly on my PC at work. Simply outstanding.
I read at least one review claiming that the Zen would not allow organizing your music by artist AND album - not true! Works just like the Nomad Jukebox 3, another great product from Creative. Maybe this is new in the latest version, but its there.
Also, the leather case now has a nice cutout window, so you can see the LCD display at all times. Yes, the closed case covers the A/C plug, but as another reviewer said, a few seconds with an exacto blade and all is well.
The tip - Red Chair Software, at http://www.redchairsoftware.com, sells (and supports) the Notmad Explorer for $25. Its the best, and simply shames similar file management software from Creative. Plus, it makes it easy to organize Nomad/Zen files by artist, album, genre, and track.
The single thing that threw me was in trying to upgrade the firmware (the Nomad Jukebox 3 was equally testy). Took me forever until I figured out how to get into "rescue" mode.
Heres the solution:
* Grab and straighten out a paper clip
* Disconnect the Zen
* Hold down the Play button
* While holding it down, insert the paper clip in the Reset hole
* Release both when Rescue mode shows up
Thats the ticket, but the manual doesnt quite describe it that way, and it drove me nuts for way too long until I trial-and-errored my way in.
All in all, this is a KILLER.
On: 2005-02-17
One of the reasons I buy the Nomad is the hard drive capacity and beacause its made by Creative labs so I realy like great sound.
Also my brother borrow me his 20GB IPOD for A weekend and I realy get an auful experience for example you only can install the IPOD on 1 computer an thats all so you need the 20GB in your computer (thata a lot of space) for the music, another thing the batery life of the IPOD suck it only works 6 hours whitout the sound efects.
Maybe the ZEN have a funky software but after 10 minutes you will be O.K. , also the fact that can I go whit my friends and download their songs, videos and all that stuff its realy cool, another great feature is the sound efects they are great and realy cool and I can use it all the time and the batery will last about 9 hours (12 normal), you can also put a startup picture (a simple one of 160x104).
Its the best player some body can buy.
Say Hello to my new best friend.
I really Love it.
On: 2005-02-10
As any Hard Drive based system this one:
1. Is somewhat heavy
2. If you drop it it might get damaged.
3. Is not as small as the Flash players.
4. Requires software to transfer songs and files.
The Mediasource software is problematic for some people, because wont let you create folders to storage your MP3 Tracks. Well, the concept of this sofware is more like database oriented where you have only 1 huge database file and then you can create playlists with the tracks you choose.
To create playlists and understand how your player organize its music doesnt take long if you are a regular computer user. For the rest of the people there are other type of products to choose from. Zen Xtra is not a good option for them.
The leather case is great, The quality is OK and protects the player really good.
My only complain goes to the battery compartment. Sometimes, if I press hard my player (Jogging) the battery moves inside and then the player stops, restarts and rebuilds the database. Mine has 18 Gb of music only and takes about 2 minutes to rebuild. Not too bad. I put some tape on the battery and that solved the problem because is not loose anymore.
And believe me... The battery life is one of the best features of this gadget. I havent run out of power yet!
The sound is superb, with all those preset settings that you can choose from, like: Smart volume, Time-scale, Custom, etc.
The find music feature works good when you have thousands of songs in your player. Once you find the song you want to hear you only have to wait about 2 seconds... Thats fast enough for me if in my database I have around 4200 songs!
You can play your music by genre, artist, playlist, by album.
The screen is so big. You can see the name of the screen and style (List or Tab), title of the song, album, singer, genre, total time, elapsed time, playmode, equalization mode and battery indicator. The stylish blue backlight let you see the screen at night.
I havent change or actualize the firmware, no need to yet, because I havent had any problems requiring me to do so.
I recommend this player to people that are willing to take some out of the box measures (Like fixing the battery problem or the way you store your music on your PC), for people that want things to work exactely the way they want, well this is not the right toy for them.
My score for this gadget is 4 out of 5.
