Creative has a taste for offering a wide selection of decisions for the MP3 player patron, so it comes as little surprise the company made a decision to add a screen and some additional features to the ultra-basic Zen Stone. The new Plus version, which includes 2GB of storage and a palatable $70 ticket, isn’t precisely an advance over its predecessor. Instead, it’s simply a different option which will appeal to active users that need a touch more than a screen-less MP3 player can offer–and that is not a bad thing.

Overall, it’s a basic design that is not not attractive and definitely falls into the lovable and pocket-friendly class. However, the simplicity in the design twinned with the tiny screen make for navigation that isn’t the most intuitive–most users will not get by without reading parts of the included fast guide. For instance, rather than stepping you out or forward in the navigation tree, the track shuttle keys do a similar thing as the volume keys inside the menus : move the selector up or down. Music organization also suffers, in that there’s not much to it.

The crux is that you are getting the same exact music navigation as with the Stone, just now you have a screen. Basically , the screen just serves to permit for several features. The Creative Zen Stone Plus comes in a selection of 6 colours and offers 2GB of storage for under $75. It includes some handy extras,eg an FM tuner, a stopwatch, and a voice recorder.

The player also has good sound quality. The Zen Stone Plus interface isn’t absolutely intuitive, and the screen is too tiny to display full track information. It also does not offer full ID3 tag sorting for music, and the rated battery life is unimpressive.For those that need a supersmall and lovable MP3 player that offers more than simply simple music playback, the Creative Zen Stone Plus is appropriate nicely.