Customer Reviews

Creative NOMAD Jukebox Zen Xtra 40 GB MP3 Player

5 star:		(60)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(28)

 

 

I think that several reviewers are confusing this player with the last generation 40 Gig player. One reviewer pointed out the differences in the packaging and the protective case between the two earlier, and that reviewer was right on the money.

This model is shipped as described by the previous reviewer, and has the latest firmware installed. Mine is too new to give a long term report on, but it seems to be a top quality unit so far. The USB 2.0 port is awesome fast. I dowmloaded 1700 MP3 and WMV files to my Nomad this evening without a hitch, and each batch was completed before I could select the next batch. Very fast compared to the old USB standard.

The controls and layout are great. I don't know if there is a difference between new and old, but even the selector wheel has a good feel to it, and I have not had a misfire when selecting a menu item with it. I do agree that it would be nice to have an audio tone to go along with button movement, but it isn't a showstopper.

The included carry case is very well made. It will probably protect the unit from shock well enough to allow it to survive a fall. Some complained about the plastic structure, but it is built to be as light as is possible, while still maintaining a solid feel. I like it.

The software isn't the greatest by any stretch, but it does work, and I was able to transfer music and data without resorting to the manual. There are other packages available for Windows that do the job in a more intuitive manner for only a few bucks. There are also a number of free packages available online that allow you to use your Nomad on a linux system (for those of you who have grown tired of the Windows nightmare). Also keep in mind that the entire OS (firmware) of the Nomad is writable, and there are people working on their own enhanced versions as we speak.

One more note. The ipod has a problem with connecting with more than one computer. I suspect that is a built in hurdle to prevent people from sharing music, but it doesn't help those who use several computers during their work/play week. I was able to transfer song files between multiple computers with the Nomad without any problems. The latest version of the firmware (as shipped) also correctly displays track information for Russian tunes in cyrillic font. It's a small matter, but it can be important to those who enjoy Russian music.

To sum it up, the newest version of the 40Gig Nomad is light, has a great control layout, solid construction, and the headphone jack seems to be as good as any I have used. I think it's a great player, and for the price, it can't be beat. The earbuds that come with it seem to please many reviewers, but I think ALL earbuds are awfull. I have a collection of them now, and they are all junk. Even the ones offered by name brand audio companies. Buy a good set of Sony or other ear hugging phones for $20, and enjoy music in more quantity and quality than you have ever heard before.

Did I mention that the Nomad comes with Creative EAX as standard? Those of you who have an Audigy sound card in your computer know what I'm talking about. It can be used in selective fashion, and sounds just as good as the PC version. There is more than meets the eye with the Nomad. It might take awhile to master all of it's features, but you will be enjoying fine music from the very first battery charge (lots of classical music and EAX demos built in).

This is an amazing player. Even with a total of 2000 songs loaded, I can still rip a DVD movie to an ISO image at a friends house using a free prgram lke "DVD Shrink", download it to a data folder on my Nomad, and burn the disk on my PC when I get home. For that matter, the Nomad can hold several DVD ISO images at any one time.

Someone mentioned that they didn't like the fact that it wasn't weather proof. Neither is the ipod. Then again, with a one quart Zip Lock plastic bag, and a drop of glue, you can make both players beach proof in a few minutes. Just puncture the plastic bag enough to allow three inches of the plug end of your headphones inside. Seal the puncture with a drop of glue, put your Nomad or ipod in the bag, plug in the headphone jack, zip the bag, and let it rain all day.

A good set of light headphones only costs $20. A Zip Lock bag is about 10 cents. Use your imagination here. You can walk in the surf without placing your Nomad in danger.

Aside from the minor complaints about the software, the only other thing that bothers me is that the max volume should be higher. It's not bad, mind you, but it doesn't allow the head banging levels that other MP3 players deliver. This is a minor complaint, and can probably be fixed at the firmware level in the future. Meanwhile, I am happy to report that using a generic cassette adapter, or an "aux" input port on the latest car audio systems will geive you enough CD quality music to make a trip from one coast to the other and back withought being forced to listen to the same tune twice.

That's it for now. If my opinion changes because of problems with the Nomad, I will update this post in a heartbeat. Meanwhile, it gets 5 stars without hesitation...

