Creative Labs' Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra 40GB - Extra Storage
by Andrew Ku on July 3, 2004 12:10 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
Final Words
After taking a look at the Dell Digital Jukebox, we have a bit of a mixed conclusion regarding the Jukebox Zen Xtra. The Dell Digital Jukebox is designed much better in terms of ease of use and portability design. The fact that Creative chose to use small buttons and a scroll toggle (the same size as the one on the Muvo TX) makes accessing the controls a bit cumbersome. The placement/size of the controls and the quasi-bulky dimensions of the Jukebox Zen Xtra are due to the design of the MP3 player that accommodates a removable battery.Our personal preference would be a Dell Digital Jukebox over the Jukebox Zen NX or Xtra. We are willing to forgo the benefit of a removable battery that doesn't have an independent recharging bay for a MP3 player for a better internal and external design. Creative doesn't implement any sort of shock absorption system in their Jukebox Zen NX or Xtra MP3 players, as the hard drives are only secured to the MP3 player frame by four screws. Dell takes an approach that is more in line with a hearty MP3 player that can take a beating, still function, and continue to have a long life.
When you start up the Jukebox Zen Xtra, you can actually feel the hard drive motor spinning, as well as when you transfer files to and from the unit. If you listen close enough, you can also hear the motor and write/read head of the hard drive.
Battery life of the Jukebox Zen Xtra (our 40GB sample) ranked in at roughly 13 hours after about a week and a half of use and tapered off to 12.5 hours soon after, which a little under its spec of 14 hours. Based on our experience with other MP3 players, this is fairly normal in terms of battery degradation. Since the Dell DJ is based on the same hardware platform, we weren't too surprised to receive a similar audio quality, fairly comparable to the iPod.
With Creative pricing the Jukebox Zen Xtra at $239.99, $269.99, $399.99 for the 30GB, 40GB, and 60GB models respectively, they are still selling an MP3 player (GB per dollar) fairly cheap compared to some of the others on the market. Software-wise, Dell's DJ and Creative's Jukebox Zen Xtra both rank at basically the same position with similar solutions. We should note that both are still limited by the inability to import multimedia files (avi, mpeg, wmv, mp3, wav, wma, etc.) directly from the host PC to the player or run files directly off it. The only way to circumvent the issue is to rename multimedia files to data files and then transfer them back to the computer and rename them to run them.
If a high capacity MP3 player is, first and foremost, what you are after, then the Jukebox Zen Xtra is the right one to buy, but keep in mind that you will be trading portability and ease of use. And, for those travelers and on the go, you can't charge this MP3 player via USB.
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stephenc - Saturday, February 26, 2005 - link
I'm keen to try to find a music player for my wife with at least 10GB memory which she can -1 Play in the car and tune it to a radio FM station to play through the car
2 Play it at the gym whilst joging, etc
Hope you can help and advise
Stephen
Snacko - Sunday, July 4, 2004 - link
Beyond sound quality, which is of course subjective, and battery life, the reviewer also failed to mention anything about file format acceptance of the player. One of the main things that might draw me toward the Zen and away from the iPod is the iPod's lack of WMA compatibility.As a Windows guy who has done his research on file formats with their inherent strengths/weaknesses, I'm going with WMA for my digital music needs. The Zen can handle WMA - the iPod can't.
plewis00 - Sunday, July 4, 2004 - link
It wasn't a bad review but it wouldn't have taken much to have some size (photo) comparisons between this and it's competitors - least of all, the original Zen. A lot of reviews fail to do this and when I am getting an MP3 player this is a big concern for me - size IS an issue, I don't want to end up with something oversized, as I may as well keep my Creative DAP Jukebox instead which also won't fit in my pockets...WizzBall - Sunday, July 4, 2004 - link
Hmm, like I said on the previous 'masterpiece'... (review of creative's muvo tx) when are you guys going to get serious about sound hardware reviews ?Just about any of us could have 'tested' the hardware this way. It is useless and sounds more like a commercial to me than a true desire to keep us informed about what's going on in the market at the moment.
webchimp - Sunday, July 4, 2004 - link
A review of an audio device without a single mention of how it sounds - bizarre.Lurks - Sunday, July 4, 2004 - link
I examine mp3 for a living, I've seen seriously hundreds of the damn things. The best hard-drive based unit on the market is the iRiver iHP-140 by a very long way indeed - unless you want something very small and sexy, in which case it's an Cowon iAudio M3.This Creative wouldn't even be on in my top 20.
opposable - Saturday, July 3, 2004 - link
Sorry for the blank post.Anyway, how can you continue to do mp3 player reviews with no comparison of sound quality or battery life? It seems to me that these two would be FAR more important than something like file transfer speed. These aren't meant to be portable HD (although they can serve as them in a fix). If you want your mp3 player reviews to be taken seriously, you need to include battery life benchmarks and sound quality benchmarks.
opposable - Saturday, July 3, 2004 - link
cobalt - Saturday, July 3, 2004 - link
Review the iriver h series :\Oxonium - Saturday, July 3, 2004 - link
I mentioned this in my comments on the Dell DJ review: If you're going to compare size to the iPod, you should show a picture showing that comparison. The side-by-side with the DJ is fine, but there really should be one with the iPod since it is the icon of this class.