Portable MP3 / Audio Players

Creative Zen Stone Plus

By admin ⋅ September 18, 2007 ⋅  Send this to a friend.. ⋅  Print this article. ⋅ Post a comment ⋅ Add to Technorati Favorites

If you can’t work out that Creative’s latest micro-sized MP3 player is aimed at giving Apple’s Shuffle a well-aimed kick up the rear end, you need glasses, because it’s about as obvious as it gets.

In fact Creative seems to have taken a checklist of the Shuffle’s specifications and gone through each feature in turn, making sure it improved on each and every one. The Zen Stone Plus is smaller and lighter than the Shuffle. About the size of a small pebble, and a similar shape, it’ll fit and disappear into any pocket without you noticing it’s there. It’s so tiny and light you might risk missing it when putting shirts and trousers into the wash – so be careful.

At 2GB it has twice as much memory as the Shuffle – enough for around 500 MP3 tracks at 128kbit/sec. It has a microphone (the Shuffle doesn’t), so you can use it as an impromptu Dictaphone. It has a standard mini-USB connection, so you don’t have to carry the daft little docking station around with you as you do with the Shuffle, and with the stubby USB cable that comes in the box, you can simply drag-and-drop music files to it, rather than being force to use proprietary software.
It has an FM tuner built in and even a stopwatch. And the Zen Stone Plus is also cheaper than its aluminum-clad rival too. Though the price typically comes in around 50 quid - the same ball park as Apple’s diminutive clip-on player – you can get one for as little as £39.

But perhaps the most obvious improvement over the Shuffle is that it has a screen. Next to the d-pad control sits a tiny circular, blue and black monochrome OLED display, 19mm in diameter. It allows you to see what’s playing, browse music and change settings while you’re away from your PC. It’s undoubtedly a better overall package, on paper, than the Shuffle, but does throwing extra features at such a simple concept actually make a better product?

Alas, not in the case of the screen. While it’s good to know what track you’re listening to, the screen doesn’t actually add that much in terms of navigation and browsability. There are two main problems with it. First, the display only shows the track name, not the artist nor the album title.

But this pales into insignificance next to the second handicap, which is that you can’t actually browse the music on the player freely while listening to music. Try switching albums in the music browser mode and the player instantly starts playing from the new folder. Try looking at what’s coming up and it does the same thing. It makes you wonder why Creative bothered putting a screen on the thing in the first place.

You can even pamper and protect your player with the attractive ZEN Stone plus Key chain Case or the colorful ZEN Stone plus Skin with Clip. All these and more are yours to choose from the ZEN Stone Plus accessories range.

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