Rating: 
Summary: A great alternative to the IPOD
Review: I bought one of these after returning an Archos jukebox that kept freezing up in cold weather (I ski with my MP3) and had limited song selection functions. The Zen was EXACTLY what I was looking for. You can create playlists ON THE PLAYER. You can sit in the lodge over lunch and make a songlist for the afternoon, no computer needed. The battery life is a very LONG 14 hours. I skied two days straight with no recharge. They preload a bunch of songs on the player that are a bit bizarre to say the least but they can easily be deleted. After purchasing the Zen, I have no desire to even look at the cute, trendy, big memory IPODs. This has all that you need (unless you do things with your MP3 other than listen to music). One other note, you can load MP3 and WMA files (file type exclusive to windows media player). A lot of the players out there (except IPOD) only deal in MP3 files.
Rating: 
Summary: solid no-frills player
Review: This is a good jukebox. The size is good, but the iPod is significantly smaller. I carry it in my briefcase to work, so size wasn't a big deal for me. Sound quality (better than iPod) and battery life (~9 hours) are both excellent. The build quality is excellent. The menus and LCD are pretty poorly designed, but that isn't a huge bother to me. I generally just create monster playlists and let it go. The software that comes with it is TERRIBLE. Add the cost of the excellent Notmad Explorer ...) when purchasing this product.To sum it up, the iPod is definitely better/cooler, but it wasn't [that much]better. My entire music collection fits on this player, it sounds great, and it has worked flawlessly (about 6 months).
Rating:
Summary: Highly recommened
Review: I tried the ipod, rca lyra, archos and the creative zen. I am the most impressed with the zen from creative. No problems, sounds great even in my car. Headphones are nice to. I would suggest using the highest bit rate for the best sound. I copy music with music match then sync with creatives software.
The ipod only syncs with one pc and hung up on me several times, I even tried two of them. The RCA was to slow. The Archos is also a nice machine and is better as a drive for other files. The only thing is it was bulkier. I love the zen, the controls are easy to use also.
Rating: 
Summary: Just not quite what you want, but still the best compromise
Review: Bought one of these a couple of weeks ago. I'm a PC user - USB was essential, needed a large amount of storage, didn't want to pay the premium for an ipod, so I got one of these. In many ways it does exactly what you'd expect, but there are a couple of catches: CATCH 1 - You can't use it as a portable harddrive. It isn't automatically visible as just a USB device when you plug it in, you have to install either the behemoth Creative software or ... or so for the lightweight Notmad software and install that. Either way, you would have to carry the software around with you on a seperate disk, as well as the unit itself, if you wanted to plug it into any random PC (and, interestingly, this is not what the packaging and advertising of the device would lead you to believe). CATCH 2 - It isn't as cool as the pictures make out. The 'blue' screen doesn't actually look blue unless you're in the dark, and the screen is fairly small, even when on high-res display. The unit is quite heavy, as you would expect from a hard drive, but feels quite fragile - dropping it on the pavement out of a pocket would almost certainly [break] it, so you really have to use the pvc padded wallet thing, killing any of its remaining polished aluminium good looks and adds another extra bit to the size. It is too big and heavy for a shirt pocket, although might go in your trouser pocket if you weren't using the case. Anyway. Overall, it is still probably the best compromise for a PC user, but taking into account that you can't just use it as a USB harddrive, my main gripe, I probably should have saved my money and waited to see what the Philips HDD100 / new Rio / other upcoming players turned out like. Or maybe bought one of those mini-MP3 CD playing things, whatever they're called, as a stopgap.
Rating:
Summary: A real beauty
Review: Tons of power in a tiny space: That sums it up nicely. I got this mp3 player after my Jukebox 3 was stolen. When I got the player, the first ting I noticed was the small size and the placement of the buttons. The power button is a little tough to use, but that's not a major gripe. My only major problem with this player is the software. The disk that came with it was a major pain to install, crashing at random points during the load, and the play center didn't install at all. I finally got everything else loaded, and used the play center from my jukebox 3 disk. now, take notice: THIS ONLY OCCURED ON 1 COMPUTER, on others it loaded just fine, but take notice.
Rating:
Summary: Great sound, features
Review: I have had my Jukebox Zen USB 2.0 since Father's Day. I love it! The battery lasts a long time and charges fast, and the case is durable and shelters the Zen with solid protection in case of a fall. Much cheaper than the Ipod, the Zen provides SUPERIOR sound. This is worth noting carefully, because, after all, isn't the SOUND of the unit the most important feature? It delivers great sound through headphones, through a small digital speaker setup like the Travelsound, or simply with a set of computer speakers plugged into the stereo headphone jack. One of my favorite features is the EAX audio adjustment that keeps an even volume. I keep classical music on during the workday and it's wonderful not to have to continually raise and decrease the volume of the unit. The USB2.0 loading is very quick, with a CD's worth of music loading in about 20 seconds, and the entire 20 gigs loading if you want to in well under an hour. The play menus are intuitive and easy to learn. I highly recommend this unit.
Rating:
Summary: I am thrilled
Review: The Nomad Zen is simply amazing! I was searching originally for an Apple iPod, but was disappointed to find out that it didn't work with Windows 98. Thank goodness it didn't! I kept searching and found the Zen with twice the memory at the same price as the Apple! I installed the software and it worked beautifully the first time, even on my 3 year old laptop with a 1.1 USB. I don't find the transfer software confusing at all, however, I do use Audiograbber for ripping. I highly recommend this product!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent product, worth the money
Review: I bought the Zen a few days ago. The player is simply amazing. Seaching for songs/albums is so quick. A few reviews said the scroll is hard to use, but it is actually very easy. The sound is very good, as well. However, when I ripped my CDs to PlayCenter, a few skips managed to make their way into all of my tracks. I am trying to find another program to rip CDs. The Zen is a great purchase, but I recommend finding different software if PlayCenter creates skips in your songs. Well worth the money!
Rating:
Summary: USB myths and truths
Review: I read some reviews that said they had trouble or even gave up when using the USB 1.1 interface. I will tell you one thing-they are goddamn lazy mother f***ers. I also had some trouble with this, BUT if you call up tech support, email em, or visit their FAQ database the problem will be fixed, it is, as you might have guessed, a fairly common problem and they can fix it. Maybe your antivirus software got in the way, or maybe you just need to clean up the zen hard drive (hold play will reseting) also I have a fairly new computer with XP, but all I have is lame USB 1.1 and it workes just fine for me.
lastly I glad Im not lazy because this player is truely a work of art with a fantasitc menu and navigation system and while you can learn to use it in minutes (i never read the manual.)
Rating:
Summary: Good product, bad connectivity
Review: I bought the Zen about a week ago.Its a great product..it does everything the iPod can do..and it plays WMA (which provides comparable quality at lower bit rates). I dont have USB 2.0 on my laptop, and getting the Zen to work on USB 1.1 is not the easiest thing in the world(I use Windows XP home edition).Typically I need to connect/disconnect the Zen 3-4 times,maybe reset the device too before it'll transfer songs. I'm probably going to keep this though, inspite of all its issues, merely because once the music is on the Zen, it works without a hitch.As far as I know, the only thing an iPod has that the Zen doesnt is the ability to have a specific equalizer setting for every song. Also, contrary to popular belief, Creative customer support is pretty good.I emailed them about the Connectivity problem, and I had a reply in about 20-30 minutes, with a suggestion that actually worked. Another thing it doesn't seem to work on a Mac G4 (with Vitual PC installed, running windows 2000 pro).The device(Zen) connects to the computer, but no files are transferred.
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