Pros: 20GB storage; SB1394 & USB 1.1 connectivity; good audio output; good battery life; ability to use two batteries in the device.
Cons: Very expensive; slow SB1394 transfer speed; cumbersome interface.
Verdict: The NOMAD Jukebox 3 offers users good audio output, plenty of features and great battery life, albeit coupled with a hefty price tag.
If anyone can claim market dominance on the digital audio jukebox, it's Creative Labs. With the successful NOMAD line, Creative fixed themselves a nice seat at the top. While plenty of competitors are biting at their heels, Creative's recently released NOMAD 3 offers 20GB of storage and may help hold their position at the top of the food chain.
Overview & Installation Much like its brethren before it, the NOMAD Jukebox 3 is designed to function as a high-capacity portable audio player, offering--among other things; 20 GB storage, SB1394 (Firewire) & USB connectivity, and MP3/WMA/WAV playback support.
Shaped much like a very thick discman, the NOMAD 3 presents an ergonomic design with rounded corners and sleek lines. The ever-popular blue/grey colour scheme is used, something predominant in most devices these days. The majority of the controls adorn the top of the device directly under the LCD screen. On the right side is the headphone input and an interesting scroll wheel/button combination, but more on that later. On the left is the power switch and line in; and on the back are the 1394, USB, line out and power inputs.
Installing the NOMAD Jukebox 3 is simple, requiring only the provided CD's drivers & software to be pre-installed before plugging in either the USB or SB1394 connections. Once that's done, the device is ready to go. While an AC adaptor is provided, it's not required for the device to function. Strangely enough, our test unit did not initially come with any documentation or driver CD in the box. This is obviously not normal and most likely was accidentally left out of the box.
Battery Life & Accessories One very cool feature of the NOMAD 3 is the ability to load in two of the Li-Ion rechargeable batteries, recharged via the AC adaptor. While the device only comes with one, users may purchase a second and load it in for long trips. In addition, Creative claims 11 hours of battery life from a single battery. Unfortunately, this didn't appear to be the case; but battery life was excellent anyway.
Another 'feature' of the NOMAD 3 is the option to purchase additional accessories to spice up the functionality of the device. This is both a blessing and a curse. While remote controls and docking stations are cool, it may leave buyers feeling ripped off that they have to plop down more money on simple devices that should have been included with the device itself.
Performance, Features, Playback As stated before, the NOMAD Jukebox 3 is a dual connectable device, offering USB 1.1 and SB1394 connectivity. While most users will want to avoid transferring 20GB of data via USB 1.1, it's nice to have it. It's a shame Creative won't adapt USB 2.0 technology just yet. Thankfully, users with Firewire cards will have SB1394 available to them. Although benchmarks were not available, simple math worked out to about 5Mb/s. The NOMAD 3 does not use the Oxford 911 bridge common in most 1394 storage devices, so, performance may not be on-par with the standard speeds. It's a lot faster than USB, but sure doesn't take full advantage of the Firewire interface.
If the NOMAD 3 can make any claims, it's the plethora of features and user options available. Creative packed in tons of features into the NOMAD Jukebox 3, offering playlist searches, power settings, personalization, wireless recording, line-in recording, and a lot more. In addition, Creative's standard EAX features are present, offering all kinds of neat sound settings to play with. The scroll wheel on the side is a cool addition and makes navigating menus quite easy; but using the interface is somewhat cumbersome and annoying to use.
Audio output is good, and surprisingly, the provided headphones aren't too bad either. Those that make use of the EAX features will find it adds an interesting flavour to their songs, although not everyone will like it.
The Bottom Line With a hefty street price of $340, the Creative NOMAD Jukebox 3 offers a lot in terms of features, but a cumbersome interface, slow transfer speeds for both USB and SB1394, and lack of neat accessories are things to look at when considering a purchase.
- Dustin Jones, Consumer Technology Editor
Where to buy Creative NOMAD JukeBox 3?