Update... It has been Months since I wrote this review, and my Nomad is still a constant companion at work and play, It has been dropped, used, and abused. The early problem with the headphone socket must have been fixed, as my headphone jack has been ripped out of the Nomad countless times, and it still works as new. This update was posted on July 2 2005.

According to nomadness.net, Creative Labs fixed the problem (that being, of course, the faulty headphone jack) -- shipments of new, corrected Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra players have been in stores for a little over a month now.

There are two ways to tell if you have the fixed Zen version.

#1. If the package you bought it in was heat-sealed, then you have the correct version. Heat-sealed means that it takes a lot of manpower plus knives/scissors to open up the package. The plastic is literally sealed together, not just glued together like with the old version. (You may want to pick this up at a real store instead of amazon.com, because you'll be able to see the package for yourself before buying. That is unless Amazon can confirm details about the package.)

#2. If the carry case for the Zen has a hole for the display. The older faulty version does not have this case, as you can tell from some negative reviews. So, if you put the case on the Zen and can see the display, there's a good chance you have the fixed version.

Hope this helps some of you.

I will try to give the best explanation of why this device should be chosen over every other player out there. I am 19 years old (using my mom's Amazon S/N to write this review for you all) and in college so I need something I can commute with and listen to all my CD's. I have had an mp3 player ever since the first Nomad came out from the CreativeLabs. I use to care about the size of the unit, but after the experience I have had, I much rather sacrafice size for quality. I started with a Nomad Jukebox 3 which was not only the heaviest and largest mp3 player out there (but back then only 1 of 3 players on the market), but it was one of the BEST SOUNDING mp3 players I ever witnessed. Not only was the quality superb, but the features were so much more than others had to offer. I am teched out in my room from PDA's to mp3's so I love to search for the best and let everyone else know how good a product is. I went from the nomad jukebox 3, to the rio karma, to the ipod, then iriver H300, then iriver H320(color screen), Creative touch, and finally the Creative Zen Xtra 40gb.

I will now compare all of these and show the true differences:
Jukebox 3: Pros: 98dB noise cancelling ratio, fm radio and remote control option, 2 Line out's, Optical Line in, firewire, USB 1.1, and an assortment of features like: find a song, EAX advanced, green and blue backlight, 4 channel speaker, profile. You can have up to 2 batteries. Cons: Huge, heavy, bulky, and small battery unless u add another. Small display.
RioKarma: Pros: Smaller, very easy to use, Rio DJ, clock, scroll wheel, Left hand and Right hand inversion settings. Cons: quality is above par, but not spectacular like the jukebox 3. Other than that, very well made machine. Battery could be better and it is not replaceable.
ipod: Pros: scroll wheel (heaven), games, design. Honestly...the only two good things. Cons: Battery life is a two thumbs down, quality is not impressive, interface is whack, software is evil, scratches like no other, and other things that I will discuss a little later. No replaceable battery or firmware updates as well.
iriver H300 & H320: Both are identical except the H320 is colored screen. Pros: Gorgeous color display. That alone was super tempting. Built in voice recorder, built in FM radio, size, nice interface, very easy to transfer songs, Sound quality is ok. Cons: Sound quality-lacks bass and treble settings (even with EAX) that help produce that kick in your stereo and headphones. No replaceable battery.
Creative Zen Touch: Pros: Nice size display, great battery life *similar* features to the xtra and jukebox 3 BUT not the same, nice case. Cons: quality was not what I expected from a Creative product (just under par from the jukebox 3 but still sounded better than the iriver), the touch pad is SO SO SO annoying...trying to go down by one selection is tough, the EAX is half done....the jukebox 3 was loaded, and no replaceable battery.
***The Nomad Zen Xtra*** Pros: THE SAME AS THE JUKEBOX 3 with a smaller, sleeker more attractive design. Cons: under par battery life, but is replaceable so you can purchase another one for $50 and swap it out when the other dies out to give you up to 28 hrs of battery life.

