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Creative start producing the NOMAD 3 again,,, please ...
This is probably the best purchase I have ever made. This thing is everything I ever expected and more!! It's easy to use as well - even my wife can operate it!
I have to say, everyone out there who is thinking of buying this, stop thinking. I bought it and I am extremely happy with it the moment I powered this thing on. YOU ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY CANNOT GO WRONG WITH THIS PURCHASE! I GUARANTEE IT!!!
Sound:
Absolutely amazing. Now I know what Queensryche would sound like in my living room. And I heard it on the train. I spoke with a Creative Labs designer for this model, and evidently the "EAX" function almost didn't make the cut. I am thrilled it did. This feature alone makes up for the lack of compactness the iPod/mini offers.
Price:
Still high. Was $372 (now $399 again) on Amazon in March 2004. That's way above the price for a similar Nomad Zen.
Connectivity:
None better on the market. USB 1.0, 2.0 and Firewire.
Software:
Horrid. It seems like the designers just found their 256 color pallate. The interface is not intuitive and is clunky. Get Notmad from Red Chair and you will see your Nomad as you should -- as an external drive to your PC. The Ripping function on the Creative software hangs once every five times or so.
Firmware:
The upgrades make this a solid interface. Be sure to upgrade online. (Apr. 2004 version is 1.40.p)
Design:
Clunky. The NJ3 is still compact enough to stow in a jacket pocket or front pocket of a briefcase. It looks like a CD Player, which is fine. I suppose it is less likely to be thieved off me on the street since it looks like a $20 piece of merchandise.
Durability:
This puts the Nomad Jukebox 3 over the top...and perhaps is a benefit of the CD-tank-like shell. While grooving out the other night, my buddy grabbed the attached speakers (Panasonic, $39, Creative's are baaad and costly) off of my garage fridge -- thinking they were wireless. He launched the player 8 feet out and 6+ feet down. At what seemed like 30MPH.
There's barely a scuff on her and she's played tremendously for several days since.
Bottom line:
Pricey. But, in this case, with cost comes incredible hardware/firmware quality. This product is worth the purchase.
I went skiing with the MP3 player up to Tahoe and in the cold, my one battery lasted about 7 hours - better than I expected. I'm going to try adding the second battery if I can get the firmware updated and hopefully that will take it through the day.
Sound quality once you learn how to use it is great. I had to sit through the online tutorial to learn how to use it. I don't expect to need training on consumer products like these anymore - they should be much more intuitive.
You also need to outlay additional $$ for a car adapter if you want one, there isn't one included.
Transferring songs is easier than you might think. Hook the NOMAD to your computer, and the file-transferring software automatically opens. The screen is divided into two windows, with selectable sources of music for each (for example, CD track listing on the left, NOMAD 3 track listing on the right). Simply select the tracks you want to copy from the CD, hit "Transfer", and that's it!!
For the inexperienced, let me give you an idea of how much music this thing holds. My player is a little over half full. If I load up all the tracks, and set it to "shuffle", I could listen to no-repeat music for 27 days. Non-stop.
Finally, I can safely say this is the last MP3 player (or any kind of music player, for that matter) that I will ever buy. Ever. This is my second one (my first was destroyed, long story)...and if anything ever happened to it, I would be right back here that day to order another one.
The Jukebox 3 I purchased was refitted with a larger 60GB hard drive. The first noticible difference is the battery life. At close to 22 hours of continuous play, EVERY OTHER MP3 PLAYER BECOMES OBSOLETE! Of course this will fluctuate depending on your backlight settings and such. I was very hesitant of the side scrolling wheel since the Jukebox C came with up and down arrow buttons. After getting used to using the scroll wheel I am convinced nothing else is better. Driving down the Autobahn in Germany and being able to locate and play artists and albums with one hand while driving 130KPH is a godsend.
As of now I have 10,000 songs, 40284MB on my Jukebox 3. The user interface software, Creative Playcenter, is very user friendly. I initially used Firewire but had some problems so I only use the USB interface now. I think it is only 1.1 speed, though it is noticibly faster than loading songs to the Jukebox C. I have had a few problems connecting to Playcenter, but nothing that can't be solved with patience. I was impatient once and found some different Third-Party software called NOTMAD. This NOTMAD software allows the user to use a drag and drop interface like Windows Explorer as well as transfer regular computer files, a feature NOT allowed by Creative Playcenter for the Jukebox 3. I prefer using Playcenter and using cut/paste to input Artist and Album information.
