iPod Shuffle Vs. Zen Stone

I'm looking for a cheap little 1GB mp3 player to wear at the gym while I do cardio. I was leaning towards the Shuffle because the clip is pretty cool, but the fucking thing seems way overpriced at $80. Still, I was going to get it until I saw Creative's Zen Stone player on Circuit City's website. It's less than half the price of the Shuffle ($34.99), but it's a little bigger and has no built-in clip. However, it requires no drivers or software- just drag your mp3s into the music folder like a USB flash drive. Anyone have any experience with Creative's players? Is it a no-brainer that I should get the Stone over the Shuffle?

I just got a Creative Zen Vision and love it. Saw the Stone in store and it looked cool and since I've had such a good experience with my Zen I see no reason not to recommend their players.

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardw...e-killer.ars/3

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Originally Posted by review

"Moving songs was as easy as the Sansa Express: hook it up to a USB port and drag and drop files onto the device. Couldn't be easier. Here is the trick with the Stone, and one I really enjoy on a screen-less player: if you add a bunch of albums as folders you can shuffle between all your songs, or if you slide the button on the top to the left you can jump from folder to folder. This makes it simple to choose which album or audio book you'd like to listen to. If you are good about organizing your files as you add them, this negates the need for a screen. It's a great feature I hope the Shuffle steals in later revisions."

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That feature alone makes it 10 times better than the shuffle, IMO. Because sometimes, you just wanna hear a whole album.

I loved my 4gb Creative Zen V Plus, that is until the screen mysteriously died for no reason whatsoever. I looked on creative's support forums and found out that this was not an isolated incident. It plays the songs just fine, I just can't see what is playing, so I have to make playlists of what I want to listen to. Luckily I memorized the location of the playlists on the menu before the screen died so I can access them easily. But still, something like this should have never happened.

So in a sense, I've ended up with the same kind of player you're looking for. I do love being able to just drag and drop shit onto it like you said. I would recommend doing a search for the one you want on creative's support forums and see if anything has happened to anyone else out there.

edit: oh yeah, I almost forgot, when I first got it, it would freeze up all the time, sometimes causing me to format the whole thing, which was a pain in the ass. Be sure to keep those drivers updated!

Also, after looking at the one you want on that site, and given the price, I would just say "fuck it" and go for it. $35 is a good price. You spend more on movies and video games in any given month, so this is just drop in the bucket.

I haven't used any of Creative's flash-based players, but on the hard drive-based ones the sound quality is quite a bit better than an Ipod, assuming you have a good enough stereo and good enough music files for it to matter.

From your choices, the Zen would be a no brainer for me, although I don't like that the memory is not expandable. Flash memory is dirt cheap now, it's concievable that in another year you could drop an 8 gig flash cart into a player for next to nothing and carry most of your music collection.

I bought the Zen Stone- it's great. Thanks for the help, everyone.

It's easy as shit putting music on it- it works just like a USB flash drive, just drag and drop. Controls are simple and work very well. The sound quality is good, although not as quite as good as my 30gb iPod video- it's a tad less clear, with less bass. Still sounds great, though.

No built-in clip like the Shuffle, but who gives a shit. In every other way the Stone kills it, especially the price ($35 >>> $80).

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Originally Posted by GohanX

From your choices, the Zen would be a no brainer for me, although I don't like that the memory is not expandable.

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The memory isn't a problem. I managed to fit about 170 songs at 192 kps on there. I'm only using it for when I do cardio at the gym (thus, I put harder music on there, no mellow shit). 170 songs on random should be more than fine.

Can you store other stuff on the Zen Stone other than mp3's?
If I could use it as a flash drive, then I might pick one up, since I don't have an MP3 player or a portable mass storage device.

Yeah, it shows up as an removable drive. If I right click on something I have the option to send it to my Zen as either Media or Data.

I've owned the 40gb Zen Clit for over 2 years now, top notch sound quality and built like a tank. It's taken several 5 foot drops onto concrete and still works perfectly.

Good, I'll keep an eye out next time I'm shopping for electronics stuff.

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Originally Posted by SpoDaddy

I've owned the 40gb Zen Clit for over 2 years now, top notch sound quality and built like a tank. It's taken several 5 foot drops onto concrete and still works perfectly.

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I've heard those are hard to find.;)