Now I will give you history to show how I arrived to this conclusion:

I started with the Jukebox 3 that I considered it to be SO AMAZING that I couldn't believe the quality and storage this device could produce. Up to this day it goes down in history as the best player made on the market and I sware by it. I truly wished for something smaller since the bulky, heavy machine would be difficult to travel with. I couldn't put it in my pocket so that was annoying for carrying around. I decided to pick up the Rio Karma. This player is much smaller, little fat, but overall solid and a good choice. Unfortunately, this player no longer exists so don't rush out to buy one just yet. I liked it for what it was, but the quality could not compete with the mighty Jukebox 3. If you don't believe the quality of the jukebox 3, go try to find one. The machine will convince you that it is the best....the music sounds better than the CD! Then I purchased the ipod...I will start a new paragraph to make this stand out.

IPOD: By far the worse machine I have purchased. Where to begin....first of all, the device will get a scratch with the slightest touch. Secondly, the software is decent until you learn the evil behind it. So many people buy it from the hype and sleek style, but they lack the hidden knowledge that ipod brilliantly hides. When you connect the ipod to your computer, consider that computer to ipod a one way street. When you send a song over to the ipod, it is not coming back. Ipod strictly protects each and every song from ever returning to that computer....even if it is your own. Another problem is the firmware....it doesn't exist. You have 1 firmware and you are trapped. If a new firmware release comes out, you will need to spend $300 to buy yourself a new player because that is the only way you will have it. The next issue is the battery. Contents in box stink....no case or docking station to cut back the cost. I can't believe how fast it just drained. It sucks the life out of it before you get the chance to say "The battery is dead." Playlists, song deletion, and organization all must be done on the computer. You CANNOT delete a song or create a playlist on an ipod from the device itself. Utterly annoying to say the least. Don't be fooled by the style and glitter. It is a device that puts pain and mental anguish in you that isn't needed from an mp3 player.

Iriver H300 and H320: These were the next two players I invested in. I bought the H320 just because of the color screen since all of the other features were the same from the H300. The device is solid. You get a ton of bang for your buck. I see they have have brand new H10 20gb version which is much smaller that you could take a look at. The H320 has a very powerful voice recorder which is worth the purchase if you need a digital recorder, it has a drag and drop capability, and FM radio. If you want to compare software with the other players, then you're out of luck.....there is none. You just open the Hard Drive folder, open the folder of music you want, and drag it to the Hard Drive folder. That is it. The battery is 16 hrs which is good. With all of this, can't you see why I bought it. It even comes with carrying case and remote control. The problem with the iriver is the quality. It sounds as good as the rio karma, but I sware you can notice a gigantic difference between a creative product and this iriver. If you plug your player into an external source, the iriver has poor bass and treble. Your car sound system or home stereo system will not sound too thrilling. You will think that you paid good money for that Bose sound system and end up wanting to take it back. Trust me...it is the player. I tested the Jukebox 3 with the iriver on the same sound system and the sound quality difference was night and day...completely different. The Creative blew my mind with the power and clarity compared to the iriver.

Now I tried the brand new creative touch. This player supposedly is *97dB* compared to the jukebox 3 *98db* noise cancelling ratio. Believe me...I now know the difference. It sounded better than the iriver, but still worse than the jukebox 3. The touch pad was about as annoying to work with as it gets. It was an attempt to copy ipod and obviously failed. It is hard to navigate without going past your selection. The play button and the others are flimsy and felt like they could fall off. The player as a whole felt VERY solid...like a rock. I felt there was no hope in sight of ever coming close to the Nomad Jukebox 3 and I was dissapointed until I researched this player: The Nomad Zen Xtra.

The Nomad Zen Xtra is not only the best player up to date, but it mimics the success and fantastic quality of the Jukebox 3. Up to now you heard me rave about the Jukebox 3 which had nothing to do with the Zen Xtra until now. Take the name "jukebox 3" and place "Zen Xtra" everywhere in this review. The Zen Xtra not only sounds so great, but it is smaller, sleeker, stylish, and feature packed like the Jukebox 3. However, it cannot play FM radio or voice record and it cannot use a remote control, but that is the smallest price to pay to acheive a dream machine. If you want superb audio quality, a wonderful device, and have your external sound systems sounding like what they were purchased for....then you have just wisely invested in this product. Of all the players I have witnessed and thoroughly tested, this is by far as good as it gets. The bass and treble are fabulous, the device is smaller (not the smallest but u sacrafice quality for size), the buttons are very sturdy, the screen is very big with a nicely sapphire lit screen, jam packed with features without sacraficing others, and a nice interface to work with.

