Creative Lab's Nomad Muvo TX - Best of the micro MP3 players
by Andrew Ku on May 27, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
Final Words
The Muvo TX is definitely unique among the flash-based MP3 players. The fact that it has USB 2.0 support already puts it above most of the pack, and its ability to swap AAA batteries puts it further ahead, making it an awesome choice as a cross between a flash drive and MP3 player. However, the price tags alone (Muvo TX 512MB - $249.99, Muvo TX 256MB - $179.99, Muvo TX 128MB - $119.99) should make you reconsider the "why" portion of your purchase.For those looking for a pure MP3 player, we would instead recommend a mini iPod or a Muvo2. Dollar for dollar, a mini iPod ($249.99) and Muvo2 ($199.99) is, by far, a better buy than a Muvo TX 512MB.
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A Muvo TX is more for someone who needs a higher performance flash drive to transfer files as much as the ability to listen to MP3s. In that context, we find the Muvo TX to be the best engineered flash-based MP3 player on the market, and thus, it wins our Editor's Choice Silver Award. We have heard complaints about the small size of the controls and LCD screen, but we don't see any other way to maintain the Muvo TX's incredibly small profile. Increasing either of the two would increase the overall size, and make the Muvo TX not so desirable. As it is, the LCD and the controls for the unit are in excellent proportion to the MP3 player. |
For its size, it has incredibly crisp sound; not exactly iPod quality, but nevertheless, crisp. And with a long battery life of roughly 10 hours on a single alkaline AAA battery (depends on brand and type) and coupled with the swappable ability, it is our favorite MP3 player of its class. The only significant issues we have in so far with the Muvo TX are the price tag and its bundled pair of headphones. In the future, we would like to see a decent pair of headphones bundled with the Muvo TX because having to dish out another $30+ for a good pair seems to be a waste after spending so much on a good MP3 player.
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RJB2005 - Friday, April 15, 2005 - link
I regretted buying the creative nomad tx after only one day of use. I'm a low end user in all respects, but despite this I can by no means escape being SO MUCH annoyed by the poor sound quality of the player. It just seems unable to "cover" all the instruments in a track, and is really unable to NOT get oversteered when I play my language course tapes on it. Even with good earbuds (ipod). I bought an ipod mini to overcome my trauma.... of which the sound quality is impressive. Stick to my advice: JUST DON'T BUY IT !XRaider - Saturday, May 29, 2004 - link
Yea, it would be nice if they had an iRiver to test. Also, get a whole bunch of diff MP3 flash players and test them all at once... and put battery life results in the tests too.WizzBall - Friday, May 28, 2004 - link
What can I say... I just hope that this is not your sound expert here at Anandtech o.Odilmonen - Friday, May 28, 2004 - link
man, this thing was great, but suddenly came up with a "disk partition error" and i had to go to creative to get a firmware upgrade to 'resolve' the issue by reformatting the whole thing.i even did all the 'eject hardware' first like it states. my wife has the nx 256mb and we've not had any problems with it at all. the tx got the file glitch and apparently creative knows about it.
Lurks - Friday, May 28, 2004 - link
Claiming that it's the best on the market assumes that you've seen all the products on the market. I find from reading this peice that it's pretty clear the author hasn't seen a fraction of the amazing flash-based MP3-player products that have come out of Korea recently.As for the claim that the Muvo is geared towards people who need a flash drive as much as an mp3 player. That is, with all due respect, complete nonsense.
Further more it's seriously annoying seeing nonsense subjective sound comparisons such as 'crisp but not as crisp as the ipod'.
If you actually measure distortion out of an ipod, you'll find it's near the bottom end of sound quality of current generation mp3 players. But hey, it's chrome and looks sexy, it must sound good right?
AndrewKu - Thursday, May 27, 2004 - link
#9 - That was a great product, I have to admit. But it is in a totally different market. That was more for the MP3 market. The Muvo is geared toward the crossover between flash drives and MP3 market, for people who need one as much as the other.RDaneel - Thursday, May 27, 2004 - link
I don't see how anyone can get excited about this Muvo player when the Panasonic SV-SD75/80 was doing everything but the USB interface years ago - and is much smaller!The SV-SD80 is smaller than even the Muvo, and even if you want to use the hard carry case (which adds a AAA battery as well) it is tiny. It has over 50 hours of playback in that form, and uses SD cards, which are less convenient than the built in memory, but are at least updradeable.
The Muvo is neat, but the Panny was doing it better in 2002!
AndrewKu - Thursday, May 27, 2004 - link
#6 The Muvo TX holds the USB drive very snuggly into the battery module. As you can tell from the pictures, there is a grove on the drive that gives it additional security. We field tested it, it did very well.gherald - Thursday, May 27, 2004 - link
I have a 256mb Muvo NX and it's awesome. I now regret not waiting for the "hi-speed USB 2.0" TX model, but such is life.Anyway, it's an awesome player for the size and the controls are great.
I got 4 AAA rechageable batteries from RadioShack that recharge in 15(!!) minutes, which is just incredible. So 15 minutes of charge time for about 7-8 hours of music per battery... wow.
Warder45 - Thursday, May 27, 2004 - link
4- Interesting, I never knew about the voltage differences. I wonder why there is a change?5- agreed, the brand new iRivers have ogg support. I'm crossing my fingers a firmware upgrade will allow my older model to gain ogg support. I wish anandtech would review one of those, as they are making some pretty high battery life claims.
Another reason I don't like the Muvo's is that I've been told repeatedly that the clip holding the USB part to the rest of the unit wears out rather quick. And I don't want to be jogging and have the unit come apart on me.