- Average user rating: 3.0 stars out of 426 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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57 out of 59 people found this review helpful
4.5 stars
"An actual Zune owner review!!! Better than I expected (and I expected a lot)!"
Pros: Great screen, media rich user interface compared to other units, excellent sound
Cons: Install coughs if your music folder is on network storage. Battery can't be replaced or upgraded.
Summary: I was at the door this morning when Target opened. To my surprise, Target gave me a $25 gift card for some Zune promotion they're running, which made me even happier about the purchase.
My install went smoothly until I got to the express setup. I got a "could not file a file" error. I also tried custom setup but that didn't work either. In any case, I continued through the rest of the setup without any problems. It turns out the installation coughed on me because I have "My Documents" folder (which holds My Music) on an attached USB network drive. A friend of mine had his setup normally on the C drive and his installation had no such issues.
Anyway, this installation burp I ran into didn't cause any problems whatsoever. I attached the Zune to the cable when instructed and everything was cool from then on.
The Zune music software is easy to use and I actually really like it a lot (yes, a little surprised). It takes care of album art better than everything else that I had previously used with a Microsoft label on it. The marketplace is well designed and quick to find what you want. One downer is that their catalog is far smaller than Itunes but I imagine that will change very quickly.
Synchronizing my entire library of songs (almost 2500 songs) didn't take long at all. Firing up the Zune with all my stuff in it showed that the sync took perfectly. The sound quality is outstanding and I've even tried hooking the Zune up to computer speakers, my stereo and even an fm modulator I already use with my Archos AV420. In all cases, very high quality sound with no noise whatsoever (aside from the usual that is associated with fm modulators). The EQ features are basic but all are useful.
My favorite feature us the user interface. In my opinion, it is fluid and really looks awesome. Especially when you can take your best vacation scenery photos and use them as a background. The Zune does this in a very cool way. Instead of resizing the whole thing to fit the screen, it uses only a portion out of the middle of the graphic and you'll notice that the background fades out and zooms in when you begin using the menus from the home page - a very cool effect. Once you get use to the sliding top menu and the regular vertical menu, it's extremely fast to get from one spot to another.
Pictures and video also look great on the Zune and this is where the Zune pulls ahead of other devices (including the Ipod) in my opinion. The Zune software converts video files automatically without you having to worry about any of it, and the playback is smooth and crisp. The screen is big enough for solo movie watching and I look forward to trying out the audio/video adapter to send this content to a TV.
One thing I expected to be a junky useless add-on was the FM tuner but to my surprise it works excellent. In fact, it pulls in stations better than my car does.
I haven't had the chance to use the wifi features yet since I'm the first dude on my block to own one (gloat). Maybe I'll update my review in the future if I get a chance to try that.
My only gripes were the install, which turned out to be no problem at all, and the fact that the battery can't be upgraded or replaced. It would have been nice to know that if something happened to your battery it would be an easy fix. And better yet, to buy extra batteries to use on long flights when you want to watch movies.
I unpackaged the Zune carefully and made sure I didn't throw away the receipt because I was a little unsure with this being the first release of a new Microsoft product and all. However, my skepticism was unwarranted. The Zune delivers and I think it's the pick of the pack now. They've done a good job of not over complicating the device without it lacking features. It does just what you would expect, and then some.
Go get yours...
- 10 replies to this review
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MP3 OWNERS BETWEEN THE AGES OF 18-35 INTERESTED IN PARTICIPATING IN A FOCUS GROUP
ON AUGUST 25,2008, MONDAY EVENING IN MIDTOWN MANHATTAN. IT WILL BE A 2 HOUR GROUP,& WILL PAY $125.00 FOR PARTICIPATING. TIMES MAY VARY.
PLEASE E-MAIL ME WITH A CONTACT PHONE # & WE WILL SCREEN YOU TO SEE IF YOU QUALIFY,
THANKS,
Shelley Schonfeld
Recruiting Resources -
I haven't bought one yet but from the sounds of this review I think I might. One thing that I'm pondering how much do the songs cot to download or is it free?
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can i watch videos and movies downloaded from itunes on the zune?
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i never know where to go to for top toys comming out,but someone told me cnet,can anybody help,when elmo tmx came out i didnt knoe to it was to late, iheard maybe ernie tmx,and als dvd barbie rainbow you had to preorder and cant find it anywhere. thanks sandra
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Thanks Steve.. your review was written with perfection! I've been waiting to throw my Video 30gig IPOD out the window of my car! Everything from the headphones to charger for my IPOD has died/broken and the I'm soo tired of the Apple Store (I feel that I live in there).
ZUNE HERE I COME!
But I'll hang onto my Apple Stock...hehe -
I live in the Uk so you can imagine the difficulty i had in getting one of these for christmas, on behalf of my parents for my younger sister.
The item looks fantastic and never having really used an Ipod probably made it easier to navigate the menus. The one we got was the white version as to my sisters preference. The memory was read at 27.2gb i think, unsure about the point .2.
Setup was easy only glitch was i had it plugged in whilst running setup first time so had to do it again. Files transfered quickly and easily but that only applied to music and pictures, i found alot of my video files to be incompatible, and since i had heard it was supposed to convert them automatically i was very shocked, i couldnt even add them to the sync list. This to me means it cant be used a portable harddisk like some people well probably alot of people do with mp3 players and Ipods.
I found it annoying i dont seem to be able to delete anything whilst using the Zune itself not the software, nor does there seem to be a stop function as i could only pause playing, i assume this will affect battery life, whilst paused the name of song/arist stays on the screen i found this kind of annoying.
So i guess to summarize, looks great and feature packed, and handles the media well, but i feel let down in the lack of options and control you are given of it whilst using the player, though the software seemed great and for the most part the extra control i was looking for is done here.
I think i will wait til either the prices come down, UK release, or for a re-released and updated model that deals with some of my complaints.
I give it a 7.5 out of 10, the few flaws let it down, but credit should go to microsoft who i am not a big fan of for a good first attempt.
Jason -
Can't wait to get one!
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Without going over all of the usual pro's and con's that everyone already knows about this player (just to save for the sake of boring all the readers), I agree that this is an excellent player. I have had mine for 3 weeks now and I can't put it down! I have watched movies on it, flawlessly, mind you. The "pictures" feature is awesome, so is the radio, which I use often when I am bored with my playlists. Even if you are an Ipoder from way back, give this player a second look if you haven't, the longer you have it, the more infectious it becomes! Be open minded! I give this player two thumbs up! Enjoy!
Nick -
I bought the Zune a few days after its release. I haven't had any problems at all with it. I've been searching for a decent MP3/video/picture viewer for a while, and this fits the bill. Good review!
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Can it play songs/moview you bought on iTunes? what about the headphones it comes with?
Where to buy
Zune (30GB, black):
$239.99
| store | price | in stock? | rating |
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Amazon.com Marketplace
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$239.99 | Yes |
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