Using the Jukebox 3 to play songs or albums is very easy. Anyone who rides in my car can learn to use it very quickly. I don't use the playlist option that much, but it was easy to make a playlist. I heard an ugly rumor that the iPod can only utilize playlists made on the computer and is unable to make playlists on the iPod itself.
There is one detractor to the Jukebox 3 which starts to occur when around 8,000 are loaded onto it. There is a utility called "rebuilding library" which starts when you turn on the Jukebox 3 within 24-48 hours after loading new songs. This can happen with as little as adding 2 albums. From my understanding this utility is much like defragmenting the hard drive, moving the bits of information closer to the middle of the hard disk. This utility takes approximately 2-3 hours to complete and has the backlight on so it is best to have your battery adapter plugged in when this occurs. You can manually initiate this along with other utilities by using the included manual (but who reads those?) I only note this as a detractor because unless you manually initiate it after loading new songs, it will self-initiate within 24-48 hours at the most inopportune times like Trans-Atlantic flights, long road trip in Germany. Yes i am bitter. I use my Jukbox 3 every single day so this bugs me when it happens.
Support for the Jukebox 3 is outstanding. Updates to all drivers and firmware are easy to locate based on model and operating system on the Creative website.
The physical durability of the Jukebox 3 is outstanding. My Jukebox 3 has been all over Europe, trips back to the States, Saudi Arabia and more recently Iraq. In especially dry or dusty environments I try to keep it covered and/or enclosed as much as possible. It has dropped a few times, once on a hard tile floor, and never skipped! The scroll wheel has held up great, I foresee this as a possible problem in the far future. An important note is operation in cold environments. DO NOT LEAVE OUTSIDE OR IN A CAR OVERNIGHT IN A COLD ENVIRONMENT! When you turn it on the next morning it'll be slow and the screen will look like it is broke. I paid $600 for mine so I baby it so it will last for a long time.
In short, the battery life is the best out there at nearly 22 hours. Support, usability, durability are 1st class in my opinion. As i stated before, I paid $600 for a refitted 60GB Jukebox 3. So the price you pay for any Jukebox 3 model now is a steal. Hope this is more a helpful review than a sales pitch. Enjoy!
The lockups and short battery life mentioned in other reviews goes away once you get the firmware update. It's not hard to install and not a big deal unless you're REALLY uncomfortable with technology (in which case, I'd recommend a CD player). The update left my music collection alone and now the player runs beautifully.
The sound is very transparent. It's made me a fan of the mp3 format for music enjoyment, not just convenience. I've used my pocket pc, a mid-range mp3/cd player and now this and the Nomad 3 is the only one that sounds even close to musical.
The reason this player gets 4 stars instead of 5 is for poor user interface/user experience consideration. WHY does it have to look like a Discman? The software is easy enough to use, but not particularly flexible, the data transfer is a little slow and shouldn't require additional software to use this as a hard drive and I could never get the CDDB feature to work, so I still use Musicmatch to rip my CDs with Tag & Rename to touch up the ID tags.
The menu is clumsy, the toggle is okay, but uncomfortable to use for long (I have a big record collection, so scrolling to the middle of the alphabet gets tiresome fast) even for right handed people and the non-play buttons (of which there are 7) are hard to find in the dark.
The Fastforward and Rewind work great though as does the resume, although it's only triggered by turning off the power, not pressing the Stop button. Minor, very minor.
If you're looking for a great workout player, this isn't it. This is more of an all-purpose home system in a small form factor. I do go out into the world with it and even put it in my fanny pack while riding my bike, but I can see how it's CD player design could annoy some folks. I'm glad I have one, and if mine were damaged or lost, I'd happily buy another one knowing everything I know now. In fact, I'd like a second one just for sampling. Are there somethings I wish they'd done differently? Sure, but that's the case with most things, isn't it?