On: 2005-01-19
Like many, I read as much as I could before purchasing my 60 GB Zen Xtra. People either loved it or hated it, but isnt that always the case? Why would someone waste their time to say its ok. The negative reviews were not enough to stop me from making the purchase. I spent weeks going though my CDs and making MP3s sampled at a higher rate since I had the space. Yesterday I was up to 43 GB full and while adding a song to a playlist the player stopped working and reported a "Firmware Problem". I got out a pin and pressed the reset button, but it didnt help. I then spent all night on the web searching for some help. I was able to read up on how to get to a special menu to run a scan disk, but that didnt help either. I even downloaded the latest firmware from Creatives website, but again no luck. Today I went to the store where I purchased the player and was able to get a store credit. I wasnt about to ask for an exchange or deal with going through the warranty process. The only good news is that it failed early enough that I didnt have much trouble getting a store credit.
Positives: 60 GB of storage. Can be used as a hard drive. Can copy MP3s off the player.
Negatives: Somewhat large in size and of course the Firmware Problem
Overall: Dont take the chance that the player will fail after a few months of use. Also search the web for Creative Nomad Firmware Problem for more information.
On: 2005-01-18
I just got this today and I will be shipping it back tomorrow. PLEASE READ: YOU CAN NOT CREATE YOUR OWN FOLDERS!!! ALL FILES ARE STORED IN ONE DIRECTORY! THAT IS REDICULOUS FOR A 60GB DEVICE.
On: 2005-01-12
I researched this device carefully, reading all reviews, and finally purchased it because I absolutely require 60 GB storage. My mammoth CD collection, when I converted it to MP3 files, was over 40 GB--and I have about 10 GB of data files Id like to back up from my computer.
The little Creative hard drive device is neat, works well, plays music beautifully. The backlight is quite good. The combination Jog Dial/Press Selector functions fine. I have not yet had the headphone jack fail, but I am aware that this problem may crop up. Battery life is not great, but thats not an issue. Data file storage is wonderful! No, this is not a "drive" visible to Windows for use; you cant write a document with your word processor, and specify the "Save As" file location to be your Zen Xtra. It doesnt work like that. One must use the software, included, and transfer files to the device. It works very well, once a person understands this.
The software you use to manage the device, on your personal computer, is another story. In short, there are two applications. First, there is the Nomad Explorer. Its okay. I used this, when I needed to delete all of the files on my Zen Xtra. Any user of Windows can handle this application, intuitively. The second computer program included, Creative MediaSource Organizer, is poor. It does not work as described--perfunctorily--by the Getting Started manual. The user is instructed to select buttons which at times are not present on the screen, and at others are present BUT NOT LABELED! My job, incidentally, is to work with software products, and I feel I can "get the hang of" just about any computer program written. Not so, with the Creative MediaSource Organizer. Its so terrible, so poorly laid out, so incomprehensible, I had to use another program to transfer my MP3 files, from my computer, to the Zen Xtra. Happily, MusicMatch software recognizes the Zen Xtra player, and its portable device manager feature was able to send the files to the waiting player. The software also gets poor marks for inability to perform custom operations. An example: With over 40 GB of music files, my computers hard drive (the C: drive) is too small to house it all. So my MP3 files are on network-attached storage, another machine altogether. Well, the Creative MediaSource software assumes that your music -must- be on your C: drive, and it wont accept another lettered drive as the source of your music. Shabbily written, this may get better over iterations.
Unforgiveable, absolutely dreadful, is the documentation for both the Zen Xtra device, and the two above-mentioned software products. As the MediaSource Organizer is almost unusable without instructions, one turns expectantly to the documentation provided. Whats provided is a Getting Started booklet, and the very same text in electronic form (a PDF file). It is insufficient to describe exactly what keys must be pressed, exactly which screens must be selected, to accomplish the various tasks even a casual user of the product will require. Since the documentation is so terribly incomplete, one turns to the last-available bit of information: The Help feature within the computer programs themselves. This, however, is awful; it appears to be a mere afterthought to the programs. Surprisingly, online help is even shorter and less descriptive than the Getting Started manual!
