One of our forum moderators, Captain Ødegård, is quite crafty when it comes to woodworking. He claims he has more wood tools than I have MP3 players, but one of these days we will have to settle the score.

Honed out of pine and burned with a hot knife-- his latest creation is a giant Creative Zen Stone measures 8.25 x 5.5 x 2 inches. The internal components aren’t the real Zen components since the Stone is relatively expensive in Norway. However, this wooded Stone still does pack in 4 times the memory with 4GB of memory stored on an SD memory card.

Photos and video of the wooded Stone in action below…

Shortly after Creative released its screenless Shuffle competitor, the Zen Stone, they upped the ante and released the Zen Stone Plus. For around thirty dollars more, the Stone Plus added a screen and a few fairly standard MP3 player features such as an FM radio, voice recording, and a stopwatch.

The Plus has some good things going for it such as a nice build quality, decent sound quality, and a nice set of features for the price. When comes down to it however, the Stone Plus is a bit of a disappointment—due mainly to its awkward interface and basic music browsing techniques.

Just shortly after the release of the Zen Stone, Creative has announced the Zen Stone Plus, which turns out to sport nearly the same form factor but adds a display and a slew of other new though relatively typical features. The screen is a blue OLED screen that helps it achieve a 9.5-hour battery time. Additionally you will get an FM radio, a stopwatch, and voice recorder. You can also listen to your voice over a music track to make your own karaoke. The good news to all you UMS/MSC fans is that like the Zen Stone, the Zen Stone Plus will be drag and drop for any OS.

The ZSP goes on sale soon in Singapore for S$99 but will likely drop in the US, possibly hitting the $70 USD mark for the 2GB capacity. Stay tuned for more coverage; however, I make no promises that I'll be able to keep it in one piece.

[Product Page | Press Release]

Creative dropped the Zen Stone seemingly out of nowhere to compete head-on with the iPod Shuffle, doing so at half the price with more to offer. Creative’s screenless player is a very basic offering - only audio playback and data storage. However, the player does step out of the current Zen lineup feature set by offering up true MSC drag and drop, catering to all operating systems.

The Zen Stone makes a great secondary player to your audio arsenal, handy for the gym or any place you need a simple, truly portable music solution.

Read on for a look at all the features Creative has managed to pack into this player, as well as a peek at the Stone’s insides, disassembled for all to see.

Obviously a belated answer to the iPod Shuffle, Creative today unveiled its own lineup of colorful and screenless 1GB flash players. Named the Zen Stone, the 2.1" x 1.4" x 0.5" player is equipped with a standard 3.5mm headphone jack and mini USB port and is also UMS-compliant, making transferring your favorite MP3, WMA, WMA-DRM9 tracks as easy as drag and drop.

Scheduled for release on May 14th, the black, red, pink, blue, yellow, and white Stones will be priced at an incredibly affordable $40.

[Product Page | Press Release via epiZENter]