Creative’s new ZEN Stone: it rocks!
By Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Saturday, 05 May 2007
Sure, it might be inspired by the iPod Shuffle with no screen and its tiny size, but as an iPod owner this is one Creative mp3 player I’d actually want to buy, especially at the price!
Creative offer units that look similar to the iPod Video and the iPod Nano, along with a larger screen sized widescreen model with a screen similar to that found on the Sony PSP, along with some variants in between, and despite a bigger range with more features, are way back in the number 2 spot, fighting it out for the rest of the market share with other brands including Sony, SanDisk, Toshiba, iRiver, Samsung, LG and others.
So can Creative do any better this time? It looks like the ZEN Stone might very well be the coolest mp3 player to come from Creative for some time, at approximately half the price of the iPod Shuffle with a smooth and shiny ‘stone’ design in a range of funky colors – black, white, red, blue, pink and green.
Priced at $69 Singaporean dollars and available now, which equates to approximately US $45 (although I’ve seen that the US retail price is supposed to be US $40, with a £28 price in British pounds), the unit has 1Gb of memory which is enough for 250 songs encoded as 128k mp3 files or 500 songs encoded as 64k WMA files although unfortunately there is no AAC support. Audible 2 and 3 encoded audio-books are also supported.
The internal lithium-ion battery lasts for up to 10 hours of continuous playback, with initial reports suggesting the playback time is accurate. The unit connects to PCs and Macs via USB 1.1 and preferably USB 2.0, and needs no drivers – it installs as a mass storage device.
This means that you can copy mp3 and wma files directly to the unit – and you can copy them off the unit back onto your PC without hassles. The ZEN Stone plays the songs sequentially or via a switch, can play them in random order. This is just like the iPod Shuffle, and as with the Shuffle, there is no LCD screen - only a logical assortment of playback buttons to play, pause, fast forward, rewind and skip tracks.
Optional accessories include “attractive translucent skins that include a clip and are available in five matching colors, a sporty armband that comes with a skin, and even a fashionable keychain with a tiny case that carries the player”.
The Skins with clip are $15 Singaporean dollars each (US $9.90), the Armband and Skin in black is available S$29.00 (US $19.15) and the Keychain Case is available for S$25.00 (US $16.50).
Sim Wong Hoo, chairman and CEO of Creative says that “The Creative ZEN Stone, at just S$69, opens up a huge new market for MP3 players. This is an incredible price for everyone to get a superior quality MP3 player capable of holding up to 500 songs. Whether it is your only player or a second player to take with you anywhere, the low price lets you think of MP3 players in a whole new way. You can loan it to a friend just like you would a CD or a mix tape and not have to worry about it, but you'll like it so much that you'll want another so you always have one with you.”
http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5065777Labels: aac, Apple, Creative, ipod, mp3, nano, player, PSP, Sony, wma, zen |
