Creative Labs Nomad 64 MB MP3 Player

• Record your favorite songs from your personal CD collection or the Internet
• Nonmechanical operation for skip-free, continuous playback
• Combined 64 MB RAM (32 MB onboard, 32 MB on removable media)
• Includes FM tuner and voice-recording capabilities
• LCD song title readout

This mp3 player is "wireless streaming local content enabled"it can convert "electromagnetic frequency modulation transmissions" in to high quality stereo audio. There is an abundance of wireless content in locales throughout the World, transmitting in the range of 87.5 to 108 Megahertz. To put this in to layman's terms, it has an FM radio built in. In this MP3 induced euphoria, one sometimes forgets about the value of FM, and how the 64 MB hand-picked selection of music sometimes just isn't what you want to hear. Thats a big fat plus for the Nomad, a quality few of its competitors possess. And I must say that the nomad FM reciever is high quality sound, and it holds ten presets, the perfect ammount.

The interface software is absolute crap compared to the RIO's (pmp300) simple easy use and mannage software. I'm serious, trust me, the software that comes with the nomad is crap and you are stuck with it. Hello creativelabs, just because your modem instalation software works, what are you thinking? mp3 download software is supposed to be quick easy painless, etc.. the opposite of your software (c'mon, when you drag a file into the nomad memory, only its msdos name shows up, like an ancient language). And it is so sloooow with its parallel port connection. I don't have time for this, you probably don't either. I want an Mp3 player whose smartmedia cards can be read on a flashpath disk or usb reader, and I am yet to find one. (Note: The rio and nomad both use propietary disk formats, forcing you to use their software, and not support external smartmedia readers.)

The voice recorder works wellno external mike input, but adequate to record someone or something funny and have it on digital one time.

The nomad had good volume, but doesn't pump quite loud enough when the rare occasion calls. my rough tests show that that the Rio pmp300 gives a slightly higher volume output.

Good set of headphones for mp3 players = sony mdr-v300 (sold here on amazonia).

The nomad looks really stylee, and the readout is clear (though not backlit). The base charger is a little excessive in size without reason, and doesn't have a printer pass-through for your parallel port (which the Rio pmp300 does).

I really like how small, cool looking and feature rich this thing is, but it's a pain using their software. It stacks up well regardless.

It seems that the nomad 2 is a big improvement.(not out yet, but you can check it at creativelabs.com).

Come on amazon, why don't you give your customers a discount on this producthow can you charge retail for this you dont charge retail for anything else?

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I just got my MP3 player today and let me tell you, this is the best MP3 player you can get for a great price. I've seen and heard the Rio 500 MP3 player before but comparing the two, the Nomad is way better. First of all, the Nomad is a lot cheaper. The Nomad is very compact, even smaller than the Rio 500, (to my memory) and has better abilities than Rio like a FM tuner and Voice Recording Mode. The MP3 player comes with rechargeble batteries and a charger thing that you put your MP3 player on to charge the batteries and import MP3's from your computer. The MP3 player also comes with a flashcard that holds 32 MB. The things that come with this MP3 player is 32 MB Flash Card, Docking Station, Cord to connect to Computer, Cord to plug in electrical outlet, headphones(not so good in my opinion), Content CD, Installation CD, Leather Carrying Case, and instructions. The only disadvantage this MP3 player has from a Rio 500 is the LCD display. Unlike other MP3 players, the Nomad doesn't have the backlight for the LCD display. This is the only disadvantage that I found. In this MP3 player, there are 3 modes. MP3 mode, FM tuner mode, and Voice Recording Mode. The FM tuner can hold 10 preset stations and is very good quality. Some of my friends said,"CD's are better, just get a decent burner." Now that I got the Nomad, I am glad that I didn't listen to him. My friend said CD's are better quality but in my opinion, I can't tell the difference between a CD and an MP3 file. I don't think my friend was lying and he was probably right but what's the point if you can't even tell the difference. The Software is very user friendly. I didn't even read the instructions once and had my MP3's onto my MP3 player in minutes. Great program for a great MP3 player. *Responding to other Reviews*

"tried it on my home PC and 4 different IBM Thinkpads. It worked in none of the above with different parallel port settings and infinite hours with Creative and IBM................. It ended up sitting on my drawer and now it would not even turn on. I trashed it. What a waste of a few hundred dollars"

Maybe your computer just didn't work, cuz it works on my Dell PC just fine.

