Microsoft Zune

[Zethren]

Anyone has this player?
How is it? Can you play like divx movies on it?
How's the sound?
Warrant good? Batter life?
Anything else you can share would be apprecaited

 

[Taurothar]

I have one. I personally love it. I find it far easier to navigate than the iPod since the buttons are real and not touch. Video on it is really nice, but it has to be rendered in the proper wmv size or the program's converter takes forever to add videos. You can find or buy programs that will do the conversion for you as well, but again it takes time. Battery life is fairly good, I usually get a solid week of casual use between charges. I haven't had to look into the warranty too much but I assume if there's any running problem, microsoft will replace them much like they do with the 360s. And the sound is perfect depending on the quality of the music file you put on it, most comfortable earbud headphones came with it that I've ever used.

My only complaint about it so far is that the software that comes with it is a bit more user unfriendly than iTunes is. It tends to rewrite the info on my files without telling me, such as what album the song is from. Like I have a lot of greatest hits cds and it keeps arranging the songs to their original albums. I'm sure there's a simple setting to change that, but it's the default which can mess with your library fast.

 

[Pasquale]

The battery life is pretty good, but it seems to die even when the Zune isn't being used. I know that sounds strange, but it almost feels like the Zune is punishing you for not using it by killing the battery. Like It'll be good on day one, I won't use it on day two, and on day three, it'll be dead. My friend's Zune does this too.

Sound quality is excellent, though I didn't care for the included earbuds.

The video is good, but as Taur said, it takes a million years to convert/upload video files. I've got a bunch of ATHF episodes on mine.

I like the Zune Marketplace thing. You pay some small monthly fee and you can download whatever you want from them. You can get individual songs or full cds at a time.

I like it. There are new models coming out in November, so you may want to wait a month to snag one.

 

[Arctyrael]

The technology of the Zune is far superior to the iPod. What does it lack? Well... in today's market, it isn't called an iPod and thats enough.

I would have gone with the Zune if I had not impulsively bought a much smaller, both in size and storage, Creative Zen. However, I did research the Zune relatively close and it matches or exceeds the iPod in every way.

 

[Ryuhei]

I love it. Pasquale, did you update the firmware? There was a bug in early releases that would cause the radio tuner to drain the battery, but that was fixed.

My Zune was actually just damaged, by a Zune car adapter. The release broke off in the Zune, and I had to pry it out, and fucked up the USB port. I called them, though, and they're sending me a SASE for the Zune and are replacing it and the car adapter, no real questions asked. Take note that the adapter is $80, and only one piece of the 3 it came with broke.

So if it matters to you, customer service is pretty nice.

 

[Rappa]

The battery life is pretty good, but it seems to die even when the Zune isn't being used. I know that sounds strange, but it almost feels like the Zune is punishing you for not using it by killing the battery. Like It'll be good on day one, I won't use it on day two, and on day three, it'll be dead. My friend's Zune does this too.

Are you actually turning it off (hold left arrow and down on the pad for a few seconds) or just letting it go idle? I had to actually look up online how to turn it off because I couldn't find it in the manual anywhere, lol.

I love my Zune though. The speakers for my new pc I built have a stand I can use to connect my zune to the pc and speakers at the same time so I can just mute my pc and use the zune for music purposes while I'm playing games. I also go walking frequently and the larger size isn't an issue. The video can be a problem yes. On my old pc I would set a movie to convert and then go to bed and let it do the magic overnight. I haven't tried on my new one yet.

Also I personally HATE the zune software with a passion, but a new version is supposed to be coming out with the newer zune in november and older zune owners supposedly can download the newer firmware onto their old zunes and also use the new software. Overall I like it much more than my old ipod.

 

[Pasquale]

Are you actually turning it off (hold left arrow and down on the pad for a few seconds) or just letting it go idle? I had to actually look up online how to turn it off because I couldn't find it in the manual anywhere, lol.

I didn't know that. Thank you.