Review: Portable Jukebox plays sweet music

Creative Technology's Nomad Jukebox MP3 player

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By Jack Poorman
CNN.com Reviewer

(CNN) -- With the mid-September release of Creative Technology's Nomad Jukebox MP3 player, you can now carry around 150 CDs worth of your favorite tunes in the palm of your hand (now that's what I call a palm pilot). That's about 100 hours of music.

To add some perspective, the fabled Wurlitzer jukebox that was popular in the 1950s and 1960s held 100 45" records or 200 songs. The current CD-adapted Wurlitzer holds about 1,200 songs to the Nomad's 1,500. And unlike a real jukebox, you don't have to listen to B-sides or carry around a pocket full of change. The Nomad also holds a whopping 2,600 hours of audio books.

The Nomad Jukebox looks less like its namesake and more like a Sony Discman. In contrast to many portable CD players, however, the Jukebox will virtually never skip with its five-minute memory buffer. This means that you would have to shake the unit continuously for more than five minutes to make it skip (jackhammer operators might not be the best market for this product). Of course, if you're shaking this much, uninterrupted music is probably not your primary concern.

Despite this anti-skip capability, Creative Technologies thought the unit too bulky for jogging and wearing on your belt. Perhaps because of its similarity to the portable CD player (which isn't generally "belted" because of the skip factor), Creative figured that that users would not want to use the Jukebox in this manner.

But after using the Jukebox for a week, I really miss being able to belt it. The unit has no clip and neither does the vinyl carrying case. (At review time, Creative said they are exploring the addition of an accessory in the near future to belt the unit.) I ran with the Jukebox in baggy shorts and the weight didn't bother me at all. The unit worked just fine. I did have the urge to stop several times to "DJ" from my pants. The musical choices are highly liberating.

The unit's sizable hard drive is what makes it so unique. The limited capacity of earlier first generation players caused me to stop loading my MP3 player with music that I knew would soon become tiresome.

To be fair, the early players and the free or inexpensive software available for them make it easy to organize your MP3s. But do you really have time to upload music to your MP3 players every day, or even once a week? You have to boot the PC, hook up the cable, pick your songs and upload each time you want to change music. How exactly is this more convenient than CDs?

That is why the Nomad Jukebox takes the MP3 game to a whole new level. The luxury of easily toting around this much music without changing CDs or memory cards is a great thing. Really great.

Creative has armed the Nomad Jukebox with some high-end sound enhancements. If you're listening at home, then the "FourPointSurround" sound is a nice feature. But home listening wouldn't be the same without the couch potato factor: Coming soon is a remote control for the unit and an infrared port is already on the front. Users can also alter the listening environment by choosing 10 presets ranging from "Concert Hall" to "Cave," all of which are customizable.

The unit's LCD interface is simple to learn and navigate. The one-touch "Library" button takes you to MP3s sorted by play lists, artists, albums and genre. When you convert songs to MP3, you are prompted to categorize the music for organizing later. This is handy and I can use all the help I can get to be better organized. You can also arrange the song order with your computer by using the PlayCenter 2 software. Like a CD player, playback mode can be set to shuffle, random or program. After using the Jukebox for two weeks, I got very adept navigating the library and menus.

Battery life is considerably shorter that a portable CD player and more comparable to a notebook computer. The NiMH batteries included last four hours between charges, but the unit comes with an extra set of batteries.

The Jukebox takes about 25 seconds to boot up, while a CD takes roughly 15 seconds to load and play. This is OK for now, but in the future consumers will expect instant start up. Because the songs played on the Nomad are pulled from different parts of the hard drive, there is a slight lag when advancing from cut to cut. But compared to a CD player this is nominal.

Ripping CDs is a cinch with the PlayCenter software. Still, the process is not friction-free. With all that capacity, it will take you roughly 100 hours to fill the Nomad Jukebox. But it's worth the trouble and may induce those who never recorded their own music to do so.

The unit is also upgradeable, meaning that future music formats will be supported. This factor takes away some squeamishness and obsolescence issues that many consumers try to avoid with first-year products.

For those who want to be responsible citizens, the Jukebox is compliant with the music industry's Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI), so when the industry gets its standards together you will be downloading copyright-protected music with the best of 'em. The Jukebox helps get the party started by shipping 20 hours of pre-loaded music ranging from classical (a nice collection) to hip hop.

The Nomad's music can easily be played in your car through any cassette adapter. One doesn't come with the unit but they are inexpensive. Creative Technologies expects to sell a car power adapter soon.

Is this enough to change your life? Will you start to work out regularly? Will you be happier in drive time? Will business travel get less fatiguing? Who knows. Just the thought that you could carry around every song you ever liked -- from John Denver to Devo and everything in between -- really blows my mind. The Nomad Jukebox is amazing. Now if I just had time to pick my favorite 1,500 songs.

Jack Poorman is executive producer for CNN Inflight, a program featured on Delta Air Lines flights.

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Creative Technologies
  • NOMADWorld.Com
Secure Digital Music Initiative

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