- Average user rating: 3.0 stars out of 28 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
-
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
1.5 stars
"Going back this weekend"
Pros: Form Factor, Display, Sound
Cons: Lack of Support from Microsoft, Incredibly Buggy Software, Device Crashes
Summary: I picked up a Zune this past weekend, and it will be going back on Saturday. This was my fifth audio player in the last ~9 years, having owned a Creative Zen, a Gen 4 ipod and a pair of Gen 2 nanos. The ipods, while great devices, seemed to bring me bad luck, as I had gone through 3 in 4 years. I had heard good things about the Zune and, now that a flash-based version existed, I figured I'd give it a shot. It's a very nice looking device, feels great in the hand and has remarkable video quality for a player of this size (I haven't seen video on the Gen 3 nanos and as such, can't compare the 2 objectively). The sound quality is right up there with my old ipods (I never use the stock earbuds, but used the same pair of Shure e2c buds that I used with the nano)
Unfortunately, that is where the positives end. I'll preface this by saying that I'm fairly computer savvy and have done plenty with software, hardware and peripherals in my day.
A week before buying the Zune, I picked up a new, Vista-based laptop. I was unable to start using it until I got the Zune, and figured it would be a great opportunity to "launch" both of my new toys. I booted and updated the laptop, then downloaded the Zune software. Hooked the Zune up and as soon as it was detected, the software crashed. Tried a few more times with the same result. Uninstall and reinstall of the software caused the same problem. Growing frustrated, I broke out my old, Celeron-based XP laptop and tried the Zune on there - wouldn't even detect the device and wouldn't let me install the drivers manually. 3 hours on the phone with Zune support (nice enough folks) were wasted with no solution. I had one more computer in the house - a 5 year old Dell desktop (Pentium 4, running XP) and was able to get everything working on there. Not wanting to be tied to that dinosaur (especially given that its best days are behind it), I continued trying to get it running on the Vista laptop to no avail. Another 4 hours with tech support over the next 2 days provided nothing more than additional frustration, apologies and a few compliments (nice to have an L2 tech tell you that you seem to be well versed in the technology they're paid to deal with). Continuing to play with it on my own, I FINALLY got the software to run, with the Zune connected, and was even able to sync music (another problem is the way in which the Zune software organizes and re-tags everything). At that point, my last nerve was touched. I had a few TV shows I had downloaded and converted to MP4 using cucusoft's Zune video converted (a great program, BTW). I moved the files onto the Zune software and it crashed (DLL error). I searched for a fix and thought I found one, which I put in. At that point, I was able to launch the software and get the videos to show up, but the minute I tried moving one of them to the device, it crashed again...and again...and again.
I give up - looks like it's back to ipod-land for me.
The amazing thing is that, somehow, Microsoft's own device fails to work with its operating system...
Where to buy
Zune (second generation, 4GB, black):
$67.99 - $115.99
| store | price | in stock? | rating |
|---|---|---|---|
|
$67.99 | Yes |
|
|
$67.99 | Yes |
|
|
Amazon.com Marketplace
|
$115.99 | Yes |
|
%20user%20review%20and%20rating%20-%20CNET%20Reviews&srcUrl=http://reviews.cnet.com/mp3-players/zune-second-generation-4gb/4864-6490_7-32638981-2.html){kind=small}