User Review(s)
"a God-send" "i am the music man, i come from down your way. what can i play" I tell ya with this amazing device i can play anything i want with it's amazing 20gb storage, i have uploaded all my CD collection onto it, with much more room to spare. (and i have a very large music collection) For the first 20 mins i had problems uploading the music, with a "upload cancelled" message appearing after many attempts to upload my "Queen" album, but the firmware upgrade and all relevant software upgrades fixed this instantly. The battery life extends it's approximate limit, with 12 hours continuous playtime (may only be my settings, do not expect this from yours) I find myself listening to this nifty gadget near on 24/7 with the extra battery upgrade, which i opted for straight away and got delivered alongside my MP3 player. Over-all this is the best investment i ever made, at only £140 (am from the uk) it worked out cheaper than my previous 10gb version of the same product. Now i can listen to my whole "Queen" and "Alice Cooper" collection with exceptional sound quality.
5 outta 5 stars for performance, and 110% satisfied. From Michael Coxon, May 25, 2004
"i had a problem with the firmware" the problem i have with this machine was a real anoyance. the first day i had this product i got an error saying that i have a firm ware problem. i am not a great mind when it comes to electronics so there is basically no way i could have deleted the firmware. i sent the product back and am hoping to recieve a product that that will not brake. to the nomads defence it was a great value i have never met a person who hasd this problem b4 so im assuming it was a single product defect. the one comment angainst the product which i heard which isnt true is that it is hard to use. no i am no geniuse in electronics ill remind you however this is dummy proof. it doesnt require much knowledge to operate. my oveerall opinion is get this product instead of the ipod. it is cheaper.the only difference between the two is voice recording and i dont know of anyone who has the ipod and uses it to record. so again ill say that the nomad is a good value aslong as it doesnt have a firmware problem From sharon, March 20, 2004
"Awesome product" I've had my Jukebox 3 for 2 year now - it's been in hot weather - it's been in cold weather - it's been slightly bumped around - it terrific. I also had a problem with the last version of firmware but upgrading to 1.40 solved it. The new firmware makes this machine even more fun to use. It now supports WMA version 9 and has a theoritical capacity of 16000 songs if you use a lower kbps sampling rate. At 128K MP3, I think I can get about 5000 songs in the thing - more than I will ever need.
From Mike, February 25, 2004
"make your own MP3 tags if you don't agree with someone else on CDDB" If you simply have a problem with someone else's way of spelling on CDDB, then change the tags to your own liking. then you don't have a that problem. Sorting by tags is genious. nor is the Nomad the first to try it.
it is ignorance to complain about something when you have all the power to change it. From response to anonymous, November 29, 2003
"I Love this Thing!!!" I bought my Jukebox 3 40GB only about a month ago. Since then, I've taken it everywhere with me with virtually no problems. I would have rather purchased the sleeker Jukebox Zen, but it apparently doesn't have recording abilities - a must for my work as a freelance radio producer.
I had the device connected and working on my Athlon system's USB port within 10 minutes of opening the box (for those of you that had trouble connecting your Jukebox, make sure you hit the shiny little rectangular port in your PC's rump). And I installed the software to make it work on my SB1394 (Firewire) port the next day. But I can't yet make it work on the secondary (front) Firewire port on my SB Audigy LiveDrive - not a big problem - will investigate that when I get time. I also immediately installed the firmware update available at nomadworld.com. The process was perfectly smooth, and the player took everything in stride.
I had about 20GB of MP3s on my PC's hard drive, and with the Firewire connection, all 20 gigs were transferred error-free to my Jukebox in under 10 minutes.
Sure, the bundled PC software is hokey, and I'm told it's not entirely compatible with WinXP, but I'm living with the occasional crash.
If I could make one recommendation to Creative Labs it would be this: Make the *%&#! thing compatible with third-party software, such as WM Player or RealPlayer. Either that, or put some serious R&D into improving PlayCenter and the way it organises stuff.