With all of this in mind: I am glad I bought this product. At its price point, The device is well worth the money. Problems with the software can be surmounted by using other music management programs. Would I recommend it to a person who is not completely familiar, totally at ease with computers? No way.
by: gadgester On: 2005-01-12
The Creative Nomad Zen Xtra MP3 Jukebox is actually an amazing MP3 player, if you can forgive its relatively large size (when compared to the iPod) and clunky user interface (again, when compared to the iPod). Not only does it have SUPERB sound quality, unmatched by iPod or Rio or iRiver, but it sports some features you wont find elsewhere:
- volume leveling, so all your tracks have the same volume
- time scaling, so you can adjust the playback speed fast or slow, a boon for people who have audiobooks in the MP3 format (the iPod can only adjust the speed of special Audible files)
- sleep timer
- alarm clock (!!!)
- profile settings that remember your preferences, great for sharing with other family members
- pretty decent playlist management
- works as an external drive in Windows
These features are all the more amazing because all recent Creative products (Zen Micro, Zen Touch, ...) do NOT have these features. Its sad to me that Creative has taken a step or two back in all these convenience features, which would have made their products compete better against iPod and others. Just sad.
In short, if size and jog dial dont turn you off, the Zen Xtra is the best hard drive-based MP3 player.
On: 2005-01-06
I bought the 60 GB Zen Nomad, and had nothing but disappointments. I took it back to the store after two weeks. Dont get me wrong - I think a large capacity HDD music player is a very nice thing, and I loved the idea of it. Creative broke down in their execution of that idea for me in two main ways:
1.) Electronics - on my player, the headphone jack did not fail in the two weeks that I had it, but the USB connection was poor the very first time I plugged the unit into my computer. It would be found then lost by Windows with any movement whatever. Volume is inadequate for my taste as well.
2.) Firmware, and design problems.
Here I had a long laundry list of problems:
- The Software is abysmal for loading music onto the player. I practically leapt to buy the NOTMAD software for $25 from REDCHAIR, which helped, but it crapped out too, before my player was even half full.
- The worst problem besides not being able to fill the drive was the way the player organizes files. It organized all the files by Artist, so when you drop an album on the player with songs by various artists, the album kind of disappears, and the artists are all added to the artist list. Now, instead of David Bowie and Dave Matthews, I had 23 artists named Dave or David to scroll through, in order to find an album. Very irritating.
The player also sorts the tracks alphabetically, so you apparently cant play an album in its regular track order.
On top of this, I found the features to be pretty scant, I found the interface to be ungainly to use (adding one song to now playing takes 20 to 30 seconds).
I like the way the I-River player keeps the file and directory structure for every folder that you put on it. It doesnt require software to work. I have looked at the Dell player. It does use software to load music, and it appears to have some of the same issues as the Creative, but the User Interface is better.
Creative needs to get their act together. I would be pleased to hear that engineers were being fired for poor design work. This unit has all the physical charachteristics of a very good player, but it just does not live up to its promise.
On: 2005-01-02
Well Ive read alot of reviews and heard alot of whining. I decided to buy this anyways. I think people think that the portable MP3 world has been perfected, but it hasnt. This player has its pros and cons.
First off, I-Pod costs a lot more. 4GB for $249, 20GB for $299 & 40GB for $340. Yes its smaller and lighter, but I wanted capacity and the 60GB Zen Extra has it. I have tons of CDs so I need the space.
If you have the money and need a player for jogging, then maybe this isnt what you want. If your at home, on vacation, on a plane or whatever, this is perfect. The sound is great. You may want to buy new headphones though. When you blast the headphones it came with everyone else can hear it.
The con that I have is the organizer it came with. Its easy to upload and super fast, but when you create a playlist you have to drag the songs to move them around. My songs are in order and they dont upload that way. You cant hit a tab to arrange the songs you have to drag it. Maybe I missed something. Oh well.
Navagating takes getting used to. Once you figure it out its fine.
Its not perfect like most people want it to be, but it does what I want it to do. If you want capacity and a great price, this is your device. If you want to be a conformist and do as everyone else, get an I-Pod.
On: 2004-12-31
First and foremost, the Zen Xtra is not a perfect item. I dont know why anyone would give it a five out of five.
I bought the Zen Xtra with the thought of storing all my music onto a single device, have room for the future, and save a few bucks. With the three options of Zens, I decided on the 60 gig version on the basis of go big, or dont go at all.
