Creative Nomad Jukebox review

ZDNet heeft een review klaar van de Creative Nomad Jukebox portable MP3 speler met een ingebouwde harddisk van 6GB, goed voor een dikke 100 uur aan muziek. De Jukebox speelt zowel MP3's als wave files in goede kwaliteit af met de bijgeleverde hoofdtelefoon. Zoals bekend is de prijs wel wat aan de hoge kant; ik kan me voorstelllen dat niet iedereen 500 dollar over heeft voor een MP3 speler. Hieronder wat meer info:

Playback is clear and crisp, without noticeable noise or distortion. The "backphones" (headphones that wrap around the back of your head) are decent, but don't fit large heads well. Dual line-outs can connect to four-point speaker setups; audio quality using Boston Acoustics 4800 speakers was excellent. If you want a bit of distortion, gimmicky EAX effects such as Auditorium or Hallway are available in addition to adjustable bass, treble, and midrange equalizer settings.

While two audiobooks are included with the sample files on the Jukebox's drive, the unit is ill-suited for audiobook playback. There's no "bookmark" feature, a must for long files, and you can't even fast-forward or rewind within an MP3 file.

The four rechargeable AA NiMH batteries charge automatically in the player when the external AC adapter is plugged in. A second set is included -- a nice touch. The batteries supported just over four hours of continuous playback in our testing.

File download over USB is speedy, but our unit lost contact with the PC a couple of times during large (about 200MB) batch transfers, forcing a manual restart. The documentation promises the capability to transfer non-MP3 files from the Jukebox back to your computer, which would be handy for transporting large files between computers. This feature wasn't supported yet in the software we tested, however. The Jukebox can also record audio, but this feature saves only to WAV format, and you'll need an amplified external microphone.