I think it was about six months ago that I purchased my Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra. I was looking for an MP3 player, and being the Mac-o-phobe that I am, the iPod was out. Oh, it isn’t that being a PC person has made me leery of the hippie Macsters (though it has), or that Apple charges you double for essentially the same technology that anyone else can offer (though it does). It isn’t even that Apple ensures that no one but them can repair or modify their computers and peripherals by sealing them tightly in tiny cases or requiring the use of specific hardware (though, again, it does). At least, it isn’t any of those causes when looked at individually. But taken together, it made me want to avoid the iPod as if it were the carrier of some horrible disease.

So I did a little research, and decided on the Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra from Creative. It seemed to do everything I needed it to, though the lack of a digital (or at least fixed audio) output and remote control meant that using it in the car would be a bit painful. Anyone who has tried to scan through their playlists in traffic knows what I mean. According to Creative:

Carry all the music you’ll ever own in the NOMAD® Jukebox Zen Xtra! Simply transfer all your music with Creative MediaSourceâ„¢ and the ultra fast USB2.0 into the player, press the play button and get set to enjoy high-fidelity music. With advanced features such as Quick Scroller Navigation, Find, Playlist Creation and automatic ID3 tag categorization, managing and organizing your music will be a breeze. And the NOMAD Jukebox Zen Xtra doubles up as an external hard drive for storing all your documents such as photos, documents and other data files.

Well, not quite. Let me say I am adequately satisfied with my Zen Xtra. Let me also say that while Creative does not lie about their product, the advertising certainly makes it all seem simpler than it actually is. Of course, all companies do that, but I don’t have an MP3 player form most companies.

I paid $179 for the 30-gig model. I figured it would, indeed, ‘carry all the music I’ll ever own.’ And it was half the price of a 30-gig iPod at the time. So I bought it, took it out of it’s plastic packaging (yes, it came in cheap ‘hang this on display at Wal-Mart’ packaging) and looked it over.

First of all, it’s heavy. According to Creative, it’s about 8 ounces with battery. Which is certainly noticeable, especially when compared to the 5.6-ounce iPod. It’s also a bit bigger than it’s Apple cousin. The USB, power, and headphone jacks are mounted across the top, while the buttons are mounted on the sides. The front and back of the case is made from anodized aluminum, but the buttons and remainder of the shell are plastic, and can feel a bit cheap.

Still, it has a user-replaceable battery and standard laptop hard drive for us geeks who want to void the warranty and double the storage (for tips on how to do this, please check out this site). So I plugged in the power and USB cable, attached it to my computer and…

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