Creative Zen Stone Plus Speaker Review
The Zen Stone and Stone Plus was successful when first released in terms of price and features- giving them an edge over the iPod Shuffle. Since then the Sansa Clip and the price cut of the Shuffle have given the Stones more noticeable competition, so it was a pretty good move by Creative when they recently upgraded both Stones to new versions with better battery and an integrated speaker.
The upgrade is noticeable, but not all of the previous model's flaws have been fixed. The menus are still slow, and the music browsing hasn't been improved. Read on to see if the new features make up for the bad.
- Quick Look
- Size: 35.7 x 55.6 x 17.5 mm
- Capacities: 2GB, 4GB
- Screen: 64x64 pixel Blue OLED Display
- Audio: MP3, WMA, AAC
- Battery: 20 hours audio
Accessories
Considering Creative left the price tag of the players untouched when they upgraded the features it's impressive to see that they also upgraded the included accessories free of charge. Beside the standard earbuds, USB cable, and instructions, there's a silicon skin and a removable clip for the skin. This is without doubt to put it closer to the Shuffle and Clip and considering the skins for the old models sold for $10-20 it's a very nice addition. The silicon skin is of good quality and fits the player well, with openings for both USB cable and the speaker.
Design
The design is basically the same as the old model, but with some improvements. The player is still as sturdy and well built as it's predecessor, but the glossy surface has been replaced with a matte finish everywhere but the front buttons. Considering how many finger prints and scratches the old model contracted, this is a welcomed change.
The bigger battery and speaker naturally take up some room, so the speaker model is considerably thicker than both it's predecessor and it's competitors. This gives somewhat of a bulky feeling, but the player is still incredibly small considering.
The buttons are the same as the old model, and that's fine seeing they are easy to push and logically placed. However this also means there is still no hold button, so you're still stuck to using the menus if you want to put the player on hold. The buttons don't easily press just from having the player in your pocket, but a hold button would still be preferable.
Transferring Media
The Stone Plus Speaker is MSC, which means it will work on any OS and mount as a removable drive. Music is added by simply copying files and folders onto the device, and you can use it as a storage disk for other files as well. The transfer is incredibly slow with about 1-2MB/s, meaning it will take a while to fill the entire player.
Software
The Creative Media Lite software is included with the Speaker version as it was with the old model, located in a folder called "starter pack" on the root of the player. The software isn't really necessary for normal use, and transferring content is much easier with drag and drop rather than installing a program to do it.
There are however some features that require the software. Volume limiting, transferring protected media and updating the firmware requires using Creative Media Lite. The program will also rip music, but with no quality control or options whatsoever it's a very crude method. It's recommended to use dedicated software for CD ripping, such as the free program EAC.
Interface
One of the biggest drawbacks of the previous Stone Plus was the laggy, hard to use interface. Unfortunately not all of this has been fixed in the new version. The menu is faster and doesn't have the up to 1 second lag that it's predecessor had, but it still isn't as fast as it should be. Moving up and down in the menu - and especially the folder browsing - causes noticeable lag.
The interface itself is the same as the old Stone Plus, with the exception of the now included speaker options. Most of the navigation is handled with the directional pad on the front, along with the center button which works both as select and to open menus.
The interface is everything but intuitive, and even after using the player for a while you'll end up pressing the wrong buttons. One particular annoyance for me is that I keep pressing the middle button to pause. This brings up the menu and to get back to music playback you either have to scroll through the menu to get to "cancel", or press the music icon in the menu - which brings you back to "now playing" but also pauses the music for some reason. The issue of scrolling to "cancel" every time you're in a menu and want to get out gets annoying and a dedicated home buttons like the Sansa Clip has would be a welcomed addition.
Last on the list of annoyances is the shortcut button. Creative didn't find room for a home button or a hold button, but somehow thought that a dedicated programmable shortcut button would be a good idea. The shortcut button can be tied to any of the modes (music, radio, clock etc) to quickly jump to one. This button was in my opinion totally pointless on the previous model of the Stone plus, as you don't switch modes so often that you can't just spend to extra seconds going through the menus. On the speaker model the shortcut button is more useful, as it can be used as an on/off button for the speaker. I would have preferred this to be on the options menu that pops up when you hold down the middle button for second, as the shortcut button is a little too easy to press accidentally.
