Creative Labs Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra 40 GB MP3 Player

Rating:
Summary: An amazing player if you can live with the interface
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Many Problems even with newer model
Review: This player is awesome, till you own it for about 5 months. Interface, sound, all that is excellent. Yet the headphone jack is just not secure. You will start to lose sound in either the left or right headphone, then both. Also, instead of reinforcing it with a brace, they have it completely soldered into the board for support so when it comes up it rips the board. I've checked all over the internet and this happens with everyones player. so be careful, all their other models look excellent and do not have this problem, buy a different model. Oh, this one starts freezing really bad if you load over 20gigs of songs onto the hard drive