The Player
The zen is a bit larger than the ipod in every direction, and heavier too. The button layout is mediocre compared to the iPod, but you can mainly get by using the scroll wheel, and the menu system is straight and to the point. Theres a feature to play any track, which is a nice way to know what albums to delete from your zen because youll never listen to them ^_^ , but more helpful in setting and forgetting the zen. It also houses a replaceable battery, which is most certainly a plus. To replace an iPod battery, you have to pay apple 100 bucks for them to proboably swap your player out with a new one. You can buy Creatives zen battery here at Amazon for 30 dollars. The screen is nice and large, and the cool blue backlight makes the screen very clear in the dark. The power button (obviously) turns the zen on and off when held in, but just pressing it lets you enable the lock function of the player, similar to the iPods hold switch - though with the iPod, you just switch hold on and off, and with the Zen you press the power button, the screen asks if you want to lock the player and you have to scroll to the check for yes. Theres a reset hole on the side if the player locks up, but I havent yet encountered such a case.
Computer Interface
This is where things get tricky, but Before you do anything, be sure to install the latest drivers and firmware for the Zen from www.nomadworld.com . I found that when using Creatives Nomad explorer, as well as Windows Media player to transfer music from your computer to the zen, they mess with the musics information, such as labeling every tracks track number on an album with 59 or other strange things like that. Im too lazy to find a solution to this, so I looked elsewhere. Now you can just go out and buy the amazing, simple, jack-of-all-trades Zen helper program Notmad for $25 [...] but If youre like me and you dont want to spend more money, I found that the best program to transfer music to the zen (and a good music player in general), is RealPlayer. If you pay ten dollars for the pro version, you can rip CDs in the WMA format at high quality (192 kbps), or if you dont want to spend a dime more than you paid for the zen, just use windows media player (remember to NOT copy-protect the music when ripped). RealPlayer transfers music to the zen a bit slower than Notmad, but its fine. I transfered 168 albums over in little more than 2 hours. It uses a USB 2.0 cable by the way.
All in all, the Zen is a good option for a large capacity mp3 player, and a bargain too. It sounds great, and once you get your computer set up with RealPlayer to transfer music, its a breeze. Its a little large (see my pictures in the customer shots section at the top of the page), not very feminine, and the user-interface is less than intuitive, but for the price being the same as the 20 gb. iPod for the 60 gb. Zen Xtra, its definately a good deal. Id highly reccomend it.
On: 2004-12-12
This 60MB unit is just the greatest!! Ive had it for over 6 months and use it every day (heavy use) and it always delights me with its great sound and its dependability. Ive loaded mine with almost 12,000 songs and just love to hear all my favorite music played randomly. Its like the greatest radio station in the world except it sounds better, and only plays the music that I enjoy!! I would highly recommend this unit to anyone looking for a high capacity MP3 Juke Box. For any music lover this unit will become your new best friend who doesnt disappoint!
On: 2004-11-14
If your tyring to compare this or an ipod, defintally go for this, It can hold up to more songs than you know, great features, great quality and long lasting battery.
On: 2004-11-09
I love this jukebox. I have over 4800 songs on my home PC and now they all fit in the palm of my hand. Nonstop music! I made over 50 playlists already. I also purchased the car kit adapter...the music sounds better than my old CD recordings...it is crystal clear. This is the BEST electronic gadget that I ever bought. I update my playlists and total library everyday by connecting the USB wire to my PC and use the Graphical User interface jukebox player application that comes with you purchase. Updates happen within microseconds simultaneously with your MP3 player. Its the best!
On: 2004-11-03
Its a shame, because this is otherwise a great piece of equipment. But not if I cant listen to it. My 40g is no longer portable, and functions only when its laid flat, with the headphone cable duck-taped tightly to the Nomad case so the headphone jack makes enough contact with the plug.
I can only assume from my experience, and the other ones listed here, that this is a product well worth avoiding.
On: 2004-11-02
Its a shame, because this is otherwise a great piece of equipment. But not if I cant listen to it. My 40g is no longer portable, and functions only when its laid flat, with the headphone cable duck-taped tightly to the Nomad case so the headphone jack makes enough contact with the plug.
I can only assume from my experience, and the other ones listed here, that this is a product well worth avoiding.