Audio
Playback
Playback settings are pretty standard and straight forward. You have Repeat Track, Repeat Folder and Repeat All for repeat modes, along with Track Once for playing the song then stopping. Shuffle modes include Shuffle Repeat, Shuffle Once, and Shuffle Folder.
The shuffle modes work by making a shuffled playlist and then playing it, meaning that if you skip tracks you will get the same order of songs and not a newly shuffled one for each time. Some people prefer this, while others prefer randomizing the songs for each time you skip songs - like on the Sansa Clip.
In the playback menu you will also have the option to delete the currently playing song from the player. This works only with single songs at a time, and you cannot delete folders.
Music Browsing
This was one of the biggest annoyances of the previous model, and unfortunately it hasn't been changed with the Speaker model. Browsing music is strictly by folder, meaning you can't browse individual files other than skipping songs while playing. This of course also means there is no id3 browsing, so you can't browse by album/artist etc.
Folder browsing is accessed from the playback menu and only folders containing music is listed. All folders are listed in one list, so sub folders and main folders are treated alike. Folders that don't contain music aren't listed.
Why Creative did this in the first place is one thing, but a better question is why they didn't fix it in the new model - seeing this was such a drawback of the old model. Something as simple as a file browser - or lack there of - brings down the overall usability of the player substantially. Skipping track's isn't the fastest thing on any player, so with that as only method of getting to individual files you can give up having folders with many songs on the Stone Plus Speaker.
Sound Quality
Creative is known to have average to above average sound quality without ever reaching up to the best sounding players out there. This is also the case of the Zen Stone Plus Speaker.
The sound quality is good enough for most people using stock ear buds or cheap/mid level headphones, but won't do the trick for those who require absolute perfection. The sound stage is not as good as many other players and the less than stellar channel separation means that the sound lacks some detail and clarity. This is however something most people won't even be aware of, and without a direct comparison the sound quality is more than satisfactory.
The equalizer is another matter. It sounds hollow and especially the lower frequencies suffer from sounding muddy and bloated. Bad equalizers seem to be a trend with small players like this, as the Sansa Clip suffers from the same problem. Again the effect of this may vary with the headphones you are using and equalizer is better than no equalizer.
Speaker
The speaker is by far the most pleasant surprise with the new model. From seeing how small the Stone Plus Speaker is, it's natural to think the speaker is more of a gimmick than anything else. This is not the case. The speaker is surprisingly loud, enough so that it can be used in many situations. You can easily provide a small room with sound form the little thing and that opens up for using the thing in social situations. Wearing the player in a lanyard is also an option. Since the speaker can be turned on manually even with the headphones in, that means the radio can be played through the speakers. I imagine this would be a nice feature for older people who don't like headphones but would still like a piece of new technology.
Sound quality is what you can expect from a speaker this small. There is no bass whatsoever, but it's still not as bad as many cell phone speakers which sound awfully tinny. If you're looking for a player that will really double as a stereo system the Samsung S5 might be a better choice, but the sound is definitely enough for situations where the point is sound rather than sound quality.
With the speaker being as useful as it is, I'm disappointed Creative didn't make more of it. If they had included features such as an alarm clock and real audio book support with bookmarking etc, the player would have gotten so many new followers. I listened to a few radio casts with the speakers and for such use the speaker is excellent, if only it had supported bookmarks.
Features
FM Radio
The FM radio is pretty basic, and supports auto scan and presets along with manual search. The auto scan was pretty much useless where I live as the stations it saved were pretty much just static and not real channels. Manual search is better, and you should be able to pick up stations. The downside is that the receiver is very weak, and all channels i tuned into had noticeable static. Even the Cowon D2's FM receiver is stronger, and that is known to be weak as well. Sound quality of the radio was a pleasant surprise, as it sounded very nice compared to other players' tuners. This of course doesn't help much if you can't get decent reception, but if you do you can really enjoy it.
Voice Recording
The voice recorder of the old Stone Plus was very weak, and that is true also with that of the Stone Plus Speaker. That is particularly disappointing with the new version seeing that the speaker would make the voice recording feature more useful than on other players. After trying the recorder in a lecture however I found that there is no way it can be used with the speaker (or headphones for that matter) without first going through a volume boost, as the lecturer's voice was very low and difficult to hear even if he wasn't standing that far from the microphone.
