Don't skip this Stone

Author's Rating:

Pros: Stylish and inexpensive, good audio quality, unique "folder skip" feature

Cons: Middling battery life

The Bottom Line: 
A wonderful and inexpensive player for newbies, or those looking for a companion to their hard-drive players.

Author's Review
It's fairly remarkable that we've reached the point where a 1-GB mp3 player can reach the market at nearly an impulse-buy price ($40). What's even more remarkable about Creative's Zen Stone is the high quality of the product. Entering the market as a direct competitor with the iPod Shuffle, the Stone absolutely steals the show.

Like the Shuffle, the Stone is a no-frills player designed for short jogs, trips to the gym, and studying at the library. If you have an aux jack on your car stereo, it's spectacular for driving errands. It's 1-GB capacity is respectable for a player of its type... large enough to accomodate a decent track list, but not so large as to be cumbersome without a navigation screen. It's designed to churn out songs from a pre-arranged track list, when choosing specific artists and songs isn't a priority. And in this limited function, it performs precisely as it should.

Audio:

The Stone's audio quality is just fine to my untrained ears, even when piped into my car stereo and played at high volume. There's no noticable distortion or artifact, and the songs load up instantly (once you get past the odd 10-second delay when turning it on).

The Stone offers more options than most similar players in controlling what music is played. Songs can be played in order (which seems to be based on file name, in numerical/alphabetical order), or can be set to shuffle with a sliding switch along the spine of the unit.

This switch also provides an extra degree of control with its "Folder Skip" function. If your tracks are stored in folders on the device, you can jump from folder to folder. This is a nice option which provides at least some measure of choice in deciding what music you want to hear.

File Transfer and Connectivity:

Getting music onto the Stone couldn't be any simpler. It connects to a USB port using a standard mini-USB jack. If you don't already have 62 of these cables lying around, the Stone is packaged with a very short (like, three inches) one. Useful if you have front-mounted ports or an easily accessible USB hub, but not if you need to reach around back.

Once connected, you can drag-and-drop files to the device, just like any thumbdrive. The Stone doesn't discriminate... you can store any type of file that will fit, and in that sense, the device can effectively be used as a thumbdrive, which is a nice touch.

Alternately, you can use software like Windows Media Player or Creative's own media software to synchronize the device with your music collection. This option, however, strips you of your ablility to put tracks in separate folders on the device, rendering the "folder skip" function useless.

File transfer seemed a bit sluggish to me, but not unacceptably so. It might take 10 minutes to fill the full Gigabyte from scratch. The device also charges via USB, and Creative sells a separate USB power adapter which lets you charge the Stone wihtout access to your computer.

Style:

The Stone is a slick little device, which well resembles its name. It looks like a well-polished river rock, and if not for being near weightless, feels like one too. It's remarkably tiny, but large enough that it feels comfortable to hold and control. I picked up the jet black version, and it's handily one of the sleekest devices I own.

Flaws:

The Stone isn't without annoyances, however minor they might be.

The battery life (which I haven't tested) is supposedly around 8 hours. It's not terrible, but a few extra hours would be nice.

Unlike the iPod Shuffle, the Stone has no built-in clip. It has a small handle in one end to attach a lanyard. Otherwise, you'll need to purchase aftermarket accessories to add clips or straps (Creative sells both for around $15 each).

The lack of screen could be a problem for some, but this small-capacity player wasn't really intended for anything other than shuffling a set playlist.

The packaged earbuds are a bit weak, but that's par-for-the-course, really. These things never come with high-quality buds.

Creative recently announced the impending release of the Stone Plus, which will offer increased capacity and a small monochrome screen. This might understandably irk early adopters of the Stone. Those who want those features are best off waiting, or looking into the Sansa Express.

With the exception of the battery life, none of these are really flaws... they're things that might just indicate you're looking for a different type of mp3 player.

Verdict:

The Stone is a fine player, particularly at its remarkably low price point. It has quickly become a wonderful companion to my Zen Vision M, and has been almost perpetually by my side since I purchased it. It's ideal for those who are just wading into the world of digital music, or who are looking for an inexpensive companion device to their primary hard-drive player.

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