On: 2004-10-04
I also fell prey to the poorly constructed headphone jack. This player was a great value and worked great, I loved it...until the headphone jack broke just out of warranty (sounds like a common problem). Fortunately, a family member is an electronic technician, so he fixed my headphone jack (twice), but in the process the displays backlight was ruined because it is connected with only a very delicate think foil type connector. Very poor construction for a device of this nature. Im now wishing Id spent a little extra for the iPod. Also dont let the add fool you, the body is white plastic, with a very thin "metallic" aluminum plate cover on the front and back - not a full aluminum case and not very solid at all. Shake it and it rattles.
On: 2004-08-31
I like this player a heap. Ive got 35 gigs of music on it and it works like a dream. Unlike other players Ive owned this one shuffles within playlists. Has a great battery life for the size of it. Im still ripping all of my friends CDs and I still have room on the player. We take it from house to car and the tracks keep-a-comin. How did I ever live without my Zen Xtra? Ive got no idea...
On: 2004-08-24
In comparing the price of this player to others, be sure to factor in having to pay an additional $175 every 60-90 days of use. Thats how much it costs to have the headphone jack fixed by Creative. Unless youre good with a soldering iron and dont mind fixing it yourself, this is a product to be avoided. Sad too because my Zen Xtra 60 worked great for the first 60 days of use. Now Im out an additional $175 and counting the days until it happens again. Shame on Creative for not fixing this defect, and doing so free of charge.
On: 2004-08-23
In comparing the price of this player to others, be sure to factor in having to pay an additional $175 every 60-90 days of use. Thats how much it costs to have the headphone jack fixed by Creative. Unless youre good with a soldering iron and dont mind fixing it yourself, this is a product to be avoided. Sad too because my Zen Xtra 60 worked great for the first 60 days of use. Now Im out an additional $175 and counting the days until it happens again. Shame on Creative for not fixing this defect, and doing so free of charge.
On: 2004-08-21
As of the year 2004 and your looking for a jukebox you can play with I highly recommend this product.Its more attractive than your girlfriend or boyfriend. BIG storage, fast transfer, palm size,amazing suround sound with many different soundmodes,14 hr battery life, and many many many more features.The software it comes with easy and organized.The earbuds it comes with is awesome,fits me perfectly and again it sounds great, best sound quality earbuds produced. At times I transfer about 500 or more mp3s and it takes like 7-12 minutes and I have a SLOW computer.Only thing you should be AWARE of that all recharchable batteries-if charging while being used or over charging or charging when there is plenty left can damage it and it will slim the battery life down in half.One last thing-since the faceplate is deattachable, CREATIVE LABS should design alteranative faceplates.RED,BLUE,GREEN...ANd DOnt Drop it,its like any other baby or jukebox, it can die.
On: 2004-08-10
Had my Xtra for ~5 months loved it and loaded the 60Gb drive full of the best. Took it everywhere, enjoyed 10 hours of battery life. Never dropped it-always treated it with respect ........Then mysteriously sound out of the headphone jack sounded like I was in the bottom of an echo chamber; only treble coming out of both earbuds. Called Customer support and thats where my loss of respect for Creative began. Found out that this product is only covered for 90 days and that since I was out of the warranty period I also wouldnt enjoy their 10 day turn around time and would have to pay for the repair which they would call me with the costs later. It turned out to be 30 days and $175 to repair their 10cent headphone jack. This is simply a huge rip off. I complained to as many people as I could and the best I got was a sharp intake of breathe from one womam who said "Im sorry i dont know what to tell you but you need to pay the money to get it back...." Thanks!!!. Do not buy this product. 6 months is not an expected lifespan for any self respecting product built around hard drive technology. Bottom line-great while it works but $399 is excessive for a product that cant even make it through a year
On: 2004-08-09
Had my Xtra for ~5 months loved it and loaded the 60Gb drive full of the best. Took it everywhere, enjoyed 10 hours of battery life. Never dropped it-always treated it with respect ........Then mysteriously sound out of the headphone jack sounded like I was in the bottom of an echo chamber; only treble coming out of both earbuds. Called Customer support and thats where my loss of respect for Creative began. Found out that this product is only covered for 90 days and that since I was out of the warranty period I also wouldnt enjoy their 10 day turn around time and would have to pay for the repair which they would call me with the costs later. It turned out to be 30 days and $175 to repair their 10cent headphone jack. This is simply a huge rip off. I complained to as many people as I could and the best I got was a sharp intake of breathe from one womam who said "Im sorry i dont know what to tell you but you need to pay the money to get it back...." Thanks!!!. Do not buy this product. 6 months is not an expected lifespan for any self respecting product built around hard drive technology. Bottom line-great while it works but $399 is excessive for a product that cant even make it through a year
On: 2004-08-05
Within a month of buying the NOMAD Jukebox Zen Xtra the headphone jack was inoperable. Luckily, I was within the 90 day warranty and returned it for a replacement. It took over 2 months to receive the replacement unit. Then within the next month the heaphone jack malfunctions again. Now the unit is out of warranty. If you have one these units and are experiencing the same problem with the headphone jack, go to:
http://www.playerblog.com/archives/000084.shtml
for instructions on how to fix this problem yourself. Many other buyers of this product claim hard drive failure somewhere after 4 - 6 months. I dont think people should be reviewing this product until after it fails...because it will. Do yourself a favor and invest your MP3 player money elsewhere.
