Fun, annoyance, then more fun!
Written: Nov 28 '01
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Pros: sound, size, coolness factor, expandability
Cons: out of the box issues
The Bottom Line: This is a sexy little player with great sound and features. Rechargeable batteries, good memory size, fm tuner and audio recorder. Good bang for your buck on this one.
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| rcr2's Full Review: Creative Labs Nomad II (64MB) MP3 Player |
For my birthday, my wife went out to the Wiz and bought what she was told was an MP3 player. It turned out to be a Sony MiniDisk 70DPC. After doing some reserach, I returned that to the store (they overcharged, the 70DPC is an old model, blah blah blah), and then sat down for two days to figure out what I really wanted in portable music.
MiniDisks actually looked pretty good - capacity was cheap, and they had more functions like audio mics and FM. But as you may know, you have to record in real time (or at least near-real time).
I finally decided I wanted to be able to grab some songs, change what I had on whatever player I was taking real quick and go. So, I moved back to MP3.
Now, I did some heavy research and for the price, the Nomad II MG was a deal at buy.com for $179, plus with a 64MB SmartCard included, so I got 128MB out of the box. Listing somewhere in the mid 200-range, this was a steal.
Comparison:
I was looking at the Bantam player. It had 128MB memory on-board with room to expand. But, no FM or voice recording, and it came in at $199.
Iomega's HipZip was a contender at $90 and use of pocketzip disks that cost only $10 each - almost the best of minidisks, hard-drive based mp3 units, and flash mp3's. But 40MB was the largest the disks went, with a unsure promise of 100mb disks on the horizon. It also was 6 ounces compared to the zippo-weight of the Nomad.
The Rio 800 was compariable, but was $30 more expensive at the cheapest, and up to $80 more where it was in stock.
All the compariable players were more expensive and/or didn't include the FM and recording options, or didn't rate as highly on reviews from epinions to cnet.
It arrives:
Out of the box, I was giggling like a schoolgirl. Sleek looking and light, I set it up. The docking station is pretty cool, and Windows ME and 2000 both recoginzed it as soon as I pushed in the USB cord.
I was a little wary about pushing the unit down into the cradle, and had to manuver it a bit to get it to click in, but I think it was just me getting the feel of it.
The unit charged in about an hour, the software installed without a problem, even alerting me that I had more recent versions of the jukebox on my computer at home. I prefer Music Match, but it wasn't too hard to figure out Creative's playcenter.
First problem:
Four songs transferred perfectly, then the next one didn't and the Nomad disappeared from Playcenter. I tried undocking and cocking again, turning it off and one, and then rebooting. Nothing.
I decided to test it on my laptop and when I plugged in the usb cord, Win 2000 didn't see it. So I thought to try a spare USB cord I have, and it worked perfectly.
So, somewhat of an annoyance that the USB cord shipped was defective. If you don't have an extra laying around, you can't play until you go get a new one.
Fast, fast, fast USB
I copied a bunch of mp3 songs over from ripped CD's I had on my hard drive. Quick, fast, and quick. I filled the whole 128MB in less than 5 minutes. Then, for fun, I decided to see how fast it was going the opposite way. From the Nomad to PC, it took less than half the time it took to download. Zoom!
Next problem:
I went on the road with my own headphones (I have earbuds I like, so haven't bothered testing the folding ones included). The sound was crisp, clear, and it can go LOUD if you want it. I had it on shuffle and after a while noticed that I had heard the same song again. Scanning through, I came to song I hadn't heard yet and hit play. It went right by it.
So some reason, half the songs I put on weren't playable. Nothing wrong with the mp3's or anything. So I downloaded the latest firmware upgrade and suddenly, like magic, they all played. I have no idea what the problem was, but it was an annoyance.
FM:
The scanning and presetting is pretty painless, and the reception is suprisingly good in most places.. although inches can mean the difference between static and stereo.
Display:
Nice. Great backlight. The songs, titles, and details scroll across, the icons make sense (once you read the manual to figure them out), and the text is crisp.
Other stuff:
Memory isn't much of an issue. I fit 37 songs into 128MB, all averaging 3-4 MB apiece (some up at 5-6MB). You can also get a 128MB SmartCard for under $100 now, and I expect the capacity to continue to increase.
Everyone at work I talked to before buying this are now looking at their players, like the Sony Network Walkman, Mini-disk player/recorder, and a MP3 CD player and thinking of tossing them out and buying the Nomad II MG.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 179
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Epinions.com ID:
rcr2
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Member: rich
Location: New Jersey
Reviews written: 26
Trusted by: 3 members
About Me:
Born. Lived for a while. Wrote stuff. Probably will die eventually.
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