Nomad Jukebox - Hardware Review - Evaluation

Creative Technology

www.creative.com

Every time I pack for a trip, I think about taking my portable MP3 player. Then I remember that unless I want to listen to the same couple of hours worth of tunes ad infinitum, I'd better pack my trusty CD Walkman and a stack of discs. Portable players hold little more than an hour of digitized music, and extra memory cards are absurdly expensive. The latest products in the MP3 marketplace address this drawback, though. Digital jukeboxes are hearty hard drives in a CD Walkman-style form.

While several smaller companies entered the jukebox arena early, Creative Technology is the first big vendor to bring a digital jukebox to market. Its 6GB Nomad Jukebox comes in a silver or blue shell and weighs slightly more than a portable CD player (14 ounces without batteries). The device connects to your PC or Macintosh via the included USB cable. It supports WAV and the Windows Media format of digital music files, in addition to MP3. Along with versatile MP3 playlist file management, the included PlayCenter 2 software features one-button conversion of CD tracks so you can rip your entire collection and load up the Nomad Jukebox with a single application.

The Jukebox includes good-quality behind-the-head earphones and runs on four rechargeable batteries, providing approximately four hours of playback. (Your mileage may vary.) Besides boasting a big-enough Fujitsu hard drive to hold around 100 hours of near-CD-quality music uploaded from your PC, a memory buffer prevents skipping if the device is jiggled.

The Jukebox also offers a line-in jack for recording your own audio. The bad news is that to avoid piracy, files stored on the Jukebox can't be transferred back into your PC in a digital format. Still, with the available analog lines you can listen to (and record) lukebox music on your home stereo. Oddly lacking is the functionality to fast-forward and rewind within a song, although Creative promises it will offer a free downloadable fix for this.

While the Digital jukebox is pricey, there's nothing like loading up a score of CDs and hitting the road.

THE DETAILS

SCORE (1-5): Utility: 4, Design: 4

EST. LIFESPAN: Six months

PRICE: $499

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: 200 MHz or higher Pentium running Windows 98 or 2000, USB port, CD-ROM, 12MB free hard disk space; iMac or G3 or higher running Mac OS 8.6 or higher, USB port, CD-ROM, 12MB free hard disk

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