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You never know what one might draw inspiration from. A little river rock
would certainly not top the list, would it? Well, for the designers at
Motorola, it did. So much so, that they created a phone that looks like
a pebble, and named it the same. Now it seems like the inspiration has
spilled over to the Creative camp, and the result is the Zen Stone.
While the Creative Zen players are known to be loaded with features,
this one defies the trend and has simplicity as its central theme.
Creative Zen Stone is as basic and simple a music player as there can
possibly be. And did I mention it's tiny, ultra-light and cool?
For starters, the player resembles a small polished pebble (or stone),
but doesn't weigh like one and is smaller in size as compared to a
popular glucose biscuit. It is available in various vibrant shades; but
the one we received was glossy black, and for me it's the best shade of
the lot. It has 1 GB capacity. The dimensions stand at 2.1" x 1.4" x
0.5" (L x B x D) and weighs almost nothing; just about 20 grams, if you
wish to know. The protective plastic casing it arrived in seemed heavier
than the player. The Previous, Next, Play/Pause and Volume Up/Down
buttons are arranged in a circular manner with the Play button at the
centre, which also doubles up as a power switch when kept pressed for a
few seconds. Along the top edge, you find a switch for selecting Normal,
Shuffle or Repeat modes as well as switching between folders. A mini-USB
port is located along the bottom edge.
The player has no screen - that rules out checking the track title,
songs list and other info. It is advisable to span the music files you
load in this player over multiple folders for quicker navigation, as you
can skip to the next folder with just a push of a button. There's a
multicolored LED located on the face of the player that provides the
user with vital information like battery level, song incompatibility,
player status and more. The information is conveyed using a mix of 3 LED
colors - Green, Amber and Red, and one to three blinks of the same. What
each color and the number of blinks stands for can be found in the
manual provided with the player. Along with the manual, you also get a
pair of earphones, and a small USB cable.
No software is bundled with the player, but then you won't need any if
you're using Windows XP or better. Just plug the player in and it gets
detected; drag and drop, or copy/paste your MP3 or WMA files to it and
you are all set. However, the file transfer speeds are nothing to boast
about. Though the player claims to have a USB 2.0 interface, the file
transfer speed to the player rarely exceeded 1 MB/s; meaning, it would
take about 15 to 20 minutes to transfer a GB of data to it. Conversely,
the read speeds were pretty decent at about 4.5 MBps. So when you look
to transfer stuff from the player to your PC, it won't take too long.
As for its performance sound wise, I would say that it is that of a
typical Creative Zen. The overall performance can be termed as good, but
not outstanding. The highs and mids are pretty good, but bass is just
about acceptable. Don't expect a lot of thump there. However, the
performance is good enough for a budget player, and is comparable to
that of the iPod Shuffle or the Mobiblu. There was no FM tuner in the
player to conduct our reception tests. It takes about 2 hours to for it
to charge fully and is expected to last for 10 hours. For me, it lasted
for just over 9 hours with around 3 hours of daily listening.
The Creative Zen Stone is available for an MRP of Rs. 3,299 with a one
year warranty. Its street price is a couple of hundreds less. Though the
player belongs to a reputed brand, and isn't expensive, I wonder why it
is priced at twice its international cost. Creative's international
website carries a price tag of $40 (Rs.1,640 approx). I agree that we
have a stiff duty structure, but none that I know of that takes the
price up by 100%. So a price of around Rs. 2,500 would have been more
apt.
All said and done, the Creative Zen Stone is a basic yet classy device
capable of turning a few heads. It doesn't burn a hole in your pocket
with its price or weight. However, at its current price, you can also
consider the Mobiblu DAH-2100 which has similar capacity and sound
quality, but also has a 1 inch color display and an FM tuner. It doesn't
look as cool as the Stone, but is certainly high on features. Either
ways, you won't be disappointed. |
