It has been a while since we last took a look at Creative's MP3 offerings, and today, we will be taking a look at Creative latest MP3 player, the Zen Stone. Directly positioned to compete against Apple's Ipod Shuffle, the Zen Stone is priced attractively at SGD$69. With a small footprint and lacking a LCD screen, how will the Stone fare in our review? Let's take a look and read on.

¹ Based on 4 minutes per song at 64kbps WMA.

The player itself, 5 simple buttons on the player's front, the play, forward, back and volume + & - buttons. On the left, you can also see the indicator LED, which shows the status of the player. Blinking Green means file is transferring or playback in progress, Steady Green means playback is paused, Blinking Red for low battery level, Steady Red means playback is paused & low battery level, and Orange is an indication of battery level during charging, 1 blink for below 25%, 2 blinks for 25-75%, 3 blinks for 76-99% and steady orange for full charged

The back of the player with some basic information and the mini-USB connector by the side.

The top of the player with a reset button, switch between normal and shuffle mode. You can also skip folders by pushing the switch towards the green icon and releasing it.

The basic accessories provided, just a normal earphone and a USB cable. No earbuds are provided in this sample.

Comparison between the Stone and a 50cent coin

The included earphones were a disaster, everything just sounded simply hollow! The sound just made this MP3 player lose marks as the sound coming out from the stock earphones' simply unappealing at all. About half of the music population should be able to live with this pair of earphones for sure but hey, what can you expect for a 69 buck player?

Next, We tested out the Zen Stone with our trusty Creative EP-630 earphones and Creative Zen Aurvana DJ, and the tiny Stone is able to drive the Aurvana DJ relatively well even without a head amp. Although the improvement in sound is astounding, the sound is still somewhat lacking with the mids and trebles sounding kind of hollow, but nevertheless, from my experience with past Apple players, the sound is pretty similar if not worse.

This player  is definitely a great deal for the budget-conscious, with 1GB of memory and a somewhat decent battery life of 10 hours or so. A suggestion though, if you do get this player, do spend a little bit more on a slightly more decent pair of earphones to save your ears...

Pros:

• Small footprint
• Cheap!
• Decent battery life
• Easy to operate

Cons:

• No LCD Screen, can't check track information
• Lousy earphones included
• Easily scratched glossy surface