The Music Library is basically the, well, music library! It allows you to select between Albums, Artists, Genres while the Selected Music allows you to browse and mark songs on the player. EAX audio allows to you adjust various playback functions that Creative houses under their EAX umbrella like environmental effects, time scaling and equalizer settings while the Settings menu lets you personalize your unit with language, power, contrast and time settings etc.

Unlike Creative’s MuVo2 that we reviewed a few weeks back, the Zen Xtra isn’t truly plug’n’play as you need to install drivers to access the device. We spoke to Creative about this and were informed that the unit is capable of a driverless operation and there might be a firmware version coming up soon that’ll let you access the device without installing any drivers.

Creative’s preferred application for connectivity to their MP3 players has been Media Source which we find bloated and awkward in operation. We have always used and recommended the amazing Notmad Explorer from Red Chair Software which is without doubt, the best application for Nomad players. It features a built-in a web server and excellent integration with Windows Explorer. If you plan on investing in a Creative Jukebox player, we would highly recommend getting the Notmad Explorer.

Last and certainly not the least, the sound quality of the unit is pretty darn good- as good as most of Creative’s high-end players. Basically, if you’re not too fanatical about the “cool factor”, the Zen Xtra would probably be the best player to get. It has an excellent display with high capacity drives and doesn’t cost a fortune. Because of the lower price, don’t expect to get extra functionality-like allowing you to play games (although that would be nice with its big screen) or listening to the radio or even storing your contacts like the iPod. The unit does what its supposed to do and does it well.