Rock the house

By Basheera Khan, UK correspondent, ITWeb

Johannesburg, 17 Oct 2001

The Creative PlayDock PD200 speaker unit is a first in the portable audio output sector of the personal digital entertainment product market. As a means of allowing playback of MP3s in just about any situation without a reduction in sound quality, it comes up trumps.

The unit features a pair of main speakers set on either side of the centre-located dedicated bass speaker, which makes for a very balanced audio soundscape, and the rich, detailed response, with stereo and "wide" options, should suit the most discriminating audiophiles.

The PD200 comes with a standard rechargeable lead acid battery that ITWeb`s development team found really does last for the promised 10 hours on the low-output playback setting.

The package also includes what Creative terms a flexible rubber glove, to house the Creative Nomad Jukebox MP3 player when it is docked to the PD200. General consensus was that it resembles a gum guard which is easily dirtied, and appears flimsy to boot. The gum guard is only required to house the Nomad Jukebox, though, and with the right interconnect cables, pretty much any audio device can be hooked up to the PD200.

Buff up those muscles

A pleasant bonus: when connected to the PD200 and the docked Nomad Jukebox, the power adapter supplied is capable of recharging the batteries of both devices. Aesthetically speaking, the products look good, either when separate or when docked.

<B>Creative Nomad Jukebox MP3 player</B>

[SidebarPicture]Creative also supplied its Nomad Jukebox MP3 Player, for use with the PlayDock. I found the software supplied easy enough to install and use, although the CD-ROM autostart routine freaked me out a bit; I was in the middle of doing something quite critical, which was interrupted by the setup procedure. Perhaps I`m being harsh, as not all Creative users need handholding through a software installation.
Synching one`s MP3 libraries with the Nomad Jukebox libraries also proved problematic. Apart from taking a painfully long time to copy tracks over to the Nomad Jukebox memory, once the playlist has been compiled, there`s no scope to edit it on the fly.

A word of caution for female users; unless you`re into heavy lifting, this baby is going to be hard to carry over distances greater than a few metres. The combination of the sturdy metal frame housing an amplifier, three speakers and the built-in, rechargeable battery make up a weighty package of nearly 7kg.

However, at 233 mm x 277 mm x 261 mm (or two shoeboxes, stacked), the PlayDock PD200 is not too bulky in appearance. It is still significantly smaller than a party-size getto blaster but produces far superior sound with much better battery life into the bargain.

Rock the house

The Creative PlayDock PD200 turns an MP3 player into a classy ghetto blaster.