Great music system, great value and once you get used to it, easy and fun to own.
On to LOUSY SUPPORT. When I discovered the player's limitations, I examined the manual to confirm that I wasn't doing something wrong and creating an easily correctible problem. The manual was unhelpful after I had printed it out (yes, the manual is provided only as a PDF file on the accompanying software disc, not as a printed booklet). So I decided to contact customer support and consulted the Creative website to get the number. The website discourages telephone calls for support and steers you towards communicating by e-mail.
I sent the e-mail request for support and received a nonsensical, completely unhelpful reply. So with reluctance, I dialed the toll (not toll-free) telephone number provided. After 25 minutes of dealing with cumbersome automated answering equipment and being placed on infinite hold (you call is important to uss...please wait for the next available representative), I spoke with a representative who told me (very politely) that he didn't really know much about the Nomad 3, because it was a new product. After getting an obviously (and patently) wrong answer to my inquiry, I asked to speak to another tech rep. I was told I would have to call back and wait on hold again.
So I am both disappointed with the design and angry with the service.
Perhaps I should also mention that the product is so poorly made that the headphone connection is loose with the result that the right headphone occassionally goes silent during play. You might think I would be unhappy about this. You would be wrong. Since the product has a "defect" and won't work, I am going to return it for a full refund.
Oh well it is so easy to use you will not need it anyway, considering I already had a jukebox.
Hope this helps and God Bless You.
If you read glowing recommendations about this product, they just haven't accumulated enough files yet. Their problems await the growth of their library. Absolutely cannot recommend this product!!
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I have done all the A-B-C's off fault finding including updating my software, drivers etc but all without success.
Both players suffer from a firwire connection problem. Windows XP dings when the connection is made almost everytime without fail, but the software which reads the contents of the player doesn't always recognise its been connected.....very fustrating!! Apart from the fact that I can't always make a good connection between player and PC I have another similar problem. After creating some Wav files internally through its recording feature, I can't always download back to PC when connected to firwire either. I may get a lost connection error box or the transfer will stop part way through and then tell me the player is not connected.
...
Even though I need to overcome these faults in order to keep the unit, I do believe it's one of the best players of it's kind.
- It is not possible without extra software to connect the player and simply use it as external harddisk, which is possible with most other players on the market - a major drawback.
- The player sometimes locks up and needs a reset or battery removal.
- Disk access is rather slow and playback typically incurs some startup delay.
- The bulky discman form of the player may make it familiar to nontechnical users but is neither handy nor practical. Several times I have almost dropped the player because of its rounded shape and placing it on a car console other than flat is not possible.
- The second battery options reminds of "razor-blade" extra moneymaking - why not make the device smaller or offer one large built-in battery?
- The jog wheel favors right-handed people - a crosshair or wheel-based user interface in the front middle would have been more practical - see ipod design.
- The recording feature is very limited - the input level is not variable and a mic input would have been essential.
- The PC software for the player is non-intuitive and the creation of playlists largely useless, because shuffle play cannot be chosen just for a specific playlist and applies by default only to all loaded songs.
- The currently played track is only shown when pressing the info button twice.
- The player plays by default only a single track in normal mode and then stops.
- The search feature is rather primitive, largely due to the low-res display.
MP3/WMA (etc.) playback and recording on a high-capacity small-format player is a promising market and I do wonder how much longer it will take for companies to step beyond intentional "deficiency engineering" and present a compact device with an intelligent and practically designed user interface. Apple is closer in many terms but the lack of recording and copy capabilities makes the ipod a consumer toy rather than a tool.
40 gigabytes of music storage is hard to fathom. But I've loaded over 100 full albums (over 1,600 tracks), and I've only used up less than 10% of the space!
Ripping CDs is much simpler with the new interface, and with the automatic CDDB internet link, you get all of the album and track details.
Software loading is a snap. Load the CD, and in less than 10 minutes you're flying with this system. The sound quality out of this unit is outstanding. Interfaces for your PC, for Creative Labs speaker systems, your regular stereo, or just a pair of headphones.
One MINOR complaint, though. It'd be nice if the music library listings would show the track times.
Get this! You'll LOVE it!
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