Customer Reviews

Creative Zen Stone Plus 2 GB MP3 Player with Built-in Speaker and Clip (Black)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I must say I am very happy with this little gadget with speaker. Initially, I don't hold much expectation with the built-in speaker. However, I immediately start to enjoy wearing it with the clip and letting the music spreading around. It brings music to the people nearby and we all enjoy it. It certainly breaks the psychological barrier and isolation usually created by wearing a earphone. The sound quality certainly is not the point when the speaker is used. On the other hand, you can always wear a earphone when you want to be alone. The music coming out of earphone is about as good as my other players.

Pros:
* Transparent file transfer (work as a USB mass storage device, big plus).
* Very light to wear and the clip is definite a plus.
* Speaker is much more useful than I thought.
* Quick charging
* Blue LED display looks nice and pretty visible in room light condition (not under the sun though)

Cons:
* The pearl color one looks a little cheap, but the elastic cover help some.
* The user interface is much inferior comparing to my previous Cowon's G3. For example,
-the menu will not circularly loop around. When you reach one end, you have to go back all the way to reach the 1st item.
- Files are not browsable. You can only select the folders that hold music files.
- No bookmark, no adjustable scanning speed, minimized info display.
- Could be more innovative with its speaker (adding MP3 alarm function will be one.)

However, with the surprising fun factor added by the speaker and with such affordable cost I still recommended it. Some reviewer mentioned "very" slow response in the web, but I don't feel it at all.

This review is for the Creative Zen Stone Plus 2GB with speaker mp3 player. I was originally going to give this product 4 of 5 stars (see below), but after the experience I just finished, even one star is too high. I bought my player 2 months ago, used it for about 3 weeks and was generally happy (with a few annoyances; see below), when all of sudden the player simply died while I was using it. Since the player was under warranty, I called Creative, and after being cut-off several times and having several frustrating conversations with "technical specialists", Creative agreed that my player was dead and that I should ship it back and get a replacement. So, I packed up my dead player, paid UPS about $6 to ship it back, and waited for my replacement. The replacement came in a few days, but what Creative sent me was a pair of wireless headphones, not a new mp3 player. So, I called Creative again, explained that they had sent me the wrong item, and requested that they send a new mp3 player and give me a shipping label to return their headphones to them. Now more than a month later, the new player still has not arrived, and Creative still has not sent me a shipping label to return the headphones. Creative claims that they cannot ship the new player until I return the headphones (even though my dead player arrived at their factory over a month ago), but they have not provided any means for me to return the headphones (and there's no way I'm going to pay to ship them back!). I have called them every day for the past 2 weeks, and no one can tell me why my shipping label hasn't appeared or why I can't get my replacement player in advance of shipping back the headphones that I never asked for. So, I spent $60 on an mp3 player, got to use it for a few weeks, and a month later, I still have nothing to show for it, not even a dead player to use as a paperweight.

My original review was going to give this player 4 of 5 stars. I selected this model over the Sansa Clip and a few others for the following reasons: 1) Mac OS compatible out of the box (mostly -- all the firmware upgrades must be done on a PC, but the player was recognized instantly by iTunes on my Mac the first time I plugged it in); it also can be used as a USB memory drive for non-music files. 2) support for .m4a files, which I have a lot of and which the Sansa won't play. 3) Stopwatch and FM tuner, which I thought would be great while I was out running.

My take on the product for the 3 weeks it worked: 1) The player worked fine. The sound was excellent (once I replaced the cheap earbuds it came with); volume was more than adequate; 5-band equalizer + bass boost worked well; navigating the menus was a bit clunky, requiring multiple button presses of different durations, but I got used to it after a few days of fiddling. 2) Music organization on the player was strange; there was no way to navigate by album, artist or composer -- only by song name. Songs can be grouped into folders and navigation done one folder at a time, but this must be done by hand (both while navigating and placing the music on the device). One nice touch was that songs could be deleted directly from the player without having to connect to the computer. 3) The FM radio worked poorly; reception even on strong stations was staticky, and weak stations didn't come in at all. 4) The display remained on in stopwatch mode, which drained the battery quickly. I found I got 15-16 hours of playback time w/o the stopwatch, and only about 10 hours with the stopwatch. The display brightness needed to be set to max to read it outdoors, even on an only moderately sunny day. 5) I never tried to use the voice recorder, so I can't comment on its effectiveness.

