I owned two creative Nomads before discovering and purchasing a 3rd gen 40Gb I-pod.
When you consider price, you should consider total cost of ownership.
Smack in head number 1: My first creative nomad 2 had 3 problems. First, the NiHi batteries (regardless of brand) overheated regularly. Next,the drive on the thing fraged itslef to hell requiring reformat every 8 months to a year. I eventually had to replace the drive myslef after "acquiring" the OS via copy to a new laptop harddrive. It was this or pay 80-90% of the cost for a new player when sending it in to creative. Lastly, it locked up at least 3 times more frequently than my I-pod. I finally gave up on this player and gave it to a family member after the last repair.
Smack in head # 2: Thinking I had a lemon, I bought the Nomad 3 as an upgrade. My last Creative nomad 3 fell off the desk on its 91st day of use. It landed squarely on it's jack with the plug in place. Naturally this ripped the jack right off the circuit board as CREATIVE IS TOO CHEAP to mount the headphone jack properly. They used a surface mount connector for the jack. Contact with Creative confirmed that they would only replace the entire board at a cost of 90% of the original player.
So between the harddrives fraging themselves to hell, the batteries overheating, and the headphone jack easily comming right off the circuit board and their horribly over-priced repair options, I've decided creative will NEVER get any of my mp3 player money again.
As far as the i-pod goes, it is smaller and it does have a nicer interface. I have, however, noticed that its internal battery will eventually die (currently only 4 hours of play-time after 2 years). I'm not looking forward to having to send it away for battery replacement.
Does anyone know the price tag associated with battery replacement on a 3rd get i-Pod?
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I owned two creative Nomads before discovering and purchasing a 3rd gen 40Gb I-pod.
When you consider price, you should consider total cost of ownership.
Smack in head number 1:
My first creative nomad 2 had 3 problems. First, the NiHi batteries (regardless of brand) overheated regularly. Next,the drive on the thing fraged itslef to hell requiring reformat every 8 months to a year. I eventually had to replace the drive myslef after "acquiring" the OS via copy to a new laptop harddrive. It was this or pay 80-90% of the cost for a new player when sending it in to creative. Lastly, it locked up at least 3 times more frequently than my I-pod. I finally gave up on this player and gave it to a family member after the last repair.
Smack in head # 2:
Thinking I had a lemon, I bought the Nomad 3 as an upgrade. My last Creative nomad 3 fell off the desk on its 91st day of use. It landed squarely on it's jack with the plug in place. Naturally this ripped the jack right off the circuit board as CREATIVE IS TOO CHEAP to mount the headphone jack properly. They used a surface mount connector for the jack. Contact with Creative confirmed that they would only replace the entire board at a cost of 90% of the original player.
So between the harddrives fraging themselves to hell, the batteries overheating, and the headphone jack easily comming right off the circuit board and their horribly over-priced repair options, I've decided creative will NEVER get any of my mp3 player money again.
As far as the i-pod goes, it is smaller and it does have a nicer interface. I have, however, noticed that its internal battery will eventually die (currently only 4 hours of play-time after 2 years). I'm not looking forward to having to send it away for battery replacement.
Does anyone know the price tag associated with battery replacement on a 3rd get i-Pod?