[kevstev]

I had a Creative Nomad, which I bought around the end of 2003 and I was scoffed at by Ipod owners at how big it was.

Doing a little digging, this was the model: https://www.cnet.com/reviews/creative-nomad-jukebox-zen-xtra... 4.4 x 3 x .86" bigger than the original Sony Walkman. It had much larger capacities and was outside the Apple ecosystem, which was an absolute feature at the time. Itunes was horrid.

USB Speeds weren't that big of a factor, though YMMV depending on the user. With the larger capacities of HD based players, you loaded once, which took some time, and then topped up with new additions which was not a big deal. My particular Nomad model had USB 2.0 though