Half a Year With The Nomad Zen

I have been using my Creative Nomad Zen for half a year now. As my article A Week With The Nomad Zen is my most read article I thought that it might be a good idea to write a follow-up story on it.

So, to the case: As I am pretty much a technology geek and tend to spend money on things I don't exactly need it is always a test to study how much I use it compared to how much it costs me. The Nomad Zen costed me some EUR500 when I bought it, including the 'necessary' FireWire PCMCIA card.

All in all I am very happy about the money spent. The Nomad Zen goes with me on all my rather frequent travels, it is a dream to use on airplanes, on trains, busses, airports and so on. It replaced the old Sony DiscMan and the bunch of CDs that I used to bring along, not only reducing the volume and weight of my carry-on luggage, but also drastically increasing the amount of music available.

Daily Use

I must admit that I don't use the Nomad Zen that often in daily life. I might put it on for some minutes before going to bed. Sometimes I also listen to it whilst walking, but again, not very frequent. In many ways it is not very surprising as it was not why I bought it in the first place. I also use it more during winter, as I then wear clothes with pockets big enough for it.

What would make me use it more often? If it had a larger display, and an easier user-interface I could have used it as my stationary jukebox, but as all my CDs were ripped using my laptop I might aswell use it and MoodLogic in this role. Maybe someone could make a docking-station to it... would be cool.

Travel

The Nomad Zen is always with me on travel, often being the only piece of anything I take out of my carry-on luggage before sitting down in my (window) seat. Sound is good enough for in-air listening, allthough I am curious on the Etymotic ER-6s that Anders bough. Using the DSP setting for Plane actually works ok.

As stated above: being able to bring all my music in this small box is just great. No more 'oh I forgot this CD at home', just plug in and play.

Changes in use

In the beginning I used the small pouch that came with it to protect it. I don't anymore. Taking it off reduces the size, and well, I don't drop it in the floor that often anyways; and if I did the main concern is still the head on the HDD hitting the surface of the disk. I don't think the pouch will help me much with that. The belt clip is anyways pretty useless. Someone should instead add some mechanism for attaching a clip directly to the player.

As soon as I could I bought the Wired Remote. Back then I said it was a great buy. Forget it. I don't use it. It does not really give me anything I need. In fact it only gives me a looong cable (which gets close to 2m including the earpieces). I don't use the radio, and I don't need a mic. It took about two weeks and it was

Ok, it might be a good idea to use it if using the useless belt-clip, because you then are unable to control the device. But again. Don't use the belt-clip and you are fine.

Software

My software combination is still Red Chair's Notmad bundled with MoodLogic. Notmad is easy to use, does not really include a whole lot of fancy options; but it does work. Using MoodLogic to clean ID3 tags and filenames ensures a pretty clean data-set, easy to browse also on the device itself.

Whenever I create mixes in MoodLogic it is easy to save them to file and import the mix to the Nomad Zen using Notmad...

Conclusion

The Nomad Zen is just a perfect companion for those who does not want a iPod. It costs less but still delivers the goods. Who can ask for more? To make full use of it either make sure that you have FireWire or USB 2.0 (and them make sure that you buy the correct version of the player)!

Posted by ludvig at July 17, 2003 10:25 PM | TrackBack