Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra 30 GB MP3 Player (Discontinued by Manufacturer)

Just received this unit yesterday, and pumped it full of my "stuff". It's playing one of the classical collections included on the hard drive as I write this review.Just how much more exciting can an mp3 player get? Probably NOT ALOT.Even after two decades in the high tech arena, I am stunned by the "novelty" of backing up my entire customer contact database, ALL my client quotes and letters and such, a 350MB Outlook mailbox and hardly denting the storage on a device the size of two cigarette packs.ALL my Christmas (its Christmas, not Holiday) music, ALL my Audible audio books (couple dozen, mostly long ones), ALL my extended self-help stuff (alot), and the thing still has more than 25GB left.AWESOME.What's AWESOME:- The capacity for the price. Even if you had to take a physical beating from some guy selling one on eBay, there would be no way to compete with the price/capacity proposition. This fact may stem the sheep-like purchases of the iPod being sold at criminal prices . . because they can.- The earbuds are surprisingly high fidelity as long as your music isn't RRRREEEEEEEE-BOOM-BOOM-RRRRRRREEEEEEE!, which isn't really music so much as self-abuse anyway.- The battery, unlike so many portable product batteries, GIVES you the impression that it is there to power this thing all day long. It is so surprisingly robust as to actually make it less disappointing when it finally gives up the ghost and needs a recharge.- The carrying case is almost unbelievable in construction and materials quality, for being a giveaway especially. I have the new one with the window cut out. The only GLARING item here is the hole that's missing for the power cord. ?!?- The charger has a very standard AC cord that can be replaced without replacing the whole unit. BRILLIANT.- The speed of data transfer is almost unbelievable given that its going over a USB cable to a "couple of packs of cigarettes".What's NOT awesome:- The controls are a bit "scattered" in their design. While close to chunk-blowing, they don't actually go over the edge of the cliff.- The belt clip that is solidly sewn into the back of the case BLOWS CHUNKS. Be CAREFUL about that.- I understand this unit used to have a scrolling wheel instead of a "flipper" wheel. Changing to the flipper was STUPID, although not the end of the world. Creative Staff: next time, take the scrolling wheel off of a 5 year old Sony cell phone, and beat that design.- The dismal backlight, combined with the almost "pretend" contrast controls, and small text make the unit a real teaser for anyone who is remotely visually challenged. Given that the display is bigger that some portable TV sets, WHAT WERE THEY THINKING regarding the text size? The backlight on mine is NOTHING like the advertisment in terms of brightness and clarity.STILL, not a deal killer, but it aggravates my sciatica something awful.- A bit clunky size-wise, but for half the cost of the equivalent sheepPod, who cares?My Advice to Creative:- Your support reputation is the main PROBLEM with this unit, not the unit itself. I SAID, Your support reputation is the main PROBLEM with this unit, not the unit itself. THAT IS TO SAY, Your support reputation is the main PROBLEM with this unit, not the unit itself. MEANING THAT, Your support reputation is the main PROBLEM with this unit, not the unit itself. What you should take away from this is that Your support reputation is the main PROBLEM with this unit, not the unit itself.- When the Thinking Cap slides off one's head and onto the floor in the design phase, the correct response is to PICK IT UP AND PUT IT BACK ON, straightaway. Clearly, the folks at Apple secured theirs with duct tape when they designed the fiendishly overpriced sheepPod. You need to do the same.The Upshot: One of the most AMAZING electronic devices of any sort I have ever seen or used for under $800.

I love my Creative Lab Nomad Zen Xtra 30GB player. I've read some reviews complaining about the pre-packaged software; however, I've actually found the software (after some playing around with it) very intuitive and effective in managing my MP3 files. Works great! In fact, I find it better in managing your music files than the iTunes software.I've downloaded about 800 songs to my player and only used about 4 gigs of space. My out the door price for this puppy after the twenty-doll rebate came out to one-hundred seventy-seven dolls, which is a superior value to any iPod product. So it's a little bigger than the iPods, but look at how much more you get:· More hard drive space at a lower price· No hyper-sensitive jog dial. The Nomad's controls are buttons and a scroll-wheel on the sides of the unit that is so much easier to use at least in my humble opinion. I can change the volume while looking through the menu - something you can't do with the iPods.· A classy free case to protect your player. Expect to pay $20-40 extra for an iPod case.· Great software that rips CD's to MP3s quickly and helps to organize your MP3's and playlists effectively· A removeable battery that you can replace on your own. Office Depot sells a replacement battery for thirty-three dolls, while Amazon has one for thirty-eight dolls. You have to pay at least sixty dolls to replace an iPod battery and ship it back to them...what a hassle.· Fast USB 2.0 transfer (backward compatible with USB 1.0). Okay, iPods have this too.· If you're an iTunes user....you can still use iTunes. Just burn your iTune format music to a CD and then rip back to a MP3 to download to your Zen Xtra· EAX sound controls, which allows you to apply special effects to the music such as pretending that you're in an indoor concert. The best EAX control is the one that "normalizes" all of your MP3s' volume so you don't get one song sound real soft and another one that you can barely hear. Using the EAX feature, though, shortens battery life.The only negatives I think are as follows:· Headphones aren't the greatest. To fully maximize your listening pleasure, I suggest getting the Sony MDR-E829V Fontopia Ear-Bud Headphones with In-line Volume Control right here at Amazon, which only costs thirteen dolls and has a built-in volume control.· Battery life doesn't come anywhere near the 14 hours listed. Maybe if you set the contrast to 0%, turn off the backlight, don't use the EAX sound effects, play only 128kbps or lower music, set the volume to 1, then maybe. I've turned off my backlight, changed my contrast from a high of 50% to 20% and generally don't use the EAX sound affects, which has given me 6 to 8 hours of playtime, which is more than plenty. Would be nice if the battery life indicator had more than just 3 bars (actually 4 bars if you count zero bars as a count....even at zero bars, the player can still go for awhile).Overall, I'm extremely satisfied with my purchase and would recommend this to anyone. iPods are overrated in my opinion. I've owned this thing for about a month now...so obviously, I can rate it yet on longevity.