Creative Labs' Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra 40GB - Extra Storage
by Andrew Ku on July 3, 2004 12:10 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra 40GB - Family Flagship (cont.)
All of the access ports for the Dell Digital Jukebox MP3 player are aligned on the top side and include (left to right): headphone port, power port, and USB port (2.0/1.1).
Click to enlarge.
Unlike the Dell Digital Jukebox, the Jukebox Zen Xtra has all of its navigational and function buttons on the right and left sides of the unit. On the right side, Creative chose to situate the reverse/skip, forward/skip, play/pause, scroll toggle (pressing in is the enter command), and menu button (which is the home button). The reverse/skip and forward/skip buttons look like a single button, but it is actually two different buttons with a single button cover and a slight bridge to separate the two.
The two buttons can be pressed down at the same time, which makes the design a bit odd. If the reverse/skip and forward/skip buttons are going to be placed in this manner, we prefer the way that Dell had designed the volume buttons on the Digital Jukebox, with the buttons being independent of one another.
Click to enlarge.
The bottom side of the Jukebox Zen Xtra is only home to the security switch that holds the cover in place. Removing the cover is the only way to access the removable battery for the Jukebox Zen Xtra.
Click to enlarge.
The left side of the unit is where Creative placed the rest of the buttons (left to right): power, back, and volume up/down. The volume up and down button is designed the same way as the reverse/skip and forward/skip buttons are on the right side of the Jukebox Zen Xtra. We would hope for the future that Creative would make each button in each pair separate from one another.
Click to enlarge.
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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.