Creative Labs 30GB Digital Audio Player

by Creative Labs

Product Details

Product Manual [2.24mb PDF]

• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B0000DD7P2
• Item model number: 70PD055000009
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (123 customer reviews)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

From the Manufacturer Featuring a large, hi-res, blue backlit LCD, the NOMAD Jukebox Zen Xtra builds on the industry-leading music features of the NOMAD Jukebox Zen product line. Simply transfer all your music into the player with Creative MediaSource or the new NOMAD Explorer using ultra fast USB2.0, press the play button and get set to enjoy high-fidelity music. With advanced features such as Quick Scroller Navigation, Find, Playlist Creation and automatic ID3 tag categorization, managing and organizing your music will be a breeze

And the NOMAD Jukebox Zen Xtra doubles up as an external hard drive for storing all your photos, documents and other data files. Simply open NOMAD Explorer (integrated into Microsoft Windows Explorer) and drag and drop data files into the data folder or music files into the music library.

A Stylish Digital Audio Player with Huge Storage Space Huge storage lets you bring up to 16,000 WMA songs (80 kbps) or MP3 songs (128kbps) everywhere you go (Based on less than 4 minutes per song and 60GB hard drive model) Use AudioSync to synchronize your music on your player with your PC at work, school and home or on the road Load a song a second with ultra fast USB 2.0 port. Works with USB 1.1 too Advanced Features Enhance your Digital Music Experience Create and customize playlists for any occasion anywhere Music files are automatically arranged by artist, album, genre or track Handy Find Feature locates any song, album or artist in seconds Powerful icon-driven interface with Quick Scroller Navigation Removable, high-capacity Li-ion battery -- up to 14hrs continuous playback per charge Sleep Timer and Wake to Music Feature Personalize your player with 6 different Profile settings that let you customize screen savers, skins, idle timers and more!

Customize Your Audio Playback with Innovative EAX Technologies

• Advanced EQ lets you customize your music playback with Equalizer presets or set your own using the 4-band custom equalizer
• Smart Volume Management adjusts the playback volume of all the tracks on your playlist so they will remain at the same level without you reaching for the volume control between songs!
• Time Scaling speeds up or slows down an audio track with no distortion
• Sleep Timer and Wake to Music Feature
• Environmental Effects simulate audio environments such as "Concert Hall" or "Arena"
• Spatialization Effects expand your soundstage

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent product with a few minor problems., January 2, 2004

By 

R. H OAKLEY "roboakley" (Vienna, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Creative Labs 30GB Digital Audio Player (Electronics)

I became interested in getting a MP3 player when I got a new work computer; while my office bars the addition of any non-work software, it doesn't care if you load CDs onto the hard drive. Over time, I loaded hundreds of CDs onto the computer, and the idea of carrying around all of my music with me became attractive. Many people recommended the Ipod, and I borrowed one from a friend. While the ease of use was very impressive, I was put off by the price -- about $130 more than what I paid Amazon for this player. Also, there is the need to send the Ipod to replace the batteries when they die (which they will).

I have had the Nomad Jukebox for about three weeks now, and I am very happy with it. It's only slightly heavier than the Ipod, and has a longer battery life. The storage capacity is great for me -- I have a large but not huge CD collection and have loaded everything I want to listen to on it and still have 13 gigabytes free. The controls are somewhat harder to use than the Ipod, but I have gotten use to them, and even at the beginning did not think would justify the huge difference in price. Loading CDs was somewhat time-consuming, but I think it would have been with the Ipod as well. I had never loaded my CDs on to my home computer, using my work computer instead. My office would not let me put the software on to my work computer. This meant that I had to take all my CDs and do in a fairly short period of time what I had done over a year at work. If the music had been on my home computer, the transfer would have been accomplished very quickly. I have an older computer, running Windows 98 SE, and so those of you with something more recent would find the process even quicker.

My only reservations about this product concern the tagging process and the way it interacts with the software. When you load a disc, you go to an internet cite for the insertion of the names for the CD and the tracks. While the listing process is accurate for track names(unlike Windows' reliance on the AMG, which frequently gets track listings out of order), the results can be odd. The CD will be classified into a number of genres, and in multidisk sets, you can get separate classifications for different disks by the same artist and the same performance. For example, Jimi Hendrix's 2 CD Live at the Fillmore East had one CD classifed as Classic Rock and the other Psychidelic Rock. Perhaps the weirdest was one of Bruce Springsteen's CDs from the Tracks set being classified as Goth Rock. You can change any of these, but need to be paying attention when the information is downloaded before you copy it. A somewhat more troublesome problem is that the internet site will sometimes give different discs of the same set slightly different names. This will cause the discs not to show up together when you are looking for them on the Nomad. Again, you can change this, but it's harder to spot a minor variation in the title when you don't have the title of the other disk in front of you.

