Introduction

first off lets start with a little history lesson.
Creative's NOMAD line of mp3 players have come in various shapes and sizes. Creative's first real attempt at a Hard Drive mp3 player wasn't exactly their best attempt considering the company is renown for their sound quality excellence. But they have moved on, and as the competition increased so has the NOMAD. There about 16 different types of NOMAD ranging from the Jukebox to the MUVO. When Creative released the ZEN it could of been a lot better, then the iPod came out which gave creative a big kick up the arse and they then brought out the ZEN NX. which still lacked mainly due to the software interface and the overall quality but that's all history now now lets get on with the review

There are 3 models in the ZEN Xtra series 30,40 and 60 Gigabyte versions but we will be focusing on the Creative NOMAD ZEN Xtra 40GB version, prices may vary but average NET price's is about £260 but you will be expected to pay more in high street shop.

Package and Content

everything is nicely warped in a rounded plastic package inside we see Installation CD, Manual, ZEN Belt case, Ear Phones, USB Cable and a free Windows XP add on, everything you will need

Technical Specification
(Taken strait from Creatives site HERE )

Feature/Product	NOMAD Jukebox Zen Xtra
Features
EAX	Smart Volume Management ™, Environmental Effects, 4-band Custom Equalizer, Advanced EQ presets, Headphone Spatialization, Time Scaling: Up to 1.5x faster or 0.5x slower for audio playback
LCD Display	160 x 104 pixel resolution, blue EL backlit LCD
Interface	USB2.0/1.1
Audio Codec Support	MPEG Audio Layer 3 (MP3), Windows Media ™Audio (WMA) and WAV
Casing/Colors Available	Anodized Aluminum
Operating System/Firmware	Reprogrammable
Hardware Specifications
Capacity	60GB hard drive (2000hrs of 64 kbps WMA encoding; 1000hrs of 128kbps MP3 encoding). Also available in 30GB and 40GB.
Battery Usage	Up to 14hrs of continuous playtime (actual battery life will vary with use)
Size W x H x D	4.4" x 3" x 0.86" 76 x 113 x 22mm
Weight	7.9 oz with battery 7.2 oz without battery
Frequency Response	20Hz - 20kHz
Signal to Noise Ratio	up to 98dB
Channel Separation	up to 75dB
Harmonic Distortion Output	less than 0.1%

There are a Lot of improvements over the ZEN NX allthoe the appearance hasn't changed much. The larger screen and nice blue backlight is a nice improvement over the NX 132 x 64 pixel resolution and green LED backlit.

The Brushed Aluminum Front and back panel look good in my opinion as the metal gives the ZEN a sterdy solid feel but i wouldn't go throwing it around just yet as its not indestructible.

The menu system has not changed either

The Menu

Navigation of the menu is quite easy, it allows you to scroll down as well as up, on the original ZEN you could only scroll down. This is done with a rocker switch/button on the right side of the player, push it up to go up and pull it down to go down, when you get to the selected option you push the rocker switch in and a sub menu will pop up with various option.

When selecting an album or Artist the following options will appear in the pop up menu

Play Now
Add To Play
Open
Find Album / Artist
Delete Album / Artist
<-- (the back button)

When selecting a single song you will a slightly different set of options

Play Now
Add To Play
Preview (play track without adding to playlist)
Track Details
Find Track
Delete Track
<-- (the back button)

Controls

Left Side (in order from top)
Power Button, Back Button, Volume up/down and a small reset hole

on the bottom you have a little slide catch to remove the face plate to remove the battery

Right Side
Menu button, Rocker switch, Play/Pause and Next Track/ Pervious Track

On the top there is 1x USB 2.0 connector, a 5V DC in mains connector and audio out.

The 160 x 104 screen allows 6 and a bit lines of Text and about 22/23 characters per line, in settings you have a contrast level so you can increase or decrease the backlight which aids in battery life.

Creative rated the Battery to last 14 hours on 1 charge which is a bit hopeful, true it will last a while but from what i can tell most people will get a max of about 10 hours which is still very good. If you find your self going on a journey or being without power for more than 10 hours you will be glad to know that creative have made the battery removable so anyone can go and buy an extra battery for those long journeys. The battery may last 10 or so hours for play back but if you try to get 10 hours while uploading music to your ZEN you will find out that it will last only a few minutes, as creative recommend you plug the ZEN into the mains when copying music or files over. Unfortunatly the ZEN does not chrage through the USB port, i found this out the hard way when puting music on the ZEN i think creative could of done better here.

Sound Quality.

As you all know creative make some of the worlds best PC audio equipment and i must say the
ZEN Xtra does not disappoint. Coupled with a decent pair of earphones the ZEN Xtra's sound quality is quite simply the best iv herd in a portable audio player, you would be hard pressed to find one for the same price that can match it. The ear phones that come with the ZEN does not do it justice so if you want the best possible audio quality and clarity then spend a little extra on a good set.
The Zen also has another good feature, if your the sort of person who would rather have un-powered portable speakers then the ZEN Xtra is for you. Creative boast that the ZEN Xtra can put out 98db on a single channel and 74db on streo, and i did try this on an old pair of creative desktop pc speakers (un-powered). the sound was not only good quality but it was loud enough to take it traveling with you without the aid of an extra amp.

Software

The Nomad Explorer 3.00 is required to be installed on your system to download/upload and view the player. It uses software integrated into Windows Explorer which is relatively easy to use. Iv read that people have had loads of trouble with writing music and data using this software (could of been an older version) as i had no problems at all. All you do is drag and drop. Creative have made it so you cannot create empty folders on the ZEN which is a down side so if you have eg. (2 music files with the same name, one might be live). you cannot put them both on as there is only 1 directory where the player reads the music, you would have to rename 1 of the files to eg. name(live).

Organizing you music can be a bit of a pain if you dont fill in track tags after ripping music off a cd. The only way real way to organize you music in this 1 directory is to input the track tag information, this to can be done within NOMAD Explorer.

If you don't have your track tag's then it will display the music file by the name, this works but it will make it impossible to find the tracks you want to listen to. You can update whole albums track tags in 1 go, eg. (Album and Artist) then input the track title individually.

Conclusion

Iv had the player a few weeks now and i cant find many faults, but saying that i can list the faults i did find. The most annoying problem with the ZEN Xtra is that is has NO stop button, yes you herd me right, i found out that you have to pause it then press the prev/track button to stop it playing. The player did crash a few times but this could of been my fault as while on another computer with USB 1.1 that computer crashed and took my ZEN Xtra with it. This didn't cause ANY data loss at all, when i turned it back on it rebuild the library and all my music was still there even the saved playlist was there. It could also crash if you start pressing buttons when you turn it on as it needs time to boot and shut down. With all that aside i would choose this player over any other, its cheaper than most of the competition, it uses USB 2.0, it comes in 30GB, 40GB and 60GB sizes and still maintains a low price.

Product Info and Requirements

Pro's/Cons

Cons -
no stop button
could take a little time to get used to the menu

Pros -
Cheap
Large Hard Disk
Battery life
can be used as an external hard drive

Ratings

Area	%
Looks	85%
Feel	90%
Performance	95%
User Friendly	85%
My Rating	95%
TOTAL	90%

I would recommend this product to anyone !!