Creative Labs' Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra 40GB - Extra Storage

Final Words

After taking a look at the Dell Digital Jukebox, we have a bit of a mixed conclusion regarding the Jukebox Zen Xtra. The Dell Digital Jukebox is designed much better in terms of ease of use and portability design. The fact that Creative chose to use small buttons and a scroll toggle (the same size as the one on the Muvo TX) makes accessing the controls a bit cumbersome. The placement/size of the controls and the quasi-bulky dimensions of the Jukebox Zen Xtra are due to the design of the MP3 player that accommodates a removable battery.

Our personal preference would be a Dell Digital Jukebox over the Jukebox Zen NX or Xtra. We are willing to forgo the benefit of a removable battery that doesn't have an independent recharging bay for a MP3 player for a better internal and external design. Creative doesn't implement any sort of shock absorption system in their Jukebox Zen NX or Xtra MP3 players, as the hard drives are only secured to the MP3 player frame by four screws. Dell takes an approach that is more in line with a hearty MP3 player that can take a beating, still function, and continue to have a long life.

When you start up the Jukebox Zen Xtra, you can actually feel the hard drive motor spinning, as well as when you transfer files to and from the unit. If you listen close enough, you can also hear the motor and write/read head of the hard drive.

Battery life of the Jukebox Zen Xtra (our 40GB sample) ranked in at roughly 13 hours after about a week and a half of use and tapered off to 12.5 hours soon after, which a little under its spec of 14 hours. Based on our experience with other MP3 players, this is fairly normal in terms of battery degradation. Since the Dell DJ is based on the same hardware platform, we weren't too surprised to receive a similar audio quality, fairly comparable to the iPod.

With Creative pricing the Jukebox Zen Xtra at $239.99, $269.99, $399.99 for the 30GB, 40GB, and 60GB models respectively, they are still selling an MP3 player (GB per dollar) fairly cheap compared to some of the others on the market. Software-wise, Dell's DJ and Creative's Jukebox Zen Xtra both rank at basically the same position with similar solutions. We should note that both are still limited by the inability to import multimedia files (avi, mpeg, wmv, mp3, wav, wma, etc.) directly from the host PC to the player or run files directly off it. The only way to circumvent the issue is to rename multimedia files to data files and then transfer them back to the computer and rename them to run them.

If a high capacity MP3 player is, first and foremost, what you are after, then the Jukebox Zen Xtra is the right one to buy, but keep in mind that you will be trading portability and ease of use. And, for those travelers and on the go, you can't charge this MP3 player via USB.