Customer Reviews:
 good stuff September 12, 2008
great product love it love it love it
the only problem i have with it is that i ordered a black one but instead i got a white one which makes it look like an i-pod knockoff (not cool because i hate apple with a passion)
 This is a product that does what it is meant to do. September 7, 2008
This is a product that does what it is meant to do.
It is compact, easy to use and sounds great.
The play lists can use use some improvement. Repeat, shuffle and putting the lists in order is either more complex than it needs to be or not available as a feature.
Overall what you get for the price exceeds my needs.
 Defective product and very defective customer service July 25, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This review is for the Creative Zen Stone Plus 2GB with speaker mp3 player. I was originally going to give this product 4 of 5 stars (see below), but after the experience I just finished, even one star is too high. I bought my player 2 months ago, used it for about 3 weeks and was generally happy (with a few annoyances; see below), when all of sudden the player simply died while I was using it. Since the player was under warranty, I called Creative, and after being cut-off several times and having several frustrating conversations with "technical specialists", Creative agreed that my player was dead and that I should ship it back and get a replacement. So, I packed up my dead player, paid UPS about $6 to ship it back, and waited for my replacement. The replacement came in a few days, but what Creative sent me was a pair of wireless headphones, not a new mp3 player. So, I called Creative again, explained that they had sent me the wrong item, and requested that they send a new mp3 player and give me a shipping label to return their headphones to them. Now more than a month later, the new player still has not arrived, and Creative still has not sent me a shipping label to return the headphones. Creative claims that they cannot ship the new player until I return the headphones (even though my dead player arrived at their factory over a month ago), but they have not provided any means for me to return the headphones (and there's no way I'm going to pay to ship them back!). I have called them every day for the past 2 weeks, and no one can tell me why my shipping label hasn't appeared or why I can't get my replacement player in advance of shipping back the headphones that I never asked for. So, I spent $60 on an mp3 player, got to use it for a few weeks, and a month later, I still have nothing to show for it, not even a dead player to use as a paperweight.
My original review was going to give this player 4 of 5 stars. I selected this model over the Sansa Clip and a few others for the following reasons: 1) Mac OS compatible out of the box (mostly -- all the firmware upgrades must be done on a PC, but the player was recognized instantly by iTunes on my Mac the first time I plugged it in); it also can be used as a USB memory drive for non-music files. 2) support for .m4a files, which I have a lot of and which the Sansa won't play. 3) Stopwatch and FM tuner, which I thought would be great while I was out running.
My take on the product for the 3 weeks it worked: 1) The player worked fine. The sound was excellent (once I replaced the cheap earbuds it came with); volume was more than adequate; 5-band equalizer + bass boost worked well; navigating the menus was a bit clunky, requiring multiple button presses of different durations, but I got used to it after a few days of fiddling. 2) Music organization on the player was strange; there was no way to navigate by album, artist or composer -- only by song name. Songs can be grouped into folders and navigation done one folder at a time, but this must be done by hand (both while navigating and placing the music on the device). One nice touch was that songs could be deleted directly from the player without having to connect to the computer. 3) The FM radio worked poorly; reception even on strong stations was staticky, and weak stations didn't come in at all. 4) The display remained on in stopwatch mode, which drained the battery quickly. I found I got 15-16 hours of playback time w/o the stopwatch, and only about 10 hours with the stopwatch. The display brightness needed to be set to max to read it outdoors, even on an only moderately sunny day. 5) I never tried to use the voice recorder, so I can't comment on its effectiveness.
Summary: The Stone Plus player isn't bad if you can get one that works, but Creative's customer service is so poor that it's not worth the risk!
 Zen Nano Plus was better June 7, 2008
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
I got over a year of hard use out of my Zen Nano Plus before it died. I was completely addicted to it. I have replaced it with a Stone Plus. It's the same basic Creative system, but there are several differences.
+ It's rechargeable (through USB or an extra-cost charger). no more fussing with AAA's.
+ A clock/calendar/stopwatch is included.
- The LCD display has been replaced by a "blue OLED" panel. It's bright and sharp, but it's not on all the time. It's completely useless outdoors. It's relatively small - a square disguised as a circle, for some reason. I liked the Nano Plus's always-on usable-outside rectangular LCD better, it showed more information.
- When the display is off, a button press is required to wake it up before doing anything. Want to pause? It's one button press if the display is on, two presses if it's off. Confusing.
- Menu navigation is a BIG step backward. Maybe they'll improve this with new firmware releases. Other Stone Plus reviewers have noted this. Menus do not wrap around from bottom to top. And with the narrower display, they reorganized the top menu. A press/release of the menu button takes you to one list of choices, and a press/hold takes you into the Options submenu. It's confusing but maybe I'll get used to it.
- The configurable "shortcut" button is a good idea, but the selections are very limited, and most are things I'll never use.
- Buttons are poorly labeled. My player is white and the button labels (stamped on the clear keypad) are almost invisible.
As much as I liked the Nano Plus, I did have a short "wish list". I'm sorry to see that none of them have been provided in the Stone Plus:
1. Display time remaining in a track. (OK, the Stone Plus has a little bar graph under the time display which gives you an idea of where you are in a track. Better than nothing, I guess. But it took me a month to discover this.)
2. A "Folder Once" play mode. This has always seemed like an obvious thing to have. You can shuffle a folder and repeat a folder, but you can't play a single album/folder, in order, one time.
3. The option to auto-delete tracks after they have played.
4. Better ff/review navigation. It takes _forever_ to advance several minutes in a long track.
In summary, this player is not an improvement for Creative. It's usable, but it could be much better.
Interesting speaker April 26, 2008
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
I must say I am very happy with this little gadget with speaker. Initially, I don't hold much expectation with the built-in speaker. However, I immediately start to enjoy wearing it with the clip and letting the music spreading around. It brings music to the people nearby and we all enjoy it. It certainly breaks the psychological barrier and isolation usually created by wearing a earphone. The sound quality certainly is not the point when the speaker is used. On the other hand, you can always wear a earphone when you want to be alone. The music coming out of earphone is about as good as my other players.
Pros:
* Transparent file transfer (work as a USB mass storage device, big plus).
* Very light to wear and the clip is definite a plus.
* Speaker is much more useful than I thought.
* Quick charging
* Blue LED display looks nice and pretty visible in room light condition (not under the sun though)
Cons:
* The pearl color one looks a little cheap, but the elastic cover help some.
* The user interface is much inferior comparing to my previous Cowon's G3. For example,
-the menu will not circularly loop around. When you reach one end, you have to go back all the way to reach the 1st item.
- Files are not browsable. You can only select the folders that hold music files.
- No bookmark, no adjustable scanning speed, minimized info display.
- Could be more innovative with its speaker (adding MP3 alarm function will be one.)
However, with the surprising fun factor added by the speaker and with such affordable cost I still recommended it. Some reviewer mentioned "very" slow response in the web, but I don't feel it at all.
|
