Rating: 
Summary: Only for the true music lover...
Review: From the very popular and well known manufacturer's of the Sound Blaster PC sound card; Creative made this awsome mp3 player. This 20gig unit while a little bulky has excellent sterio definition and easy to use operation. Not only can you have all your favorite tunes, but also all the quirky ones you sometimes listen to. From Rocky Horror to Bing Crosby, from Metallica to Frank Sinatra you have plenty of room for every thing. Set up play lists based on genre, artist or even a type of mood (ie: pick-me-up or a mellow out melody.) This unit is great! It's sturdy and durible. A fabulous investment!
Rating: 
Summary: Has good potential, but is a little unreliable
Review: I agree with most of the praises for this device, so I'll limit my review to my misgivings about it:
1. I had to send it back for repairs twice in a year - after a couple of months it just died.
2. several times I had to perform the "clean up" operation from its "rescue mode" menu - which is only documented on the web site, not in any of the accompanying manuals (paper or digital). I also had to reformat the whole disk, and reload the firmware, which is very counter-intuitive to do, and very time-consuming.
3. size: it's a bit bulky - I wish I had bought the Zen.
4. my favorite pet-peeve: if you transfer an album, the songs will be sorted alphabetically on the Jukebox, instead of by track number. i.e., the Jukebox (or the Creative PlayCenter software, I don't know which) does not read the "track number" metadata in the .wma or .mp3 file. The only workaround I could find to this issue is to rip your CDs with the setting to include the track number in the song name, e.g. "01 First Song", "02 some other song", etc.One big praise to Creative, somewhat unrelated to the Jukebox: included with the software is the "Audio Stream Recorder", which I absolutely love for recording radio shows (e.g. Alternative Radio, which otherwise you would have to pay to get CDs of).
Rating: 
Summary: Beware of the warranty!
Review: Creative MP3 jukeboxes sound like a great idea but they come with laughably brief warranties. Creative offers a three month warranty, but considering the high cost, that is unacceptable. Keep in mind that an MP3 jukebox is nothing more than a laptop hard drive in a flimsy plastic case. Creative is inflexible about the warranty, as I found out, and considering that my Nomad has failed three times I can only warn that it is a very poor investment. Also, a Nomad is as heavy as a small brick so forget about carrying it around with you unless you want to walk with a limp. In the real world, the battery life in nothing like what is advertised. Have a bulk pack of extra batteries on hand. A Nomad is too big to fit in your pocket--literally!--so you need a carrying case and the LCD display is so small it is worthless unless your song titles are written in shorthand. As to fit and finish, I've used my Nomad lightly (as I said, it's too big to carry around, so it just sat on my desk at work). Despite that, the markings on all the button are of cheap paint and wore off after just a few months which meant I had to remember what function each button performed. If you buy one, make sure to have spare copies of your MP3 files. Nomads have a habit of losing their hard drive formatting. This means you have to reformat the Nomad and reinstall everything. That can take several evenings. On the plus side, the only plus I can think of, the Creative PlayCenter software that comes with a Nomad is excellent.
Rating:
Summary: This is still the Best!!
Review: None of the others have "line-out" and this has two line-outs and an optical out let alone usb and firewire trnsfer modes. Why on earth would you get one the others that only have a headphone jack which is a lousy signal compared to line-out. If you want to have the option for this to be the center of your sound system in addition to headphones...ya' better have line-out!!!!! Neither I-Pod nor Zen have line-out!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: An Interesting New Gadget (but not my first choice)
Review: I had been researching mp3 players for months and months, and finally put the crowbar in my wallet and bought the Nomad Jukebox 3 in February. Why didn't I buy the Zen? Because, experience has taught me that the most spanking brand new gadget may not always be the best choice. The Nomad 3 had been around for a while, and I had read that the newer, smaller players like the Zen and the Apple iPod had a very limited battery life, and the battery could never be replaced once it had run out of charge capability! That meant, with average use, the player would be a heap of parts in about 2-3 years. If I was about to invest the kind of money it took to purchase a high-capacity player, I don't want it to die in 2 years! The Nomad Jukebox 3 plays just fine, but I will agree that the headphones that come with it are really bad! They are the kind that loop around the bottom of your head and go around your ears, and they don't fit right, and the sound quality is really poor. I bought nicer headphones, and they were worth the extra money! My main complaint about the Nomad Jukebox 3 is that it is too large. It does not fit in a pocket, and that really limits its portability. I almost wish I would have bought the Zen and sacrificed the battery life for increased portability. I have stored lots of songs (I don't think I will EVER fill it up!), and it has nice effects you can use to enhance your listening experience. The software that comes with it is fine for me, and I suggest getting a FireWire card; the songs just zip into the player!!!! So, if portability is important to you, think twice about this hulk of a player, but for the price, it is worth it!
Rating:
Summary: No battery life
Review: The Nomad advertises 16 hours battery life. IT IS ONLY 3 HOURS!! I talked to one of their techs and he admitted it's only about 3 hours on a full charge. This is so bad because you can't even pop in AA's. WOULD NOT BUY THIS BECAUSE OF THE POOR BATTERY LIFE!
Rating: 
Summary: I expected better from Creative.
Review: Sound Quality is mediocre. Headphones are uncomfortable to wear. Scroll Select Wheel is a pain to use for a prolonged period of time. It's
just not comfortable to use or big enough. I like the Rio Riot so much more because it is better in every aspect I mentioned above.
Rating: 
Summary: I love it, but it makes STEAM come from my EARS.
Review: Overall, this is the type of player you simply need to have. There are a few things about it, though, that just might make your blood boil. When it does approach that dangerous temperature, just remember all the good things about it, and you may feel better. (Just like when Neo ate his cookie in "The Matrix".) All that aside, let's just get to what you need to know: The good: --The PRICE. For the amount of music you can store on the Jukebox 3, and the features it comes with, it doesn't get much better.