Other tagging problems result (I think) from the Nomad's operating system. If you have two tracks with exactly the same name on one disk, it will not copy both -- it gives you the option of skipping the second or overwriting the first with the second. This is rarely a problem with any kind of popular music, but can be troublesome with classical music where tracks are identified by tempi. I also had it happen when recording a jazz set where there were a number of outtakes of the same song without numbering them separately. The way to fix this is to rename the track by adding a number yourself to the end of the track listing. Also, I can't understand why the software does not ignore "The" when it lists the CDs in alphabetical order. Finally, making playlists from the computer can be complicated because the tracks are listed individually, and are organized by CD, which are not listed but are organized in alphabetical order. In other words, to locate a track using the software on the computer and add it to a playlist, you must know the name of the CD it appears on and then find the track by locating the location of the unlisted CD by looking for tracks that appear on it. You don't have this problem if you make your playlist from the Nomad, where CDs are listed separately. You need your computer, however, if you want to add tracks to a playlist.

These are minor problems, and I list them to save anyone else the trouble of discovering them. Had I not been in such a hurry to load CDs, I would have spotted them sooner. Also, if I had already loaded and tagged by CDs on my home computer, this would not have been an issue. The bottom line for me is that I am very happy with this product. Apple's Ipod is dominant now, but I have to wonder whether the price differential will mean that in 3 or 4 years its market share will drop significantly.

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Impressed!, December 2, 2003

By 

C. Petrone (NY, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Creative Labs 30GB Digital Audio Player (Electronics)

I just sold my Archos 20GB Jukebox Recorder after not being satisfied with it's slow loading & difficult navigation, not to mention it froze quite a bit. I was in search of a new item to take it's place as my new MP3 Player/Harddrive. For an early Christmas gift, I got a Zen Xtra 40 GB player. I refused to go for an iPod, I am not going to spend all that money just for the Apple name and because it is "trendy" to have that player. This was the closest alternative and best buy for this type.

After receiving my Zen Xtra 40GB MP3 player...I will just say this: I will NEVER go back to my Archos again!!

So easy to set up, had some problems with my Archos. Stayed up all night trying to figure out that thing. Just easily drag and drop files into the Nomad explorer and from there you easily alter ID tags and sort your music according to your liking, by artist, song title, genre, etc.

Not only is it functional and runs super smooth & fast, but it is also eye candy. Very sleek & stylish as well as the screen options and visuals it has. The leather case it comes with is pretty nice, similar to a PDA style case and does hold and protect it perfectly. All the buttons & neccessary lil' gadgets are on the sides of the player which is nice for when you are holding it in the palm of your hand.

The sound quality is also nice...after I hooked up my Sony headphones instead of those factory earbuds it comes with. Lots of sound options, has an equalizer almost like Winamp with the options. Navigation is so smooth and finding files is a cinch. Also navigating while playing music is a plus unlike my previous player. It was impossible to do so before. Oh, and the screen saver feature is pretty sweet ^_^

Another plus in my book, NO file limits!!! I was limited to 999 files in a playlist with Archos' OS, now I can have as many as I want. I have over 2000 files in my playlist at the moment and the random does a nice job mixing it up.

I am quite happy having over 10 gigs of music stored on this baby as well as a few gigs of media files in the data folder. Now I can transport files to friends house with ease. When plugged in, it doesn't lag the computer like the Archos did...unless you are doing a MASSIVE transfer of data in one load.

After playing with this little device, I don't know why I would look at an iPod with the same space when it costs $500 and I got mine for a little more than half that price!

I really have no complaints over this unit. I really do recommend this to anyone in need of a new player. In fact, my boyfriend is now going to invest into one of these suckers as well...now he realizes that this is the best choice over his current Archos and the iPod he was eyeing.

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Replaceable battery lets ZenNX keep running and running, November 24, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Creative Labs 30GB Digital Audio Player (Electronics)

ZenNX's replaceable battery was the deciding factor in my purchase of ZenNX over iPod. All rechargeable batteries lose their holding power over time (around 2 years). Apple's solution - pay Apple another $400+ for a new iPod (less a paltry discount). The ZenNX will keep running for the price of a replacement battery, just like any other battery-powered appliance.

Deficiencies with ZenNX are easily overcome with 3rd-party earphones ($20+) and software ($25). Notmad by Red Chair Software is an Explorer-based program that enables simple drag-and-drop transfer of music files from PC to ZenNX. The blue-screen display in the ZenNX Xtra model is an improvement, but the toggle switch is still tricky.

ZenNX's capacity/price ratio on the 30G model($10/Gig))trumps iPod's 30G model($14/Gig). Choosing ZenNX is a no-brainer when factoring in the cost of a new $400+ iPod every few years versus the $50 cost of replacing ZenNX's rechargeable battery.

ZenNX hopefully will gain market share and prompt arrogant Apple to lower prices and enable consumers to replace the battery.

UPDATE: Apple recently announced that for $107, it will replace the battery in iPods shipped to their factory. Lithium ion rechargeable batteries are good for 300-500 rechargings, so battery lifespan will vary according to your usage. Still, Apple continues to squeeze dollars from consumers by not designing the battery to be replaceable.