Also, the bundled headphones just aren't my type; the behind-head style doesn't let me wear them comfortably when I lay my head back to relax.
The player has never yet locked up or crashed on me. The on-board features of the player are mind-blowing; Ipod and Archos can't touch it. I'm having trouble connecting a micropone to it - the Plug-and-Power mic that worked with my oh-so-archeic Minidisc recorder is incompatible, so I've ordered a professional Shure microphone, which I hope solves that problem.
A special recommendation: get the secondary battery pack. Sure it's an obscene price for something the size of a pack of gum, but I probably wouldn't be happy with the battery life otherwise. The player has an on-board slot for a secondary battery, and the (negligible) weight gain doesn't seem to hinder portability.
I've also ordered several other accessories offered for the Jukebox (leather pouch, FM tuner/mic), but so far everything but the extra battery has been backordered. I haven't been impressed with Creative's customer service/support, and it sounds like I'm on my own if I ever have a problem.
But so far, few problems to report, and no major trouble. I'm amazed at the features, the durability, and the expandibility... well worth the price. Now if Creative would do something to improve their customer support and bundled software... [CH]
From CH, September 09, 2003
"Recording limits" I just bought the device.. And i have read about 12 reviews of this device.. And not one review mentions its limits as a recording device wich i think stinks..
I am a dj, and i soley bought this thing to be able to record long live mixes in good quality (just try to record a 6 hour mix in quality on a dat or md...)
I bought the device after reading its filesystem could handle 1 big file of 19.xxgb (total disc size)..
Well u can't record a wav for longer than 3 hours.. i have no clue why but its biggest advantage over other devices is almost useless.. (a dat recorder can do it too)
I also noticed that charging the device for the first time didn't take 4 hours.. but the battery also didn't last more than 2 hours.. I hope i just have to train this battery a lil' more before it reaches full usage capacity.. but i have a strange feeling it won't ever last more than 4 hours..
The audio quality on the headphones (tested the flimsy phones that came with them, a sony mdr-v700 and a pioneer hdr-1000) leaves something to be desired, i am using eax custom eq to boost some highs, wich brings me to another bad point, the 4 channel parametric eq can only do the preset frequencies (100hz, 800hz, 3khz and 12khz) (i would like 60, 500, 2.5-3.1, and 12-16khz) so it would be nice to be able to select your own frequencies as each headphone has its own charateristics..
For the rest, red chair software is overrated, and yes the creative software ain't that great either.. (had a couple of crashes with the updated versions, tried on 3 machines, it seems the standard old playcenter version that comes on the cd is most stable in combination with the latest firmware update for the jb3)
From Trail, September 09, 2003
"JB3Upgrade_1_32_02 will lock your machine" Since installing the latest recommended upgrade my machine sees all outputs as line outs! This means that the headphones can't be used nor can the output be used to drive an amplifier!
I have contacted CREATIVE SUPPORT on more than four occasions in the last month and received NO support on this problem. No contact at all has been made by the company regarding possible remedies. Further my efforts to reinstall the previous BIOS have been blocked by either the existing BIOS or the lineout problem is some kind of loop?
Prior to the current problem I was satisfied with the player. It has good fidelity and an adequate menu system. The CREATIVE PLAYCENTRE interface is a PIG!!! It has no presets to convert common file formats such as REAL PLAYER and the process of setting the fields for conversion is done by trial and error! This is a serious PAIN IN THE ARSE as it is time consuming and frustrating!!
Lastly, the support is in my experience HAS BEEN APPULING! Once the product is out the door you YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN!!!
So THINK BEFORE YOU BUY....
From Steve, March 29, 2003
"JB3Upgrade_1_32_02 will lock your machine" Since installing the latest recommended upgrade my machine sees all outputs as line outs! This means that the headphones can't be used nor can the output be used to drive an amplifier!
I have contacted CREATIVE SUPPORT on more than four occasions in the last month and received NO support on this problem. No contact at all has been made by the company regarding possible remedies. Further my efforts to reinstall the previous BIOS have been blocked by either the existing BIOS or the lineout problem is some kind of loop?