Stop Watch
The stopwatch is meant as a nice addition for people who use the player for work outs. On the first Stone Plus the stop watch was totally useless while playing back music because it would lag and not react properly to button pressing, but luckily this has been fixed in the Stone Plus Speaker. Start and stop is handled by the play button, while resetting is done from the menu. A friend of mine who is a semi pro runner pointed out that there is no option for round times which means it's not a proper solution for everyone, but it's still nice to have around.
Conclusion
I had my hopes up when i heard that the Stone Plus was getting an upgrade, especially since I ruled against it in the Stone Plus vs Sansa Clip showdown. I was hoping that Creative would fix all the flaws in the previous model and really make the player a good alternative to the Clip, but unfortunately they did not.
First of all, the music browsing should have been fixed, and it wasn't. There is absolutely no excuse for this as it remains the single biggest flaw of the player. The interface is still sluggish, but at least not as bad as it used to be. I had hoped they would make the interface more user friendly, but instead it's just a faster version of the same interface.
The new matte finish is a nice change, and it really looks very nice. Even if the player is thicker that doesn't limit it in any way and the space is well used. The bigger battery gives the player 20 hours of music playback and that is really noticeable. Even with using the menu a lot and the speaker for tests and listening to radio casts, I got over 10 hours on a charge. The speaker drains a lot of power, so that isn't bad in any way.
The speaker is of course the biggest of the new features and it really isn't only a novelty. If you listen to radio casts or want a extremely portable way of playing music for your friends, by all means go for this player. Despite it's shortcomings, it has a lot of features, excellent battery life, a nice set of included accessories and a speaker that is useful. I would have liked more speaker related features, but i guess you can't get everything.
Pros
- Speaker is both loud and useful
- Excellent battery life
- Nice set of included accessories
- Lots of features for the price
- MSC
Cons
- Menus are still slow and awkward
- Weak radio reception
- Lacks more speaker related features
- Volume scale would be better with more steps
- Equalizer is poor
Comments
The Little Guy on April 9, 2008 9:56 AM
I'm not fond of the screen being on the left side; I'd rather have it above the buttons.
Ash on April 9, 2008 5:21 PM
Whoa! It needs a gym membership!
At any rate, the Clip is king. End of.
Vogels on April 10, 2008 2:38 PM
I have had the Zen Stone Plus first generation for a while and suffered from the massive UI lag. After experimenting I finally found the reason behind the lag.
Just to enlist the things I tried to make the lag go away:
- reflash the firmware, since there was no newer version available at the time
- encode all the songs on my Stone to 128kbps at constant bitrate (CBR)
- ...
Finally I found what was the problem: I had bass boost enabled. I eventually noticed the lag comes from any equaliser customization, be it because of the bass boost or because of setting the equaliser to something other than "normal" setting.
When I disabled any equaliser shizzle, my player's UI finally got doable in responsiveness. Not the all smooth responsiveness that should be expected, but at least I wouldn't to wait some seconds every time I pushed a button. A real relevation.
May this be advice to every 1st gen Stone Plus owner out there - and to AIB here aswell, since they just complain about the problem but don't pose any solution to it.
Vogels on April 10, 2008 2:41 PM
@ The Little Guy on April 9, 2008 9:56 AM
It is possible to flip the screen so that the screen is on the right side of the buttons. Probably done for left handed people, because with the buttons on the right side of the screen, it is surely focussed on being used by right handed people.
kururu@hk on April 24, 2008 11:54 PM
I bought the Creative Zen Stone Plus w/speaker 2GB few days ago. I STRONGLY recommend people if you do concern about the radio reception, please forget this mp3, I am totally KO by this ZEN+ 's WEAK FM.
Jazz on May 6, 2008 6:45 AM
I have a problem with my Zen Stone Plus with built-in speaker, apparently the screen doesn't work anymore. The sound still works, but without the screen, it's impossible to even tell if it's on or off.
I've tried resetting and formatting it, and it's only 2 weeks old. HELP!
Laughing Man on May 17, 2008 4:30 AM
@jazz u should take it to Creative retail store near you. I Got creative Zen V Plus and after 11 months the screen suddenly didn't work correctly (there's a horizontal black dead screen), Creative exchange my old zen v plus with new one at no cost at all
whitfit on May 24, 2008 12:29 PM
I bought this for travel, and the ability to add podcasts from any computer I come across and charge from my phone charger. It works well for this purpose, but the skin and clip aren't very secure, which is a little disappointing. The interface and navigation are a little clumsy, but liveable, and with the advantages it has (cheap, easy to load from any computer, small, decent battery life) it fits the bill for me.