If you ask "What makes this different from any other device?" or "Is it hard to use?", then let me break it down for you. I don't understand what kind of rap this machine has been getting for the software because I found it to be very intuitive and easy to operate. You are given not 1....but 2 different programs to make the process easy to operate. One is an organizer and one is a drag and drop which simply puts the songs on to your device just like I explained with the iriver. The interface on the device is so advanced and loaded with features that up to now beat out all other mp3 players in my opinion. You can find any song by using the A-Z finder. You can choose from MANY Equalizers like the Jukebox 3 offers. The Zen Touch DOES NOT HAVE ALL THESE EQUALIZER SETTINGS....it is a rip off....they skimmed the surface in my opinion. The load up on this player is absolutely shocking......you turn the player on and there is no wait time....it is automatically ready to go. You have a built in playlist where you can set it up extremely easily with any CD or particular song you want. I absolutely love that feature and I sware you can't find anything easier. Just takes getting use to if you are a first timer to the wonderful world of Creative. The profile setting allows you to customize the interface to your liking which is a nice feature. The scroll is very nice. It slightly takes a little getting use to because it speeds up, but trust me...I have seen it all....you will like it once you have this scroll. Another benefit that you don't realize until you have experienced these other players is the fact that when you use that scroll and highlight your selection....you can push in the scroll and it enters your selection. It doesn't sound like much, but you will whip along much faster without using two hands just with that feature. There is a button lock and switch to remove the external battery. That is another fantastic feature that other players lack. The ability to change the battery if it goes bad or you just want to double your life capacity is so worth the money. Other players you are stuck with the battery built inside which is not replaceable. Another interesting fact that you might not consider is that if the player locks up (like the ipod did to me one time), you can just remove the battery and reset it that way.

I think I have said enough. I honestly think this is the best investment money can buy. YOU WILL NOT BE DISSAPOINTED. I have tried the rest, and now I am sticking with the best. This player is solid and the best out there. The irony is that it is MUCH cheaper than other players out there. Amazon is selling it for $224 which is the best I have seen online and it is TRULY amazing that for $224, you can get ***40gb*** of storage. All $300 players out there offer 20gb which is half the size and aren't even good anyway. Creative is trying to pull the demand with a high quality product for an amazing price. You can't beat a deal like that....especially when you see those small 4,5,6gb players for $200.....this is $24 bucks more for 10X the size.

I believe in this product so much that you can e-mail me at pharmachesst@netscape.net for any reason whether with questions or concerns. If you need help with the software, I have been through it all lol so I know how to get it working. In no way am I a representative for Creative....I just love this product so much and when I stand by my technology....I mean it...I just don't say it to waste my breathe and time. Just an avg. man trying to go through college like everyone else....but why go through what I did....when I know this is the choice! You will love the player. I promise :).
~Eddie

FYI: All songs downloaded on the mp3 players were at a good quality of 192kbps MP3 format and all were tested with the same $29.99 Sony MDR-A35 headphones and Bose sound system in my car. I have 18gb's of music on this player which is equivalent to about 190 CD's and I have 15gb of storage left. The Mp3 player only gives you 38.1GB of storage which should not be suprising since all mp3 players are like that because they require HD space for the interface. I hope this review helps you a lot!

I got my Zen about 9 months ago. I figured I'd wait until I tested it thoroughly before writing a review. I've also had experience with IPods. Here's a list of things I liked about the Zen.
-The controls. I like the cd player syle controls where everything is not controlled by one wheel. For me it makes everything easier if my play and skip, volume, and menu controls are not all connected to the same button.

-Battery Life. I dont' know about the claimed battery life. They usually give you the max time under ideal conditions with any product. Mine has never died on me unless I used it for a week (not continuously, but frequently) with out charging. I don't know how many hours that is, but it lasted two 8 hour train rides.

-Computer interface. Media source is great for downloading cd's onto your computer and transferring them is simple. Very Important: IPods can only interface with one computer so it can't transfer files from one computer to another. So if you load the programs onto your computer, you won't be able to connect it to your friends. My Zen can connect with all of my computers.

