over 21 gb jukeboxes
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Creative Labs Nomad Zen Xtra 60 GB MP3 Jukebox The following report compares gadgets using the SERCount Rating (base on the result count from the search engine). |
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POPULAR HAT - 2006-02-13 11:50:00 | © Copyright 2004 - www.hat.net () | sitemap | top |
Any device that relies on precision mechanicals can be damaged by a sharp jolt if the force is applied in the right way (this is particularly true if the device is in operation.) This is the nature of these types of devices.
Would they make the same complaint if they dropped their camera or DVD player as well? Accept responsibility for it and move on.
As for myself, the Zen Xtra has been a nice, but incremental, improvement over the original Jukebox Zen (that I still have and use.) The larger display makes navigation & album browsing much easier. The excellent sound quality of the original Zen is still there.
I can't comment on the bundled Creative software because, other than the drivers, I don't use it. Instead I use the Red Chair Notmad Explorer to handle device synchronication because it can automatically transcode/down-sample files from my PC on-the-fly. This is important for my particular circumstances because I've recorded all of my CD's to WMA VBR format @ 240-355KBps. The resulting files sound great on my home system, but they eat up a fair amount of space in return.
One thing that I don't think was an improvement was replacing the original's rotary thumb/navigation wheel with one that swivels up/down. The original was nice in that your could scroll through items in a list more or less as quickly as you could spin the wheel. The new one is an up/down rocker (with fixed travel,) and variable speed, but is much slower than the old scroll wheel. This may seem like a minor quibble, but if you have several hundred albums on your player (remember, this is a 60GB device,) to go through, you start to appreciate things like fast scrolling.
Pros:
1 - The display on the Xtra is well designed & clear.
2 - Transport/navigation ontrols are well placed.
3 - Great sound quality (still.)
4 - Huge storage capacity.
5 - Removable batteries is a handy feature, as is being able to recharge via the USB cable.
Cons:
1 - Lack of an available remote/FM tuner like the Zen (and Jukebox 3) have.
2 - Cheap, bundled ear buds.
3 - 14-hour battery life figure is a bit too optimistic. 7-9 is more like it.
4 - They should'be kept the rotary navigation wheel - IMHO.
5 - New case design completely hides the display so you have to open it to navigate.
Minor quibbles aside, this is a pretty solid player that gets the important stuff right. Now if they can do something about their hideous portable media center design...