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Wednesday June 20, 2007
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Well, that was fast. Hot on the heels of the May release of their Shuffle competitor, the Zen Stone, Creative today announced the Zen Stone Plus. With a suggested price of $69.99, the Plus will be almost twice the price of its older sibling. But an extra $30 seems like small price to pay for all the features the Zen Plus brings to the party.
Aside from a snazzy looking OLED screen, the Plus will pack twice the capacity (2GB), a voice recorder, FM tuner, and clock and stopwatch functions. Not bad, but as PC Mag's Audio analyst Tim Gideon is quick to point out, this puts the Zen Plus in an entirely new category of players. With stiff competition from the likes of the Sansa Express, Tim says the Stone Plus "better be awesome."
"I'm just curious to see how it stacks up to other players in its price range," said Tim, "and we'll need to test it to know."
Be sure to keep an eye out for Tim's thoughts on the Zen Stone Plus, as soon as one lands in the PCMag labs. And if Creative had you at hello, hold onto your wallet, because the Stone Plus will come in a tasty rainbow of colors, but it won't be available until sometime in July.
Post by Matt Safford
Posted By:
Gearlog
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June 25, 2007 3:02 PM
Sandisk sells the m250 direct for $70. Circuit city sells it retail for $60. Has all the features of the stone and shuffle (2gb memory, playlist, FM radio presets, voice recording. etc) and none of the downsides. 12+ hours of playback on one AAA battery, standard usb connector, simple drag and drop file transfer, doubles a flash drive. The news is not that Crative has a new version of the stone - the news is why would they bother?
June 26, 2007 1:11 AM
Certainly some good points, nogods. And I'm a fan of the Sansa as well. But I'd argue that the standard battery vs. rechargeable is a preference issue, with benefits to both options. But yeah, the Stone's batt could be better.
Once the Stone Plus has been on the market for a bit, I'm sure retailers will offer it at a sale price too. It may not be better than the Sansa player, but it's another strong option, which for consumers is always a plus. If only because it forces innovation and price drops.
In a market so dominated by Apple, I'm just glad Sandisk and Creative are still pushing decent alternatives. You may prefer one strongly over the other; I'm just glad they're both around.