Whatever happened to the Zune?

Spud83

Whatever happened to the Zune. It seeemed to come and go in a matter of weeks. I have never seen ads for it, never seen it in a shop, and never seen anyone with one. Will there be another one? Are Microsoft just ignoring it and trying to forget about it? It didn't seem to make even the slighest impact on the portable player market.

hshortt

MS have sold over a million Zunes, new ones being announced before Christmas too. No plans for a Euro launch yet. Despite the above post it's actually very well received and apparantly has a fantastic interface and works very well.

Cheers
Howard

swingking

When I was last in the states I purchased one for 200 dollars (140 euro)

and it is the best mp3 player I ever purchased. The software is fantastic and the screen size is very good.

I have mine since June and I've had no problems since.

art

I think simply put, there's not a whole lot of reason to buy a Zune.

Poor support for video formats, pretty lame song sharing and poor wifi in general, odd issues like it's then appending DRM onto your mp3s on occasions if no drm is there, bigger and heavier than competitors, fairly clumsy UI with inconsistent button pressing issues, terrible sync etc software, and so on.

All in all, why suffer that when there's excellent players out on the Europe market already, of far better all round quality, from archos, apple and creative etc?

jesus_thats_gre

hshortt wrote:

apparantly has a fantastic interface and works very well.

Bang on!

Third_Echelon

I got one at the same time as jesus_thats_great last january.... Looks nice, but I never really took a shine to it..

The UI is very nice I have to say and the album art display is really good.... It also has a radio, which is a nice feature.

I ended up buying an 80 GB iPod a few weeks ago for pure capacity reasons.

I reckon if MS release higher capacity models, it could start to compete... All in all a nice piece of kit, but they need to work on some areas..

estariol

2nd that lovely build, design and interface....the codec support is just as restrictive as ipods. The zune 2 is due shortly (flash and hd) though as usual no euro release date.

truth is both are far from top of their respective classes, and the ipod seems to have one the marketing battle!

estariol

2nd that lovely build, design and interface....the codec support is just as restrictive as ipods. The zune 2 is due shortly (flash and hd) though as usual no euro release date.

truth is both are far from top of their respective classes, and the ipod seems to have one the marketing battle!

hshortt

80GB HDD Zune 2, 4GB/8GB/16GB Flash models expected to be announced tomorrow actually, although some sites are reporting 7th October. Check - http://www.zune-online.com/news/zune/cardboard-zune-2.0-photos-for-october-7th.html

Cheerio
Howard

jesus_thats_gre

http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/02/microsofts-new-zunes-officially-in-80-8-and-4gb-sizes/

Am really impressed that you can update the original zune to support all the features of the new devices. New 80gig model looks pretty sweet too.

pleasant Co.

if it worked on macs and had gapless playback I would nearly certainly buy the Zune 80, but because it is lacking in these key areas I'm still on track to buy an 80gb ipod classic when argos get them in stock in galway...

kaimera

I'm sold tbh.

Really liking the look of the 80gig myself. Nice christmas present me thinks

Tyrrial

Well i'm going to get my hands on an 30gig Zune in the next few days, i just spend a day finding out what the best portable media play i could get without selling my soul to apple, looks like i had to sell my soul to microsoft to do it..

art

Tyrrial wrote:

Well i'm going to get my hands on an 30gig Zune in the next few days, i just spend a day finding out what the best portable media play i could get without selling my soul to apple, looks like i had to sell my soul to microsoft to do it..

What does the Zune offer that all the other players don't, in particular?

pleasant Co.

not much more to be honest..

It has a larger screen than most DAP's, an absolutely amazing GUI and reportedly has great SQ...

For me other than the iphone GUI no other DAP can touch the Zune GUI, add in great SQ and it seems like a winner, however the Zune is bogged down by lock in software, otherwise known as "Zune Marketplace" for most this isn't an issue, for me however it is. I am a mac user predominantly thus ruling out the Zune as a viable option as it is windows only.

To answer your question directly though art, the Zune is simply another option for the DAP buying population, it is an extra bit of choice. Like anything personal preference comes into play when considering what DAP is right for you.

Troublesome

Bill Gates & a bald guy in the funniest photo ever.