"If you are rich as hell, go ahead and buy it. But for the price your paying for this, you could get a great Mini Disk player, and even plenty of discs for over 6,000 minutes of recording time with the same sound quality!"

Don't know what your talking about dude. This MP3 player is almost cheaper than all of the MD players available at Amazon. Plus MD players have the expenses of MD's and MD players are way bigger than the Nomad MP3 player.

Take my Word, if your buying a MP3 player, buy this one.

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I am not a big fan of MP3 players yet. I don't think they are a good value compared to a $50-100 cd player, or even a $300 CD burner. But if you really want an MP3 player, as my son did, this seems like good overall offering at the present time. We purchased the unit, and are satisfied with it.

It is really tiny and light (about 2oz), and includes a decent FM radio, and ear buds. The internal rechargable battery will save a lot of money over time.

The 64 meg comes from an internal 32m memory chip, and a removable 32meg card that is about 1 inch square. Each hold only about 30 minutes of music, unless you are willing to use smaller, low quality sound files. The removable chip is expensive, and looks easily damaged or lost. Handle it with care.

The instruction manual was inadequate. Don't try to use the device at all until the battery charges in the base unit for at least an hour. At one point it seemed that the unit was broken, until I realized that I had accidently moved a sliding "button" (there is no indication that this slides) that is intended to manually lock up the controls to prevent accidental changes.

The unit would have been better off with a USB interface instead of the clunky parallel connection, but the software and base unit installed without problems. Our printer connects to the PC with a USB connection, so I don't know what problems I would have had if I needed that parallel port for the printer, zip, or tape drive.

The software is easy to use once you figure out how to switch between storing mp3 files in either the internal or external memory.

Once we figured out how to use it, the unit worked well. The voice memo recording feature sounds like a potentially nice feature.

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I hate to disagree with my fellow reviewers, but I must jump to the support of my Nomad. I have frankly been extremely happy with it. The radio reception is tricky, but the quality is high. The software may be a bit annoying to work with, but I've found that Real Jukebox is a perfectly viable alternative for transferring songs. The voice recorder is a definite perk, the magnesium casing is very durable, and the LCD display is very nice, to say the least. The size is nothing to complain about either, as it is small and fits perfectly into even the smallest pockets. I do have some complaints, though. First of all, the headphones it comes with are very poor. And I must agree, the software is just plain user unfriendly, and the parallel port connection is a bit sluggish. But I would definitely not write this off as a poor player. I would truly reccomend this player to anyone that asked.

I returned my nomad 64 and bought the nomad II. The nomad II is an improvement on every flaw of the Nomad 64.

It has fast usb support, More FM presets, a big bitmapped screen with backlighting that shows the mp3 file info, easy to use design/interface/buttons... Best of all the file format is sdmi compliant, which means that you can use an external [usb, serial, or flashpath floppy adapter] to transfer files onto the smartmedia, and you dont have to reformat the card for it to work in a sdmi compliant digital camera.

Every other mp3 player on the market right now (including the Nomad 64) uses a propreitary format forcing you to connect use the actual player to transfer files on to smartmedia.) An external usb smartmedia reader is the way to goit tranfers the average song in under 5 seconds. (also, the nomad II software doesn't allow you to transfer files located throughout a Local Area Netwrokonly local files can be tranfered unless you use an external reader.)

The nomad II also comes with winamp plugin software, allowing you to avoid Creativelabs quirky interaface. (there is a winamp plug-in for the nomad 64 as well).

(check out nomadworld . com)