Comment But does the UI still suck? (Score 2, Informative) 254
I have a Nomad Jukebox and I have been very, very, VERY disappointed with the "user-interface" on the thing. There is no quick access to songs (by first letter or such), so you have to scroll down linearly through your entire collection to find an album, artist, or title. This is made even more painful because the thing becomes very sluggish and the scrolling has "hiccups" while a song is actually playing. Mine takes over a minute to boot (not an exaggeration), frequently will hang with a "Please Wait..." message for a good 20-30 seconds when switching modes (normal/random) or navigating a large playlist.
Not to mention that the interface menus are laid out inconsistently, and it has two modes you have to switch back and forth between just to create a playlist. The physical button layout is very inergonomic and difficult to manipulate without looking while driving.
I just took my Nomad on a road trip and I honestly had to spend several minutes explaining the interface to my friend (an engineer) just so he could operate it while I was driving. In terms of ease-of-use, it's the exact opposite of an iPod. By the end of the trip we were ready to chuck the thing into the Grand Canyon.
The point of this tirade: don't waste your money on a Nomad 3, at least not unless they've spent a lot of time improving what must be one of the worst interfaces ever designed.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that the unit locks up playing some mp3's (possibly the mp3's had encoding errors, but still...), and the Creative PlayCenter software you use to download songs crashes constantly when transferring, even after several upgrades to both it and the Nomad firmware.
Not to mention that the interface menus are laid out inconsistently, and it has two modes you have to switch back and forth between just to create a playlist. The physical button layout is very inergonomic and difficult to manipulate without looking while driving.
I just took my Nomad on a road trip and I honestly had to spend several minutes explaining the interface to my friend (an engineer) just so he could operate it while I was driving. In terms of ease-of-use, it's the exact opposite of an iPod. By the end of the trip we were ready to chuck the thing into the Grand Canyon.
The point of this tirade: don't waste your money on a Nomad 3, at least not unless they've spent a lot of time improving what must be one of the worst interfaces ever designed.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that the unit locks up playing some mp3's (possibly the mp3's had encoding errors, but still...), and the Creative PlayCenter software you use to download songs crashes constantly when transferring, even after several upgrades to both it and the Nomad firmware.
