Here is my little review of the player:
Well I picked up my player last night and have been fiddiling around with it today.
When I first picked it up and just listened to the included free classical sample music, I wasn't impressed that much. The volume didn't seem to be that loud.
But this morning I threw some of my own songs on it and put on my Grado SR-80's...WOW!!!! This player's sound quality is downright amazing! It sounds good both with the EAX Rock EQ or with the EQ completely off. Furthermore, the player was able to drive my SR-80's with absolute ease, which is pretty remarkable because most recommend an amp with the SR-80's when used with a portable set up. Hell, I might go as far as saying that the player sounds better than my Audigy 1 OEM sound card in my computer!! Finally, tonight I hooked up the player to my portable friendly Sennheiser PX-200's (which I slightly modified by using additional pleather pads to get a better seal) and it sounded amazing again. I can clearly see why this player is so highly touted for its sound output.
The Jog Dial is pretty decent (after getting used to it). I've successfully mastered vertical scrolling with it. It does seem to be a little sticky when pushing it inward to select a song/menu item, but nevertheless the player is pretty easy to navigate. The player may not be as small as the Ipod or Karma (the Karma is another great player), but it seems miniscule to me as my previous portable player was a hefty Rio Volt SP-150 MP3 CD player. The player fits my hand perfectly, any thinner and holding it would be akward.
Also, kudos to creative for providing Nomad Expolrer software with the player! While it probably isn't as good as Red Chair's Notmad Explorer, its plenty for my uses. No need to use Creative's crappy MediaSource software...just use the Nomad Explorer to directly drag and drop files (music, images, etc) to the player. I had a bit of trouble to get my computer to transfer at USB 2.0 speeds, but I eventually switched the player to connect to another usb port on my computer and it connected at USB 2.0 speeds.
Some don't like the case provided by creative, but I think its pretty well made and protects the player well. The only problems with it is that it doesn't have a cut to view the screen (I may change that with an exacto knife if I'm feeling lucky someday), and that its hard to button the case as it fits the player too tight (it just needs a bit of stretching/loosening).
Battery life seems pretty good, and replacing the battery (if the time should ever come) is easier than replacing AA batteries (I'm serious see
this installation instruction). Furthermore, batteries are only $39.90 from
this site.
So far so good. I'll keep playing around and testing my player for the next few days before I decide to get the 4 year warranty....but for now all I can say was this was a great deal!
Here is a good site to know and visit frequently:
nomadness.net Zen Forum
And if you want to upload your own picture to the player to flash at startup or as a screensaver here's how:
Uploading your own picture
Off to upload my 8 gigs of music! Good luck with your players guys and gals...