Prior to the current problem I was satisfied with the player. It has good fidelity and an adequate menu system. The CREATIVE PLAYCENTRE interface is a PIG!!! It has no presets to convert common file formats such as REAL PLAYER and the process of setting the fields for conversion is done by trial and error! This is a serious PAIN IN THE ARSE as it is time consuming and frustrating!!
Lastly, the support is in my experience HAS BEEN APPULING! Once the product is out the door YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN!!!
So THINK BEFORE YOU BUY....
From Steve, March 29, 2003
"Great Sound, But Some Minor Annoyances" For the most part, I'm pretty impressed with this little thing. 20 GB of space, Incredible sound quality, plus the ability to record directly from any optical or analog source. It's pretty awesome. I do have a few complaints though:
First, I don't like the way everything is organized by artist, album, and genre based on ID3 tags. ID3 tags are great for displaying information for a currently playing track, but they are a rotten way to organize a collection. Why? Because most of them came from somebody else's idea of how to enter them into CDDB and they are not consistent. I have seen the same artist show up as six different artists because of differences in how the name was capitalized or punctuated in the ID3 tags. Some compilations just say "Various Artists," and others put the true artist on each different track. And I have plenty of files that don't have the tags in them at all right now. It kind of sucks to have to go through an "audit" of my collection to make sure the ID3 tags are present and consistent just to make things show up in a reasonable way on the Nomad. I would much rather just dump my files to it in my own directory structure and locate them that way. My collection is already organized the way I like it, why should I have to organize it the way Nomad likes it?
Second, the unit would be much more useful as a portable hard drive if I didn't have to install special software to make it work and use only that software to move files back and forth. When I plug it in, it should just show up as an external hard drive in "My Computer."
Lastly, How about a freakin' carrying case, Creative? Somebody who wrote one of the other reviews on this page mentioned one, but I can't find one anywhere -- there is no case for the Nomad Jukebox 3 listed on Creative's site, and I would feel a lot more comfortable taking this little wonder out to the park if I had one.
On the whole I am very pleased with my new toy, but I certainly hope that Creative makes a few improvements with accessories and firmware. From Eric, December 12, 2002
"BEAUTIFUL SOUND, but it's not for traveling" I'm a music lover, and when I received this as a gift, it was astounding. Not only can you hold 5,000-some MP3s, you can hold any other kind of computer file - not even just music. But the sound quality is what I expect from a stack. I can't even hear a hiss, and the EAX sound processing is the absolute best! 5 kinds of volume leveling to match whether you're in the car or at home, TONS of beautiful EQ settings (I didn't know there even was such a thing as a Disco setting), reverb effects; they beat my stereo system hands down.
The only complaint is kind of a big one - it's not for banging around. There's a hard drive in it, and when someone like me drops it 1 foot above a carpet, the drive busts. So, when you buy this, get the $15 leather case at the same time, and you'll be OK. From Josh, December 10, 2002
"Check out Notmad Explorer software..." The hardware is great, but as other users will tell you, the bundled software can be a bit clumsy. If you're looking for an alternative, try Notmad Explorer, which smartly integrates the Jukebox into Windows Explorer and has other stuff like web browsing through your Jukebox.
http://www.redchairsoftware.com/notmad/ From uknomadgirl, September 09, 2002
"Great" It is a very good device. the batteries work well although the performance can be improved by using a computerized charger.
The software has a glitch and gets stock, this has been the case both with W98SE and Windows ME, needs to be re-installed.
Sound quality is great
Many options for recording and ripping, very functional
fast transfer rates
A good buy, From Felipe Ordonez, July 14, 2002
We're currently upgrading our user review system; so we won't be accepting new reviews for now. NOMAD JukeBox 3 Specs
Interface(s)
Original USB, FireWire 400
Released date
September 2003
Platforms
Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP
