Customer Reviews
Cool 
2008-04-21
I Love, Love,Love it. Anyone could set it up. Sound is great. Radio picks up everything.Mic works well.Its Fun! Everyone asks about it and wants to check it out. I got cover w/ clip. So you can put it anyplace. GREAT ITEM!
Creative Zen Stone Plus 
2008-04-08
Creative Zen Stone Plus 2 GB MP3 Player (Black)
This is a good product worth its price
good product but with limitations 
2008-04-05
This is my first MP3 Player. The first point is that the unit is small, probably just a bit larger than a Nano, but it requires good eyesight to read the screen and nimble fingers to operate the buttons, but it is handy for carrying around. Navigation between the functions is not very intuitive and takes some experimenting to figure out the interplay between the front and top buttons. Once you do, the player functions well, MP3 playback sound quality is excellent, output strength enough to drive full sized earphones, FM tuner sensitivity is decent but not great, same with the voice record function. The screen, though tiny, is useful in navigating between files and folders, probably an advantage over a Nano. The only drawback in the playback function is the fast forward/back within a particular file, like an NPR "All Songs Considered" podcast, is slow. The included syncronization software is adequate and works well. I have not tried to use it with I-Tunes, only with the Juice Podcast management program. It does not recognize or play the newer MP4 format files. My Macintosh computers running OS9 and OS X 10.3.9 also would not recognize the unit as an external drive.
Overall, I am satisfied with it and believe it is a good value in a lower price MP3 Player.
Bad News! 
2008-03-30
I thought that the size and the capacity was impressive. But it has to work! It started one time and never again!Needless to say,it was defective.
Have a good day!
Creative Zen Stone Plus - Good and Bad 2008-03-29
After using a bargain bin RCA MP3 player for nearly a year, and upgrading earbuds to something that actually plays bass frequencies, I decided that I needed a player that can put out better sound.
Then, after searching around for a brand that combines good value and good sound quality, I came across "Creative" who makes audio-related products (PC soundcards, Speaker systems, media players etc) and actually care about decent sound quality. The majority of their players didn't seem to make that big of a deal out of 'flashiness', using simplistic LED type displays instead of fancy 16 million color LCD screens, even in mid-high end players.
Since I didn't need to watch movies or view pictures, but still liked the idea of seeing what song is playing/about to play, the creative zen stone PLUS with it's OLED screen seemed a perfect fit and had an extra gigabyte of storage for more music. Convinced this was the player for me, I got it.
I used to own an iPod 2G Shuffle, but despite it being a magical Apple product, and actually having METAL used in it's construction (a big plus for me, I like metal-any type of metal at all- a lot more than the cheap plastic used in 99% of electronics these days), I didn't like how I could always hear a some distortion/nastiness on loud drum hits, etc and "hissing" through the headphones made by the player itself which ruined the quiet parts of some songs for me. I ended up selling it for the same price I bought it for (it was used and most likely stolen) to buy a new player.
So after using the Zen Stone Plus a few months I think its a great player that does it's job decently.
Pros:
*Greatest sounding MP3 player I've used to date, I think my current earbuds are the only thing holding back better sound now
*Charges fast, if its charging really slow the USB slot you're using probably isn't putting out very much voltage for some reason
*No "hissing" or noises made by the player (fits in with sound quality)
*Decent volume for something so small
*You can browse through menus and change options while your music plays
*OK menu-navigation speed
*No software required...you can save any kind of file onto it and use it like a 2 gig flash drive.
*Loads the next song very fast, no delay like on some players.
*Great OLED screen, very clear with many options for brightness, backlight, contrast, etc
*Lots of features like microphone, FM radio (with stereo), timer, clock that the iPod shuffle doesn't have.
Its a nice player that I'm satisfied with, but of course there are some things that make it a little bit less than 100% perfect:
Cons:
*Battery goes dead/almost dead after about a week without being used, even after being charged to 100% and with the "clock" option turned off which would probably make this problem even worse. If Li-On batteries (the kind of battery in this player) are at 0% for too long it will have a very bad effect and they will never again hold charge as well as they did new, and if the battery goes bad you have to buy a whole new player.
*Mine lost alot of it's shinyness after only 4 days where it spent most of it's time in my pocket...you could probably just use black shoe polish/wax if this is really that important (maybe a bad idea if it gets inside the device)
*A clip like on the iPod shuffle 2G would be nice and would probably give people more reason to choose creative instead of the apple which has a big advantage thru popularity.
*Stock earbuds look nice but just don't sound that good...alright for backup's I suppose.
*No SD/MicroSD card reader...probably couldn't fit anyways heh.
*Gets a bit warm when charging (hot temperatures aren't good for lithium ion batteries...especially when you can't replace them), probably not hot enough to cause any damage though.
*USB 2.0 compatible but USB 1.1 transfer speeds...about 1.5 megabytes of data a second for putting new songs/files. Maybe they skimped on the 'good' flash chips to keep costs down. But once the music/file is on there, read speeds are perfectly fine.
***Recently after not having used the player for awhile, I tried to turn it on only for it to get stuck on the Creative logo. It wouldn't respond so I had to get a toothpick and touch the reset button a few times, but it kept getting stuck on the logo. I thought maybe it didn't have enough juice to load, so I plugged it into my PC to charge and upload new songs. When I tried to access the device in My Computer the window froze and explorer.exe wasn't responding.
At first I cursed bill gates, but then I got a message:
F:/ is not accessible.
The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable.
...my first thoughts were the flash chip had magically corrupted/broken itself from...sitting on my table too long? I tried to format the player (usually fixes problems like this in any device, but erases everything) only to have the window freeze again just from right-clicking on the player's icon. I eventually resorted to plugging it into an apple computer (which runs OS X not windows), and I could see the device (called NO NAME) but there weren't any files on it.
Finally after using "erase" with disk utility.app (same thing as format) the device was revived. I don't know what could have caused this, and if someone clueless would have had this problem, the player might have ended up in the trash or sent in for repairs. The creative support website has good help walkthroughs and tells you how to format when you choose that it has a transfer problem, but the operating system kept freezing before I could even get to that window. Its working fine now, I just hope it doesn't do this again and refuse to be revived...the warranty is probably expired by now and only defective flash chips corrupt themselves. Looking back, formatting from the command line might have worked.
In conclusion I think its a very good player with many more features than apple's 2G shuffle (it's direct competitor) and if you don't mind the cons you'll probably be happy with it.
Good, tiny MP3 player for the price! 2008-07-13
I purchased one of these last fall. Initially, I wasn't using it that much because I could not figure out how to make a playlist. (NOTE: I was using drag/drop Windows Explorer to move the music files.) A few months ago, I downloaded AmoK Playlist Copy and was able to create complete playlists and easily copy the folder onto my Zen Stone.
I took this on a trip to Bali and was able to re-charge it in the USB jack at my seat a Singapore Airlines 777. I also purchased a Kodak 8mp digital camera which came with a USB charger. Voila - that same USB charger worked with my Zen Stone. It was a very simple way to travel abroad with my favorite music (incl. FM radio).
I love this player for working out because it's so tiny!
I gave it 4 stars because the battery life isn't so great. I don't think I get 10 hours as some other users mention. Oh well, I just pop it on the USB charger.
Great for those who need a stop watch 2008-07-12
Before I purchased the zen stone plus, I purchased a 2gb sansa express. Although I love my sansa express and all its features (I've had it for over a year and it works perfectly, sandisk has amazing support too), I recently started training for a 5K and needed something with a stopwatch so I bought a zen stone plus from Amazon Warehouse Deals.
Unless you need a stopwatch, go and buy a sansa express. This player I think is expensive unless you can get it for $30 or less (that's how much I paid). Other small players that are similarly priced at $50/$60 pack more features and are more user friendly than the zen stone plus.
It's pretty intuitive to use, once you get the hang of it. Creative generally has menus that are easy to maneuver, but I think they slipped up with the Zen Stone Plus (I've owned a Creative Zen Xtra and a Creative Vision M mp3 player, both were easier to use than the zen stone plus). The Sansa Express outshines the zen stone plus in this regard. (please refer to other reviews for the specifics as to why, I didn't think it necessary to repeat it here)
It also feels sturdy and it has served its purpose for what I need it for, which is a watch/stopwatch/mp3 player for walking/jogging. All I have to take with me when I go for a run is my house keys and my zen stone plus. I also purchased the wristband and the TravelSound Zen Stone Speakers (I've reviewed these accessories in more detail as well in Amazon.com).
Creative Media Lite (the software you can download for transferring music files) is easy to use and shows you how much battery life you have left and when it has been completely charged by your computer. However, it's not necessary to get the software, you can also drag and drop music files into the player, my computer sees it as a flash/hard drive.
In sum, creative is a great reliable brand and has very good support. When my Zen Xtra 40GB mp3 player died after owning it for 3 years, I sent it to them for repair. It only cost me $24 dollars to have them take a look at it b/c my player was out of warranty. Creative was unable to fix it so they sent me a new 40GB mp3 player at no extra charge. That's great customer service.
I don't think I would send the zen stone plus for repair since I practically paid almost $24 for it, but this goes to show that if you do have problems with your Creative products, they have great support.
So that's my two cents.
Nice features, but slow fast-forwarding a headache 2008-07-08
I bought this specifically to download library books (they won't work on my iPod). It's a nice little unit with some fun features. I listened to my book on my last long drive and it worked well - I considered it to be worth the money.
However, since I got back, I have accidentally lost my place in the book several times, and it gets worse each time. Maybe I'm missing something, but the book is one large file, so I can't find any way to get back to where I was without simply holding the fast-forward button down. It really doesn't go that fast at all, so I literally have to hold it down for more than half an hour to get 8 hours into the book (where I was). Currently it's sitting next to me clamped into an adjustable wrench so that I don't have to physically hold it myself.
Word to yo mother 2008-06-05
very nice, a good price. Sounds good and easy to use, makes the boring days at work more bareable. My Only complaints is that it does not play WAV LOSSLESS files. I can't get the radio to work, i think when i upgraded the head phones i lost the antena. Most mp3 players put the antena in the cord of the head phones. Other than that, it's a cool mp3 player and just so small.
Cheap quality. 
2008-05-23
The player and its display look great, and it's small enough to fit on a keychain. The sound quality's very impressive for such a small player, too.
Sadly, that's about all this player has going for it. The interface only lets you scroll through folders, not songs - you must play through songs one at a time to find the one you're looking for. That would be acceptable on smaller players, but not when you have up to 2GB of music to search through. The shuffle mode is awful - basically it will take eight to ten random songs from whatever you've selected and loop ONLY those eight repeatedly. Worst of all is the file transfer speed. It takes me over 45 minutes to fill the mp3 player, and that's using a USB 2.0 cable and port.
Overall not the worst player in the world, but extremely disapponting for a Creative product.