Moni on May 27, 2008 7:56 AM
Well seeing that I like creative products(I got the vision m) I figured I buy the Zen Stone for when I go to the gym. The only thing I could say if I didn't throw out the receipt by mistake I would have taken it back. I never had so much problems with a device in my life. The software wouldn't load, I couldn't transfer music and it freezes. After re-downloading the software and firmware, it finally started "working". I could get songs on it now, but only a few at a time, then it freezes and I have to restart it to add more songs. If I didn't have problems with iTunes I probably would have bought the ipod shuffle instead of the Stone.
Steve on June 2, 2008 3:00 PM
How is the clip on the skin for this version? I have broken two clips in VERY LIMITED usage on the original Zen Stone.
Since I bought it for the clip, I was very disappointed.
Now I own a Sansa Clip. Much better clip, and probably a better player too.
Steve
Car on June 10, 2008 1:14 PM
The fact that i can't browse individual files really pisses me off(What the hell is the reason for that?), but other than that i guess my Stone+ is good.I chose it only because it has built in speakers( I'm always breaking my headphones) and because it's cute. I still prefer Sansa though...
Car on June 10, 2008 1:17 PM
The fact that i can't browse individual files really pisses me off(What the hell is the reason for that?), but other than that i guess my Stone+ is good.I chose it only because it has built in speakers( I'm always breaking my headphones) and because it's cute. I still prefer Sansa though...
velenia on September 6, 2008 1:03 PM
can you tell me if the battery in the stone plus speaker lasts longer than the battery in the clip? thanks.
Keith on October 6, 2008 1:34 AM
i recently purchased the stone 2gb w/speakers.. after using it regularly for about 2 weeks it doesnt work anymore i had already tried to reseting it but doesnt work either.... i plugged it in my computer but i cant access it anymore.. i tried charging it hoping that it would work but it didn't.. what shall i do?.. can anybody help me?... i really miss mah playa... thanks...
Craftworth on October 28, 2008 12:50 PM
Why EQ is poor? It's much poor in Sansa Clip.
shana wiggins on November 9, 2008 6:31 PM
how can i get the installion disk to work on my windows xp
sww on November 28, 2008 12:28 PM
I just got this player, and the speaker is very nice, I have to agree. BUT I didn't read this review before and I wish I had...
For a 4GB version that I have, it's EXTREMELY painful to navigate between the menus, and, you didn't mention this, but it starts AUTOPLAYING each folder as soon as you select, causing a. big delay, b. making the screen useless, because you can't do any pre-selecting anyway. Anyway, I asked the seller for a replacement with the Sandisk Sansa Clip because of it (well not all because it :-))
Did I mentions that speaker was neat?
DC on January 16, 2009 11:47 PM
The ZEN STONE (not PLUS) speaker is a real boon to my life. I loaded MyPodder software; now it updates podcasts automatically when ever I attach to any computer.
I need to have 'talk' radio playing when I sleep. But - what I really needed was a PILLOW SPEAKER for when we're traveling. Pop this guy under my pillow and I'm off to dreamland.
nobo on February 9, 2009 4:18 PM
Worked fine for 6 mos, then died.
parakeetazz on March 16, 2009 4:21 PM
I got mine about 4 weeks ago or so and I have been having several different issues with it. For some reason there is a static charge or something going either from the player to the headphones or just the headphones and slightly zapping my ears, the second thing which just happened now is it crackled and died and when I restarted it, it was playing a whole different song like it got a case of the dumbs. I was folding my laundry at the time so I dont know if the dryer had anything to do with it or not. I am not very bright about electronics I guess.lol. Has anyone else had these problems? I really like the product I just dont like the problems.
punteruk on March 27, 2009 3:51 PM
Something not mentioned in the review is that this player supports AAC without Apple's DRM. This is why I bought it, since I have a large library of AAC songs for my bigger ipod, and want to use this for workouts. I managed to break 3 shuffles and I'm looking for something with a bit more quality.
It does not play nice with Vista 64 bit. Waiting for some support on that. But I had my library on an old XP machine and was able to drag and drop from itunes to explorer.
Nice player so far, except for the Vista interface issues. I agree the radio is crap in the suburbs.