Summary: The Stone Plus player isn't bad if you can get one that works, but Creative's customer service is so poor that it's not worth the risk!

This little thing does so many things, it is incredible. But does it give you a good user experience? It depends. I can imagine a teen who has nimble fingers maneuvering over those little buttons and constantly changing menus, but I bought it for my dad who would like to listen to some recorded educational materials and to record certain lectures and messages. I searched all over to analyze the features and made sure this one does everything he needs, and some.

Well, I realized this isn't what my dad needs the moment I opened the box, and was certain about it within several minutes of using it. He will be frustrated beyond imagination by the constantly changing menu and tiny teeny buttons. In addition to the fact that everything is so small, the navigation menu is extremely confusing, not because of its poor logic or lack of logic, but because of the choice of multifunction multipurpose buttons that are made necessary because of the small size. You can never predict what the button does because not only does it depend on the context (meaning that what the button does depends on where you are at in the navigation system), it also depends on how long you hold it. Using this is almost like playing a game which requires your mind to be engaged with an enemy and predict your enemy's next move. And you enemy intends to defeat you, not to play with you. I got pretty good at that because I am used to this type of navigation and my mind intuitively follows the logic behind it. But not for anyone who is used to equipment on which a button does what its label says it does and nothing else.

Besides, the thing does not give you time to think. Whenever you hesitate just a little bit (say about 5 seconds of inaction), the screen goes off, and that changes the context of menu again. If during those 5 seconds you have been thinking hard what to do, whatever you have figured out has become invalid by this time. It is so fussy, using the thing is like having a conversation with somebody who is extremely impatient. And you can't change the behavior of the screen display. This is not the same as auto power-off feature, which you can adjust within the settings among multiple settings ranging from one minute to 15 minutes. The screen off is a fixed feature. It goes off in about 5-6 seconds (definitely less than 10 seconds) if you have not pushed a button. This is absolutely crazy. I can see the point of saving battery, but given how tiny the screen is, and with my fairly advanced knowledge of electronics, I'm pretty sure that increasing the screen-off time from the current less than 10 seconds to five minutes isn't going to cut the battery time by half. I would rather have something that needs to be charged twice as frequently but with a screen that can stay on for much longer and doesn't drive me crazy.

Manufacturers, listen, not everyone who may benefit from a modern digital audio player/recorder is a teenager or a gamer. Grow up please, at least design one product (among the hundreds) for someone like my dad.

I apologize for voicing such complaints that may seem strange to many of you who are used to this type of product designs. Also, I would be remiss if I don't balance my review by acknowledging its capabilities. If you don't mind its fussy "personality" of this little guy, he can be your very good friend because he can do many things, and does them very well. For example, one of the things that impressed me a lot is its ability to retain the playing location at the time you turn it off. It resumes from where you stopped it last time very reliably. I tried a variety of combinations of what you could do, but the MP3 player in this little gadget never failed to remember it's last position. This may sound strange to you, but this was one of the major frustrations I had with previous generations of MP3 players that were only suitable for listening to short music, but not anything longer like a lecture, a message or an audio book. In addition, despite its tiny size, the speaker is surprisingly loud. And the microphone and recorder aren't a gimmick. They aren't your high-quality audio recorder, but if you ever need to recod a live conversation or message, it does a quite decent job and will give you a clear recording as long as the speaker isn't too far away.

I am very happy with sound quality and versatility. It works just like a shuffle which is what I wanted.
What I am really impressed with is the durability. This player has been to 3 continents, suffered from rain, falls and heat. And most grueling, it just survived a full machine wash (pant pocket) and dry and still works perfectly.

I got over a year of hard use out of my Zen Nano Plus before it died. I was completely addicted to it. I have replaced it with a Stone Plus. It's the same basic Creative system, but there are several differences.

