Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra Review

Overall Rating

Masses of space - up to 20gb, good technical support, good sound quality.

Slow to start up, pricey, larger than your average MP3.

I spent a lot of time looking at MP3 players before deciding on the Creative Jukebox 20GB, and would recommend anyone else who is considering it thinks about what they are looking for?

Are you looking for a sleek and shiny MP3 player to show off to your friends, and to listen to a few tracks on your way to work ? If so, the Creative Jukebox isn't for you.

If, on the other hand, you are looking for the ability to carry your entire CD collection (up to 500 albums, so I'm told) in the palm of your hand, to mix and match tracks from those albums and make up your own playlists, then this is a great buy.

Personally, I don't find the Creative JB too big, like the earlier review said, it's the size of a CD player. I travel a lot and love being able to plug the Creative JB into the back of the stereo or telly in my room and have my entire music collection available.

I've also got lots of preset playlists which allow me to pick the best bits from various albums and put them all together, so I have one list for my gym work outs, for example. The sound quality is very good - you hear things you will never hear on your stereo, and you can add effects like "Arena" sound or "Soft" sound as you want.

The software which comes with the Creative JB is intuitive - if not exactly stunning to look at on screen. It's easy to see what is on your JB, what is on your hard drive and what's on the CD. It also does all the usual stuff of connecting to the Internet to download all of your track details etc, if you want it too. I've had no problems with it, not even when upgrading it.

Battery time isn't great - about 4 hours if you use Ni-MH rechargables (and you will need to !), but is adequate. I've had to use Creative Support only once, when my JB got smashed up in an attempted mugging. They were brilliant ! They managed to recover most of my tracks, dumped it down onto a new JB and sent it back within 4 days (it was within warranty).

One other point to note is that the Creative JB allows you to record from other sources than your computer, like your stereo for example. The sound quality isn't as good, but it helps get round the current fashion for CDs that don't play on computers like Destiny's Child - This is the Remix.

All in all, this is a great buy if you are looking for a "jukebox" style MP3 player - rather than one that carries three or four CDs.