Reg Review Creative's Jukebox Zen remains one of the iPod's most consistent competitors. Since 2001, it has sometimes followed, sometimes led the race to offer the most features in a hard drive-based portable music player. It has never come close to touching the iPod for sheer style, but it has often beaten the Apple machine on both price and capacity.

The latest incarnation, the Xtra, offers 60GB, 40GB and 30GB hard drives, compared to the iPod's 40GB, 30GB and 15GB capacities. The Xtra wins on price, too, particularly at the higher capacities, where its price lead is $99 in the US, £50 in the UK.

So why isn't the Xtra as popular as its rival? Certainly, styling is the biggest factor, not to mention Apple's considerably more aggressive marketing spend - no wonder it has to charge more per unit than Creative. But Apple undoubtedly has the mindshare lead, and has defined the standard by which other hard drive-based music players are judged. The iPod manages to look neither like a device designed by a Japanese consumer electronics giant nor one conjured up by a PC manufacturer. The latter is how the Xtra looks. It's always had the same plastic and metal feel as a typical PC, and the Xtra is more so.

That goes double because of the way Creative has implemented one of the Xtra's key features. Unlike the iPod, the Xtra provides a removable battery. This I like, as it allows you to replace power packs as their capacity fades, and you can take the battery out to ensure you have power when you want it. I'm constantly irritated with the way, having not used my iPod for a while, I pick it up only to find it dead. If I'm heading out the door in five minutes, it's useless to me.

The Xtra ships with a neat 3.6V Lithium-ion cell that's easily removed: flip the catch on the base of the unit to release the front panel, and just pull out the battery. The trouble is, it is just too easy to knock the catch and flip the lid. I did it on several occasions pulling the machine out of pockets and bags, and while adjusting the controls. Once, I accidentally dropped it about a foot onto the (carpeted) floor, and the front panel fell off. God forbid I'd dropped it into a puddle - there's no way the cover would have kept the water out.

While the catch is spring-loaded, it's still fairly loose. That, plus the thin anodised aluminium used for the front panel and the fact that the latter moves when you push it, gives the Xtra a cheap, rattly feel that reflects its price. This is particularly surprising given how robust the rest of the unit feels.

Speaking of the battery, Creative quotes a 14-hour maximum playback time, but despite an initial overnight charge, I still failed to get the Xtra to function continuously for more than nine hours, usually closer to eight. To test the unit, I just played back the selection of classical favourites pre-loaded onto the hard drive. These are MP3 files, so battery life is likely to be even lower if you use Windows Media 9 files, which generally require more processing power to decode.

The Xtra adds another improvement to the Zen line-up: a better screen. The new display is a seven-line, 160 x 104 panel that pretty much matches the iPod for size, though doesn't look as nice, particularly with its Indiglow-style blue backlight. Still, it does offer all the track details, plus a time count and a progress bar, not to mention mode icons for repeat, battery strength, etc. This is much better than the earlier Zens.

On top of the unit, you'll find its USB 2.0 port for fast music transfers, mains adaptor port and standard 3.5mm headphone socket - there's no remote control unit, which is one way Creative has kept the cost down. On the right-hand side sit the Menu, Play/Pause and Forward/Backward buttons - in between the first two is the jogdial. On the left-hand side of the machine are the Power, Back and Volume up/down buttons. Creative has placed the Menu and Back buttons so they sit under your thumb and index finger - if you're right-handed.

There's no Hold button, though since the buttons are fairly well recessed and require a firm hand, you're unlikely to nudge them. If you do, you can select Button Lock from the menu. Pushing any button afterwards invokes a dialog box asking you if you want to unlock the player.

The Back button works like its web browser equivalent: it steps you through each of the previous screens you've viewed. Oddly, selecting a song to play doesn't take you to the Now Playing screen - you have to select that manually from the menu.

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The menu allows you to access, via Settings, the Xtra's EAX facility, Creative's audio manipulation system. In addition to providing a simple, four-band "advanced" equaliser, EAX also allows you to adjust a song's playback speed without changing the pitch. So vocalists don't sound like mice or cows, depending on whether you up the speed or reduce it. There's also a handy sound level maintenance setting, which amplifies quiet sections and tones down loud parts to give a more even overall volume. It's a good feature if you listen to classical works, saving you from turning up the volume during the quiet passages and then frantically turning it down again when the orchestra suddenly gives it some welly.

Of less use - though it's a lot of fun to play with - are the 'environmental' settings, which essentially combine pre-set equaliser settings with more or less echo. The idea is that you can listen to The Offspring thrashing away in your garage, your bathroom, stadium, a cathedral or one of seven other locations. Maybe it works if you've got a 7.1 system, but on a pair of earphones, the effect is less impressive. But it does at least provide a way to personalise the sound.

And the sound isn't at all bad. Creative's own earphones aren't as crisp as our iPod reference set, with a heavier, more wooden bass. But they yield a louder sound, making them more suitable for listening on the move. Creative has also thrown in a rather nice belt-clip holster. The device supports playlists, including a single on-the-fly "selected music" list. There's also a need track finder that allows you to perform a basic alphabetic search against album title, track name, genre, etc.

Zens have always been larger than iPods, but the Xtra is the smallest yet, coming in at 11.3 x 7.6 x 2.2cm and weighing 224g. The 40GB iPod is a lighter 176g and a more compact 10.4 x 6.1 x 1.9cm, but the Xtra is by no means bulky and smaller than most of personal stereos I carted around in the 1980s and 1990s.

Verdict

The Zen Xtra beats the iPod hands down on price per gigabyte: $6.67 to $12.48 for the top-end models; $7.5 to $13.3 for the mid-range version; and $9 to $19.93 for the low-end players. That, more than anything else, is what makes the Creative machine worthy of consideration.

That said, Mac users, of course, have little choice to go for the Apple player, and even Windows users who favour the iTunes Music Store's AAC audio format are not catered for by Creative. Just as the iPod provides no Windows Media support, of course.

I have to admit, I like my first-generation iPod better, for its looks, its size, the user interface and the sound quality, but you can't argue with those price/storage figures. If you feel good looks don't justify a lower music capacity and a higher price, the Zen Xtra has a lot of appeal - even if it's no looker. ®

Creative Jukebox Zen Xtra
Rating	75%
Pros	— High capacity — Low cost — Removable battery
Cons	— Unimpressive battery life — No Mac support
Price	60GB: $400/££349 - 40GB: $300 - 30GB: $270/£270
More info	The Zen Xtra web site (http://www.nomadworld.com/products/Jukebox_ZenXtra/)

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