--The SPACE. I own approximately 450 CD's, and in .wma format (80 kbps), every single CD in its entirety fit on my player with 4-5 GB to spare. I'll likely never fill this device to capacity, and my entire music library is on one device.
--The CDDB database that comes with the PC software. The Gracenote software WILL find your CD. It even found some of my Japanese anime soundtracks (that came from JAPAN!).
--The battery life and charger. Eleven hours of nonstop play time, and there's even a second battery port for a whole other battery (not included, of course ^_^;) The charger takes about an hour and a half to fully charge a depleted battery.
--The sound quality's outstanding. Even at 80 kbps, it sounds great in the car or at home through a stereo. The bad: --The unit's a little bulky; about the size of a normal CD player, and a tad heavier. (In fact, when my fiancee was looking it over, she asked where the CD goes in. And she was serious.)
--Even though the player has a long anti-skip buffer, it's still quite sensitive. The manual even tells you not to jog with it. Still great for working out, though. I can take all my music to the gym...how sweet it is!)
--The "player lock" feature is annoying to get to; it would be nice to have a switch or one-button interface to lock the buttons, which seem to press themselves at times by way of mere eye contact.
-- "scroll" button on the side. Even with the software updates that fine-tune the scrolling, I keep finding myself saying "Oops! I didn't want to do THAT!" The just-plain UGLY: --The FREEZING UP. The Jukebox 3 freezes up and crashes almost as constantly as it plays music, sometimes if you don't even touch it. Lately it's frozen up at least once every time I listen to it. I'll give you a handy little tip that will save your sanity: ALWAYS CARRY A STRAIGHTENED-OUT PAPER CLIP WITH YOU. The reset button is located in a pinhole-sized 50-foot chasm on the back of the unit, and a paper clip's about the only thing long and thin enough to reach it. Of course, once the unit resets, you'll have to navigate your way back to what you were listening to. Hence the steam from the ears.
--The tech support. Just atrocious. Don't even waste your time with it if you have a problem. (Of course, in that case, what DO you do? I'm still working on that one.) Fortunately, my player hasn't yet messed itself up so badly that I couldn't figure out how to fix it myself. All told, I LOVE the fact that all of my music is now on one small device. No more lugging CD's around when I take a trip. The freezing up is flat-out irritating, but the overall convenience of the product offsets it. I'm otherwise very happy with this player, and hopefully Creative Labs will come up with a software update that will help stop the constant crashing.
Rating:
Summary: My 2nd Jukebox
Review: I had the Original Nomad Jukebox (6GB) since it first came out in 2000 and I used it so much that all the markings on the buttons were worn off! But it got to the point where I was having to delete some of my music to add new songs, so I've opted to go to the 20gb Nomad3. I barely considered any other player, I've been so satisfied with the Nomad product. I use it at work, at home, on my computer and with my stereo, and for hiking and working out. You never have to go anywhere without your music. Things I love about the Nomad besides the huge storage capacity is the sound quality, the ease of use, and the playlists. I almost always play music from more than a dozen playlists I've created. The software has always been easy to use and to transfer music onto the Nomad and back on to the computer is a breeze. The new Nomad3 has definitely improved over the original with a longer battery life. That was a drawback on the old model. However you are stuck using the Lithium batteries, which are very specific for the unit. If your batteries run out and you can't plug it in somewhere, it's not like you can run into a quiki-mart and pick up some AA's to get you through another hour or two. The Nomad3 is also smaller and lighter, thanks no doubt to having eliminated those standard sized batteries. The button functions on the Nomad3 are less intuitive than the original. The scroll wheel is "ok", I'm not thrilled with it. I miss having the lock button on the side, you have to lock the buttons by going through the menu comand. They changed things around with the button functions, so I guess that I'll like it better once I get used to where things are. You also don't get much of a print manual with it - it's only a quick start guide. You have to use the software for instructions. That's a drag when you just want to look something up quick. Some of the little additions, like a custom "picture" for your start-up menu are sort of useless little techno perks. There's lots of music already loaded onto the unit, some of it is trash, but there's a couple pieces that you might be inclined to keep. At least until I have to delete some tracks to add more of my own music. With 20gb of space, I'm looking forward to not having to do that for quite awhile. All in all, this is a great product, well worth the price!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent player: Poor software and headphones
Review: Ok, forget my old review. The unit itself deserves five stars. I subtracted two for the inexcusably buggy software which is provided with the unit and the headphones. The software is so buggy, in fact, that I can't even use it on windows XP. Luckily I was able to turn to Windows Media Player as a backup. Now, about the headphones: In my earlier review, I bashed the sound quality and volume. The headphones provided with my unit were actually the source of distortion - they don't sound -horrible- for stock headphones, but they added errors to my songs. This, bundled with the poor software, doesn't exactly give a great first impression. Moving onto the unit itself - I love it. The volume is acceptable with more powerful headphones, and drives the provided headphones to hearing-damaging levels. The sound quality is superb, with the properly encoded mp3s. I tested a CD ripped with EAC and the Alt-Preset standards, and it sounded better off my mp3 player than the actual source CD sounded on my CD player. The Jukebox 3 also comes with a line-out for headphone amps and other devices. I don't have a problem with the unit's operating system, either. It's easy enough to find the song(s) you want, and make a play list on the go, too. The only real problem with the unit is its hugeness - it's about as large as your typical CD player. That's ok with me, though, as I treat this thing the same as I would treat expensive china - very delicately. Therefore, I don't walk with it - it's only used on busses, airplanes, and at home, where I'm stationary. Highly recommended as long as you have access to Windows Media Player and some decent alternative headphones.
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