-Battery access. Should something go wrong with your battery (A friend spilled coke on his IPod. it happens, I fixed it.) It's easily accessible unlike the ipod. hit one switch and the face plat pops up and there's the battery. Also, should you spill something on it, you can get it open to clean it with electrical cleaners with a screwdriver. The IPod Required hours of prying with a screwdriver to get in to clean it and replace the battery.

-Freezing problem and headphone jack. I've heard complaints about both. Never had mine freeze, but every product line has a few that are bad. No one is perfect. As for the headphone jack. I broke mine once b/c I dropped it and the headphones were plugged in and broke the fall. Unfortunately they also snapped the headphone jack inside. It was my fault not theirs. A similar thing happened to my $1500 bass guitar amplifier.

-WMA format. I've come to understand that IPods do not support WMA files. Nearly all of my files are WMA and it seems to be more common elsewhere. WMA's are also smaller files than MP3's.

For my money, the zen is more comfortable to use and cheaper. You miss out on accessories, but I don't really need them. The zen is also heavier, but that doesn't matter unless you exercise with it. Even then I don't think it's that big of a difference. Check out Popular Science October 2004 for info on battery life on cell phones, mp3 players, etc.

Keep this in mind!
There are two different versions of this, one released in September of 2003, and one released in June of 2004. The newer version has fixed many of the problems described in reviews, so make sure the reviews that you're reading really pertain to that player! The largest fix, among many, is the headphone jack. Though you will see a couple of negative reviews, they are for the OLD version, and those people posted on the wrong page :-)

Have a wonderful day
Andrew

I've had mine since February 2004. I chose it after a lot of research and based the decision on price/value and sound quality. I held off reviewing it since I heard they were fragile and I wanted to see if it would hold up.

It has, with no problems. (I broke the belt clip, but Creative sent me a replacement for $10.) It's probably not something you want to take jogging with you, or drop onto a hard floor, but if you're reasonably careful it's not going to just disintegrate in your hands.

It works great and sounds great (with decent headphones, not the buds they give you with the player), and nearly my entire music collection fits in half the available drive space. The battery life estimate is a little high for me, probably since I have a lot of higher bit rate files (160 Mb/S wmv's and 192 Mb/S mp3's). But it's still fairly realistic.

My only complaints are: 1) the horrible PC software that comes with it - if you buy this player, buy Notmad Explorer from Red Chair Software and use it instead; and 2) the black plastic rocker switch thing that you use to scroll through lists and make selections feels flimsy and cheap.

Overall, I like it and would recommend it unless you know you're going to be rough with it. The user interface is said to be inferior to the iPod's, but this player costs about $150 less than the 40 GB iPod. ($125 less if you take my advice and buy Notmad Explorer.) I'd rather buy the Zen Xtra and use the savings to buy more music.

I spent a couple of weeks agonizing over which hard-drive player to buy. But eventually, the same arguments that have kept me from buying other Apple products have surfaced here. Apple users may claim it is unfair living in a PC world, but Apple is just as much to blame for failing to be compatible. To my knowledge, the iPod is the only player that does not support the Windows Media file format, which is slightly superior to MP3. The Zen Extra does. You might not think that the difference in compression is much, but with a hard drive this big, it translates into being able to hold a lot more songs with the Zen Extra. Score 1. The 40 gig iPod is $400, and suspiciously there is no variation in this price no matter where you look. I got the 40 gig Zen Extra on NewEgg for $230, and it's about the same on Amazon, and yes the price varies, so you can believe that actual competition is working in the consumers advantage. Strictly controlling what retailers sell your product for is very, very bad, Apple. Score 2. As near as I can figure, at least $100 of the price difference is style points; that's 25% of the total price, which is always the problem with Apple products. The Zen Extra looks just as nice, but maybe is slightly less cool. Well, so am I, so score 3.

The Zen Extra also has an easily removeable battery, which is not a standard feature on other players. Score 4.

I don't know about faulty headphone jacks because, in electronics years, that is ancient history. No such problem exists now. My player has also survived a fall from 5 feet already with no damage.