+ It's rechargeable (through USB or an extra-cost charger). no more fussing with AAA's.
+ A clock/calendar/stopwatch is included.
- The LCD display has been replaced by a "blue OLED" panel. It's bright and sharp, but it's not on all the time. It's completely useless outdoors. It's relatively small - a square disguised as a circle, for some reason. I liked the Nano Plus's always-on usable-outside rectangular LCD better, it showed more information.
- When the display is off, a button press is required to wake it up before doing anything. Want to pause? It's one button press if the display is on, two presses if it's off. Confusing.
- Menu navigation is a BIG step backward. Maybe they'll improve this with new firmware releases. Other Stone Plus reviewers have noted this. Menus do not wrap around from bottom to top. And with the narrower display, they reorganized the top menu. A press/release of the menu button takes you to one list of choices, and a press/hold takes you into the Options submenu. It's confusing but maybe I'll get used to it.
- The configurable "shortcut" button is a good idea, but the selections are very limited, and most are things I'll never use.
- Buttons are poorly labeled. My player is white and the button labels (stamped on the clear keypad) are almost invisible.

As much as I liked the Nano Plus, I did have a short "wish list". I'm sorry to see that none of them have been provided in the Stone Plus:
1. Display time remaining in a track. (OK, the Stone Plus has a little bar graph under the time display which gives you an idea of where you are in a track. Better than nothing, I guess. But it took me a month to discover this.)
2. A "Folder Once" play mode. This has always seemed like an obvious thing to have. You can shuffle a folder and repeat a folder, but you can't play a single album/folder, in order, one time.
3. The option to auto-delete tracks after they have played.
4. Better ff/review navigation. It takes _forever_ to advance several minutes in a long track.

In summary, this player is not an improvement for Creative. It's usable, but it could be much better.

My iPod doesn't allow me to transfer audio books downloaded from my library's website due to digital rights management. This is why I bought this additional MP3 player.

I like the price and form.

But for audio books, this is terrible. It has extremely limited bookmarking. If you turn it off, you can continue where you last left off. But if you switch to another track and then return to the audio book you lose your place. If you connect the Zen Stone to recharge, you also lose your place.

And in the event that you mentally remember the track and time where you last left off, it may take you minutes to get back there. By holding down the forward button, you can scan within a track, but it just jumps forward about 5 seconds for every second that you hold the button down. My old VCR has more advanced searching features than this. At least my VCR speeds up when I hold down the forward button.

Finally, if you intend to listen to this when attached to your car stereo, be very careful about the buttons. I accidentally switched it to play through it's built-in speaker instead of the car speaker by pressing the pause button on top of the MP3 player. It's a pause button ... why should it also switch to the built-in speaker?

UPDATE: If you accidentally leave this MP3 player in the car during a cold night, you will lose all battery power.

I own this zen for about 3 years and I'm really satisfied.

Advantages:

- Long battery life - couldn't imagine lasting that long after 3 years of use

-Ease of transferring your mp3s, no conversions etc. Just drag and drop

- Light and small, easy to carry

- Surprisingly good speaker. Works better in quiet places


Disadvantages:

- When you go over a folder in playlist, it inevitably changes the current song being played.

For start-to-finish-album lovers this isn't really a problem. If you are a shuffler that picks his songs, I'd recommend stay away from this product.

- Have to get used to the speaker turning on If you wear tight clothes or anything that can cause it being pressed. There is a lock option, but not a button

- Doesn't support flac. Download a converter

- Screen can not be seen well in sunlight, as with most devices I know

- Charges with computer, doesn't worth buying a charger. most spend a considerable amount of time on their pcs so it charges rather quick.

- Expect loud speaker but with a little lack of bass boost


Overall: Remained satisfied, because I really trust my tiny zen, it's cheap, lasts long, easy to drop files and carry it with you and can share music with friends with its built-in speaker.

I like the zen stone plus because it is perfect for the gym not to bulky, downloads music quickly, overall it does what you need if you don't want carrying your other bigger mp3, it is very small and compact.

Well, I've been using mine everday. Easy to use, simple pad and menus.
IT HAS A BUILT IN 5 band EQ!
It has a great Microphone to record onto the Stone's harddrive.
The built in speaker is the best part, and it cranks.
I ordered a black one and received a black one. If you go into the menu you will find a 'contrast' adjustment and can turn up brightness for outdoors. (although they could make it a bit brighter)
All in all, this was a great buy!!

I bought this last year for an extended trip. Wow, it work flawlessly and each time I used it I got about 12 hours of listening, yes I reduced my files. I paid a very low price because the product was being retired. I am still enjoying the unit. It has its flaws, but so do the most expensive players.