A very nifty piece of gear... Click "Read more" to see my review...

I finally broke down earlier this year and bought myself a hard-drive-based MP3 player. First, I did some looking online. Naturally, Apple's iPod tops the lists and reviews, and I considered it. In my opinion, Apple's player is overpriced for the capacity it offers, so I crossed it off the short list. I looked at reviews and forums for other players out there and eventually settled on the Creative Nomad Zen Xtra 60GB model.

My choice was based on the fairly high reviews the player got, the commentary about its excellent sound quality compared to other players (including the iPod), the capacity per dollar, and the Creative Labs reputation for PC sound technology. I found the player for a relatively low price around the $260 level ($259.99 if you must know). Compare that to an iPod's capacity and price.

iPod fanatics have sneered at this player elsewhere because it doesn't have a FireWire interface. So what? USB 2.0 is plenty fast enough and not that many non-Apple machines have FireWire because it's an expensive and not-that-impressive technology. I can download an entire album to the player in under a minute. They've looked down on it because it can't serve as a plug-and-play storage device. Big deal. If I wanted handy storage I'd buy a thumb drive or flash card reader. They've derided it because it doesn't have Apple's "wheel" or software. I can find any song I want on the Nomad as quick as any iPod user, so I don't see an advantage there. In fact, the only advantage I see to the iPod over the Nomad is that there are lots of iPod-specific add-on products out there and few (if any) for the Nomad... not that I've had a need for many add-ons anyway.

The Nomad screen is backlit and easily readable. It took some fumbling around to get used to the menu system (about 5 minutes), but now that I'm used to it I no longer have any confusion in operating it. Loading music is fairly easy and fast. Creative ships a media organizer program that allows you to drag and drop files or folders of music onto the player's icon for immediate transfer. It takes maybe a minute to transfer a typical album (~5 seconds for the average song). Transfer is done by USB 2.0.

I have heard some complaints that the transfer software is buggy and unstable. I haven't seen that so far. It's worked smoothly for me in the last 6-7 months since I bought the player.

The player allows you to play music by artist (i.e., all their albums), by album, by genre, etc. You can store non-music files on the player if you want, but you will need the driver software on any machine you want to access the files from.

The capacity of 60GB is amazing. So far, I've transferred all the MP3s I had on all my computers to a single 160GB hard drive on the PC. I've also transferred over a 64-CD holder full of MP3 CDs to that drive. Even doing that, I haven't hit the 60GB mark yet (though I'm in the 50s at least). I still have another binder or two full of MP3 CDs and a couple of racks full of CDs to rip, so I'm sure I'll eventually load the thing, but it's awesome to imagine that every CD and MP3 file you have can exist on this player (even the ones you don't like).

Sound quality is as good as people say it is. With the EAX effects turned on, it gets even better. The provided headphones do a decent job, but when I paired the player with some Shure E2C headphones, I was even more impressed.

If I have a complaint about the player, it's the "apparent" (i.e., appearance only) flimsiness of the selection wheel on the side of the device. This component, compared to the metal case and very solid feel of the Nomad, feels somewhat flimsy and weak. Then again, it's lasted 6-7 months and hasn't had a problem. I can't say the same for my brother's RCA Lyra, which is already having problems and is only a month or two older.

Unless you like paying more for the Apple iPod, or you see some iPod-only accessory that you just "have" to have, I'd suggest saving your money and picking up a Nomad Zen Xtra or Nomad Zen Touch. You'll be getting a player with at least as many bells and whistles with a lot lower price tag.