So Microsoft as expected just released a new Zune, the Zune 80 for $250 with 80GB storage. They also released two 'Nano' Zunes to compete with the iPod Nano (they are also flash based).

They've also included support for some new formats (MPEG-4 most notably), as well as re-writing the horrific software that came with the last one.

See the following link for full specification, as well as seeing how they stack up with the iPods.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/03/z...ion-smackdown/

Also note there is a new interface on the Zunes, this is also being brought to Zune 30 owners.

art

Mactard wrote:

To answer your question directly though art, the Zune is simply another option for the DAP buying population, it is an extra bit of choice. Like anything personal preference comes into play when considering what DAP is right for you.

Can't make any argument with that really. I haven't had any hands on experience with the Zune so am just going by what I read in reviews and never came across anything which indicated it offered something unique or worthy of the trouble of an import, but I certainly agree with what you say there that having an extra bit of choice is, in itself, a good thing

art

See they are off copying Apple again!

But there's already a thread on Zunes anyway ...

Timans

Used one for the first time yesterday as a guy I know, has one.

I love it, I love the look of it, the shape of it, the screen, the OS. Everything.

If there was an 80GB, I'd get one. BUT, I want Rockbox.

lafors

Timans wrote:

Used one for the first time yesterday as a guy I know, has one.

I love it, I love the look of it, the shape of it, the screen, the OS. Everything.

If there was an 80GB, I'd get one. BUT, I want Rockbox.

I got one for my missus last november when I was in NY.
It's the best media player I've had, and I've had all sorts, creative, ipod (nano, shuffle, and video), iriver (H320 which I still use).

The PQ on the video can be a bit iffy but thats down to my settings for converting. The GUI is great. It was a pity they didn't do all they could when they released it (eg wifi etc).

Great idea putting out the new software to make the original 30gb the same as the new one.

I'm over in NY again in december so will defo get the new 80gb version.
Only thing I'm a bit wary of is they screen will be slightly bigger but the resolution stays the same if they only improved that they'd have a serious ipod beater. If I remember, when I get it, I'll post up a few pics & a mini review.

Troublesome

art wrote:

But there's already a thread on Zunes anyway ...

so still there could be hundreds

Creamy Goodness

threads merged, no need for two threads on same topic.

Timans

Cremo wrote:

threads merged, no need for two threads on same topic.

Oooohh, get you..

lafors

Cremo wrote:

threads merged, no need for two threads on same topic.

Pity you don't do it for itunes, ipod, itunes killed my songs etc.
Though then there'd be only about 5 threads

rc28

I got a zune a few months ago on ebay, it rocks and i'm really happy with microsoft for giving all the current zunes the new features and UI of the new 2nd gen in the next firmware update;
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/zune/first+gen-zune-getting-all-the-new-features-this-is-how-you-treat-your-customers-306422.php
I give more thoughts on the zune in this thread;http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055033221&referrerid=&highlight=zune
and have a quick video demoing the Zune menus etc here-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kijg_vwYM7M
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=211548
The above link describes the zune's excellent SQ pretty well.

Creamy Goodness

lafors wrote:

Pity you don't do it for itunes, ipod, itunes killed my songs etc.
Though then there'd be only about 5 threads

But they are very specific threads, dealing with the same program but different situations.

these two threads were basically.

"what happened to the zune? "

"ohh look new zunes"

swingking

woah!!!

That is so cool, any ideas where to get the firmware update

rc28

swingking wrote:

woah!!!

That is so cool, any ideas where to get the firmware update

It's being released in november when the new zunes are coming out, we are also getting a completlely redesigned zune marketplace and software.

kaimera

|Cookies wrote:

was thinking the same thing, but would love the 8gb Zune.

how will you get yours? ebay or ...?

That I don't know, but I know I want one

Might get some friends in the states to buy one and send it over and then sort them out.

Dammit, the more I see of it the more I want.

Seemingly no video out on the flash based zunes.

lafors

Cremo wrote:

But they are very specific threads, dealing with the same program but different situations.

these two threads were basically.

"what happened to the zune? "

"ohh look new zunes"

I know Cremo, I was only having a laugh, just making a wise-crack about how people love there ipod yt are always complaining about them too...

kaimera

Pre.Order on Amazon.com.

US only atm however. €175 -shipping costs is sexy for an 80gig player tho.

Release Nov 13 iirc.