MP3 Players
Here we have my two MP3 players... The Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra (Unnecessarily long name) and the Creative MuVo V100.
I love both of these things, and I would even go as far to say that they are cooler than an iPod. Let me get into that:
One thing you probably don’t know about me… Because obviously, you don’t know me… Is that I am a sucker for MP3 players. Walkman? Discman? Whatever. Bring me all the MP3 players you can find. You know why? Because no two MP3 players are the same.
Nowadays they are, SURE. But I’m talking before the smartphone singularity. Did you know that Kodak released a digital camera with an MP3 player built into it? YEAH! The Kodak MC3. You can’t tell me that shit isn’t badass.
Sadly I don’t have one of those yet. BUT! what I do have are these two players by Creative, the Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra, and the MuVo V100.
The MuVo V100 was my first MP3 player. I actually got it after seeing it in a museum if you can believe that.
It’s a very simple little device, essentially a USB stick that functions as an MP3 player. You plug it into your computer, drop the songs you want into a folder, and you’re good to go.
It only has 1 gigabyte of storage, which isn’t a lot if you can believe that… BUT, it’s able to fit a few albums or a good chunk of music on it.
I’ve gotten a lot of use out of this one in particular. For a good while I had lost my stupid iPhone dongle and couldn’t find another one ANYWHERE, so I ended up using it to listen to music in my car, as well as at work for about three months, and it was a very good experience!
Battery life is pretty good. I remember getting several days of use out of it before it would run out. And all it takes is a single AA battery, so no need to spend time charging.
Finding songs can be a pain, as all you can do is skip until you get to what you’re looking for...
But I didn't really find that to be a huge deal for me. What is a huge deal is the stupid rocker control that you use to select songs. That thing is CRAP. Literally not even after like three days of using the player, it got really stiff. So now I have to double rock, sometimes TRIPLE ROCK, the stupid thing every time that I want to change a song… Sucks just a little bit.
Also, while it has a very sleek design, the plastic scratches very easily and dust WILL somehow work its way underneath the screen. So just a warning: this thing will get jacked up if you go around using it for real. Even if you treat this thing like a sweet gorgeous angel, it's still going to get jacked up.
But REGARDLESS. I love this little thing. It’s cool, easy to use, and very portable. OH! And it also came with a pair of earbuds… Pretty cool…
I was able to get mine complete in the box from eBay for around $40 dollars, which I think is a pretty okay price. And you can still find them for that much, and maybe even a little less if you bide your time.
The MuVo is cool, BUT… it doesn’t hold a candle to the Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra. That thing is ROCKING. Think of an iPod but cooler.
It has a very compact design, almost the same size as a cassette tape case, just a tad bigger. Silver, meet feel with white plastic accents and a black bezel around the TWO INCH screen. HUGE.
Once again, a blue backlit screen… would be a lot cooler if it was ORANGE but i think blue is okay… I just think it could have been cool like some retro futuristic technology if it was orange. ALSO you can customize the start up screen. And that is really, really cool.
It has a 30GB hard drive, which is more than enough space to hold all of your music, though you can also find them with a 40GB, or 60GB hard drive if needed. I've also seen someone swap the hard drive for a PATA2SD card solution, which I feel would be a good way to keep yours going if the hard drive ever dies.
I really really love this thing. It's about the same size as a cassette tape case, just a SMIDGE bigger, and not very heavy either. It has a ginormous 2 inch display, with a pretty blue backlight. It's super bright, which is good, but if you're listening to music at night in a dark room this thing WILL blind you...
It also has this EAX audio feature... It basically just adds reverb to the music, but its really nice when you're just sitting in the bath, or laying in bed in the dark with your eyes closed. Is it a necessary feature? No, but a cool thing to have.
Putting songs on the player is fairly straight forward. Download the software, plug it into your PC with a USB cable, and its essentially just dragging and dropping. Once you've done that, you're free to listen! Which thankfully, is also fairly straigth forward. The layout is similar to that of an iPod if you've ever used one, with things being sorted by album, podcast, yada yada yada... It's simple stuff.
Something I also really really love about the Nomad is the fact that it is so easy to access and replace the battery. There is a small lever on the bottom of the player that pops the cover off, and BOOM... Theres the battery. Same with the hard drive! Just take some screws off of the back, and THERE IT IS!
I'm getting ahead of myself... This is CURIOTOPIA, not REVIEWTOPIA. I'm big on MP3 players. They ROCK. Especially the earlier ones that are so interesting and unique. The MuVo and the Nomad being two cool examples of that, I think. If not cool, at the very least useful even today.
Thank you for reading!