On: 2004-07-27
Ive hit the four-month mark with my Zen Xtra, and Im still quite pleased with it. I have no major complaints; there are only a few bothersome things. As others have mentioned, the cases front pops off fairly easily (NB: I resolve this by keeping it in its case; if you leave it in the case but leave the cases flap open, the plate will still be held in place), which is merely an annoyance rather than a major issue. Another annoyance mentioned by other users is the headphones; I quickly swapped the included earbuds out with another pair.
As for using this player, I do think Id be wary of jogging with it, particularly with the face popping off. But Im a little paranoid about caring for my electronics, anyway, so maybe thats just me. I use my player mainly around the house (where, as I said, I keep it in the case with the flap open, for purposes of keeping the face on) and in the car. For both purposes, its ideal, and I have no troubles or complaints about either. It works perfectly for my purposes, in other words, but Id advise anyone whos thinking about purchasing this to be aware that Im definitely not a heavy-duty user (too lazy to exercise :) ).
Now, the good stuff: 60 GB! I love being able to transfer music without having to be overly discriminating: if theres a remote chance Ill want to listen to it, I can put it on there. That in itself is a convenience, because it takes a potential hassle (do I have enough room? Should I weed the tracks?) out of music-transfer.
On the subject of transfering music, its a quick job to do. I use the included software, and its simple to understand and use. You have two screens, one of which is the music on your PC or your CD, and the other of which is your Zen. One arrow points toward the Zen, one away: transfer music on, transfer music off. Its a real breeze.
With a long battery life and an easy, do-it-yourself recharger, you can listen to that whopping 60 GB of tunes without fear of the battery running down in a hurry (theres also an available accessory that allows you to recharge the Jukebox with a car adapter, if you wont be around an outlet). I havent let the battery run down all the way. However, at one point, I listened to it for four hours and then accidentally left it playing all night, and the battery wasnt dead yet in the morning. That was at least 12 hours of running time, in other words.
I like the features on the Jukebox itself. The variety of sorting options (album, song, artist) makes it easy to find what youre looking for. Its also easy to mix up your music, and that mixing up goes beyond just using the shuffle option. You can listen to an album by a particular artist, or you can listen to all songs by that artist. Because of that, you can be hands-on and pick and choose a tremendous variety of tracks, or you can be hands-off and enjoy hours of listening without lifting a finger. Its certainly easier than swapping CD after CD out of a player.
Upshot: Great deal (obviously, the price, compared to other leading products, is a big plus here) on a highly satisfactory product. The software is easy to use, and being able to delete tracks on the player itself (rather than relying on a computer connection) is a nice plus. The screen is crisp and clear, and the controls are intuitive. The battery life is excellent, and its easily rechargable (no need to send it back to the manafacturer). 60 GB of storage means being able to transfer any and all music youd possibly want to hear without having to pick and choose. Music transfers quickly and easily. Sorting options are extensive and allow for a variety of types of listening (jumping from track to track versus hours of hands-off listening). Youll probably want to replace the headphones, but thats not | | |
