If you're tied to your iTunes collection, Creative's ZEN Stone won't be all that compelling, since it's really for non-iTunes users. That said, it's pretty close to a knock-off of the Apple iPod shuffle—except for the iTunes compatibility—for exactly half the price. Both the $80 shuffle and the $40 Stone have 1GB of storage, simple navigation controls, and are super small and lightweight. In between them in price, at $60, sits the new Sansa Express, which puts both to shame in the features department. So, non-iTuners, you have two good choices: go with more features for more money (Sansa Express) or bare-bones for half the price of the Shuffle with the $40 ZEN Stone.

The Stone has rounded edges and a smooth and shiny surface that comes in black, red, greenish yellow, blue, white, and pink. It's about 2 by 1.2 inches and a third of an inch thick—slightly larger than the shuffle, but remains easily pocketable. Indeed, it is in my pocket and playing music as I write this, and it has yet to skip a track accidentally or pause itself despite the lack of a lock or hold button.

The top spine of the unit, from left to right, has a 3.5-mm headphone jack, followed by a switch that chooses play modes and controls the Skip Folder function. To the right of the switch is a reset button for erasing content on the player, and on the front face is a small LED that uses a series of blinking green, red, or orange lights to inform you of battery life and player status. Also on the face, of course, is what can only be described as a replica of the shuffle's click wheel—all the skip forward/backward, play/pause, and volume controls are in the exact same spots. The only difference is that play/pause doubles as the power button. The contour of the wheel is even raised from the body in a manner similar to the shuffle's. The player's lower spine has a mini USB port for charging and loading, and that's it as far as design goes. It's a decent looking player, though I must admit its pebble-like shape and name fill me with an intense desire to skip it across the surface of a lake (but at $40, it's not that disposable). The rechargeable battery is rated at 10 hours, but in our battery rundown test, the Stone fell a few minutes shy of 9 hours—respectable, but by no means impressive.

The shuffle's clip is thoughtfully built in to the design; the Stone's costs $10 extra. There are different skins available, as well as key chains and an armband, but they must be ordered separately. A $40 set of TravelSound speakers designed with a ZEN Stone dock will be released July 2007. The speakers and player combo would cost as much as the shuffle, total—but I have yet to hear the speakers, so no word yet on whether it's a wise investment.

The included earbuds are particularly lousy, but that's never a surprise. They completely lack any low thump or high-frequency definition. When I plugged in my Ultimate Ears triple.fi 10 Pros, though, the Stone delivered the low end and crispness that every portable player should be capable of. So, definitely upgrade those earbuds with the money you save on this player!

The Stone plays MP3, WMA, protected WMA, and WAV files, but it won't support subscription-based files. Creative explains that subscription support would've required more processing power, which would've driven the cost of the unit up—so your Yahoo! Unlimited Music To Go tracks won't work here, but that's no surprise.

You will soon be able to download Creative's MediaSource Lite from Creative's Web site for ripping files and loading the player, but at the time of this review the software wasn't available. I had no problems, however, synchronizing the Stone with Windows Media Player, and within about 10 minutes I had completely filled the 1GB of memory with a mix of file types—all of which loaded and played perfectly. I was also able to manually load non-subscription-based files from my Yahoo! Music Jukebox account. It's too bad that you can't use the player when it's loading or charging while connected to a PC, but this is nothing new in the cheap MP3 player realm. Of course, the easiest way to load content onto your Stone is by simply dragging and dropping onto the Stone's icon in the My Computer section of your PC.

There's an annoying 10-second delay between when you power up and when the music starts playing, but the gap between songs is barely noticeable. The Stone automatically pauses when you power off and resumes at the same part of the same song when you power the unit up.

There are two play modes, Shuffle and Repeat All, and a Skip Folder function. In Shuffle mode, obviously, all files on the player are played in something approximating random order. In Repeat All, the Stone goes through your entire 1GB line-up and then repeats. The Skip Folder function is useful. As long as you load folders, not just individual files, onto the Stone, you can slide and release the button and it will skip to the next folder on your player—a quick way to navigate in the absence of a screen. I was slightly disappointed by the Windows mass storage file structure that doesn't keep your songs in alphabetical order as it plays through your library (the Shuffle plays through in the order songs are listed in iTunes). Without using the Skip Folder function, finding a particular song is near impossible. Alas, this is not a device for those who seek control.

The ZEN Stone is intentionally simple. There are no sound enhancement features, no screen, and no FM tuner. It is almost an exact replica of the shuffle in terms of functionality, except for minor differences in play modes and the two players' compatibilities with different software. If you're not tied to iTunes and all you want is a cheap player to take jogging or even lend to a friend to share your music, the ZEN Stone is one of the cheapest quality players out there…and its emergence certainly makes it hard for Apple to justify $80 for its nearly identical player.

Compare the MP3 players mentioned above side by side.

Creative offers a one-year limited hardware warranty with a 90-day service warranty. For support, visit: www.creative.com/support.