There are a very few problems that I am willing to put up with for the price. The dial/scroll nob/thinga-ma-jingy is a bit clumsy because you have to push it in to make your selection, and if you are like me, you can often scroll right off of where you need to be b/c you lack the motor coordination to push it straight in (think of a 3-button mouse with a middle scroll wheel that doubles as a button--I am horrible at using that, too.)

The players software is decent, but not great. I am sure they will continue to upgrade it. The PC software you use for ripping and transferring the music from CDs is also decent. Actually, none of the ripping software out there is acceptable in my opinion, but this will do. (Ironically, I have better ripping software that came with my Creative Labs CD burner).
The Zen's software uses the Gracenote database for automatically identifying CDs and tracks, and while Gracenote is an utter piece of garbage, it is unfortunately the best thing out there.

The support for non-Latin alphabets is terrible--it is almost 2005, this should be a requirement by now--but it theoretically is there for some of them, although I cannot get Cyrillic, or what they simply call "Russian", to work at all. There are a few other little quirks, like that the program that lets you view the Zen's hardrive from your PC does not actually refresh; you have to back out and go back in. But no deal breakers. And it is so easy to use, that you really don't need instructions for any of it, which is fortunate, because they really don't give you any.

The ear buds that come with it are terrible, but generally the headphones that come with audio toy are going to be junk.

Best of all, I know these are in stock for he holidays!

UPDATED ON AUGUST 7 2007
Almost three years later, it still works absolutely perfectly and zero degradation in battery life. In my new office, I have been dropping this thing left and right, and there have been no problems. This has been of of the most durable electronics products I have ever owned.

Okay, here's my take on the 40GB Zen Nomad. I tried them all. None of them are perfect. There are little annoyances in every MP3 player. But as far as size, ease of use, storage, durability, compatability, the Zen Nomad is the best hands down. It does everything well, stores upwards of 700-800 CDs (I have a few thousand in my collection), has great battery life. I read about folks having trouble with the scroller. Well, every MP3 player I've ever used has a difficult scroller. But the problem isn't the scroller, it's us! We want to scroll at a gazillion miles an hour! So in order to get it to scroll that fast, it's going to be a little unruly to manuever. That's the physics with speed. Like with cars. The faster you go, the harder it is to control. So, that being said, it's a great unit, and I tested them all. My only complaint is that I would like more volume. But powered headphones help with that. Oh, and one other thing. The headphones or earbuds that come with every player suck. You have to buy new ones no matter which player you buy. So you can't judge the player by the headphones or earbuds. So once again the Zen Nomad comes out on top. If you want an MP3 player that meets every one of your criteria perfectly, build your own. If you accept that every player will have some minor feature not to your liking, then get the Zen Nomad. No other player can touch it as far as features, quality and price.

I decided on this player for a few reasons. The first was the size of the hard drive- I know a lot of people say "40 gigs is just too much. You'll never use it all." I have literally thousands of CDs, and I like to encode at higher bitrates (usually 160kbps). The second was the price- at the time I bought it, it was only 200 bucks with the rebate and everything here. That beats the stuffing out of anybody. Apple has nothing on this product- not only that, I'm much less likely to get myself punked or mugged wearing this product. Now, you may be looking at the reviews below this one thinking that you might not want to take the chance of a broken headphone jack or whatever- this is, as others have said, the newer model. It has the window and is not affected by the headphone jack problem.

My only gripe with this thing is the little scroller thing- it really isn't that easy to use. You'll get used to it; it's just that it could have been implemented better in the first place. It's also kind of hard to use this thing in one hand, which is why I just stick it in my pocket.

After receiving it, I noticed it's also quite light- it's a bit larger than the Dell DJ or the iPod, but it is lighter than the Dell.

Update: Three full years later, this thing is working just fine. I have, however, had to repair the headphone jack. I don't think the problem was as bad with this model as it was with the previous one, but I use a pair of Grado SR-60s with this, and they have a heavy cord and a large jack. That definitely wore it through... but I'm more careful with it now, and it's still a good player. And it's nice to laugh at what I thought was a "high" bitrate in 2004 :)

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 won't 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
- removable LiIon battery

These features are all the more amazing because all recent Creative products (Zen Micro, Zen Touch, ...) do NOT have these features. It's 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 don't turn you off, the Zen Xtra is the best hard drive-based MP3 player.