Zune 80 GB Digital Media Player (Black)
by Zune
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List Price: Our Price: $135.00 You Save: $114.00 (46%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Network Media Player See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Zune 80 GB Digital Media Player (Black)
Customer Review: Best in it's class!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an amazing device. I'm an "audiophile" of sorts and I've played and/or owned most of the major devices out there (iPod Classic 80, iPod Nano 2g 2gb, Archos 504, Archos 605wifi 160gb, iRiver H140). For me, the Zune 2 wins! In comparison to iPod, there really can't be a fair assessment. People who bash the Zune 2 are looking at it too narrow mindedly. If Microsoft wanted to created an iPod clone they would have! Plain and simple. It wouldn't be the first time they took a good idea and made it their own. I've been using Microsoft products now for well over 15 years. I'm no Microsoft Fanboy myself but I am thrilled with this unit. Microsoft took a common thing and made it their own. That could be why Zune 30GB was such a flop, because it was trying TOO hard to be an iPod and was failing miserably at that. But the new none....totally different.
Consider some Pros and Cons:
Pros-
(Hardware)
Design: The housing is beautiful. Scratch resistant and simple. Real glass screen and a touch pad "Zune Pad" that makes browsing your thousands of MP3s fun and relatively simple. Hold switch and thinner housing is a plus! Headphones that are included have very nice sound...however...see the cons.
Accessories: Microsoft took a lesson from Apple and made a proprietary port on the bottom for accessories and syncing (which is also a con) but opened it up to 3rd parties to develop accessories for it. Very nice!
Screen: Crisp, clear, and BIG! Compared to the iPods (minus the iPhone and Touch) the screen takes the cake. I love seeing a HUGE album art...I feel like my digital collection is actually tactile!
(Device Software)
Design: Beautiful! Simple! and Easy! Microsoft exceeds here compared to other DAPs or PVPs. Its fluid and and well designed without sacraficing performance. Also, PERSONALIZED BACKGROUNDS! Nice! Audio playback is truly eloquent. Not too happy about not having an equalizer but oh well. With a decent pair of headphones ($40 - $100) you can listen to your favorite music and not worry about no equalizer because you have the raw (in a good way) sound unadulterated.
Use: Easy. Rediscovering your collection is simple and the shuffle feature is nice. You can shuffle any form or your collection and then during playback you can rate it: Love it, Don't Love it, and no setting. Also, if you want to hear more of that artist or album just click and navigate to "Go to Artist".
(PC Software)
Design: BEAUTIFUL! I use a TON of media players and this one is very nice. Admittingly I do like iTunes coverflow for iTunes (not the iPod however...too choppy and buggy), but the Zune's PC Software does a nice job of really bringing your collection to life.
Use: Easy. Pretty simple and syncing is very easy. Drag and Drop or automatic. Also the Podcasting is a very nice addition too. Plenty of subscriptions to choose from.
CONS-
(Hardware)
Design: Small window on top of the Zune for the wireless function can be loose. Also where the front soft-plastic and aluminum housing meet has a small raise of separation. No gaps or anything, just doesn't fell 100% smooth is all. Also, although the included headphones are wonderful as far as quality goes (especially compared to ANY other bundled headphones) they buds suffer from some noise amplification through the cord. If you don't want the noise then you'll have to sit perfectly still. Right!
Accessories: Proprietary port. Nice and crucial for powered accessories...but a plain 'ol USB port is also a beautiful thing.
Screen: Can easily see fingerprint smudges. Nothing too surprising. Also the resolution can yield some fuzzy pictures (if resolution is lower than the screen). Nothing to cry over though.
(Device Software)
Design: NO EQUALIZER! NO EQUALIZER! NO EQUALIZER! Man that bums me out! Some songs just need some adjusting. Minus that detail however, the sound is very very nice! See Pros. Also, limited support of Codecs. Ogg and AVI support would make this unit the BEST and a true iPod killer. Still, the codec support it has now is still decent.
Use: NO NOW PLAYING selection of feature. Suppose you go into pictures and your messing around and you want to go back to music. Have to end your slideshow (picture browsing expereince) and then hold back to get to the main menu. Not a big deal but still. Minor detail. Also, NO SMART PLAYLISTS!!! Again, nothing to give up the device for or not buy it for but something that eeks me a little.
(PC Software)
Design: can be a little resource intensive on your PC. I have 2GBs RAM on my Laptop and I noticed it a little. NO LINUX support! Proof I'm not a Microsoft fanboy. I run dual boots in my house and find myself in Ubuntu a lot. No support for Ubuntu or any Linux for that matter. Something too is you can't use the Zune as a flash or portable hard drive unless you do a RegHack...and most people don't want to do that. I would really like to see more support for more codecs. That's where the Zune would KILL the iPod and iTunes.
Use: Nothing too much to complain about.
OVERALL:
This is a winner in my book. I feel I'm unbiased in this decision too. I've had and loved my iPods and I loved and still love my iRiver H140. But this Zune is amazing. I would recommend it too anyone anywhere anytime! Simple as that. I don't care if you prefer iTunes or iPods or whatever...this Zune 80 is worth every single penny!
Customer Review: Zune 80 Gig
Summary: 5 Stars
My wife bought me the 80gig Zune for Fathers Day. I had told her I wanted one after playing with the Zune software, which can be downloaded at Microsoft's website for free, for a couple of months and after reading reviews on Amazon. The only other player I have owned up to this point was a 3rd Generation 30 gig Ipod. In my opinion, the Zune blows the Ipod out of the water.
I found the Zune software to be intuitive and simplistic. When the software was originally loaded and run the first time it synced with my Itunes collection, automatically bringing in all music not protected by DRM. It also had no problem recognizing my photo files and bringing them into the software as well. Since I own an Xbox 360, I was able to log onto the Zune Social and Marketplace right away using my 360 account. It also imported all of my Xbox Live friends into my Zune social homepage. Although none of them use the Zune software, I still thought that was a cool feature and really shows how Microsoft is trying to bridge the two products together. The Zune Social is Microsoft's musical copy of MySpace. You can create you own "homepage" where you can tell about yourself and it displays the music you have been listening to to the Zune community. This is a unique way to network with others who listen to music with similar tastes as yourself and can help you in finding new artists. It clearly states that the Social is still in Beta testing and is not something you have to participate in to use the Zune or it's PC software. The Zune Marketplace is probably the softwares biggest weakness. Microsoft insists on using their points system, which was originally created for the Xbox Live marketplace, instead of just using a saved credit card to purchase music as on Itunes and Amazon. This may have the potential of scaring off some customers. This doesn't effect me too much, though, since I have been strictly using Amazon to buy all my MP3's for the past several months. Hard to beat DRM free music at cheaper prices than Itunes or Zune Marketplace. If you are not doing this yet you need to be, NOW! There is absolutely no reason to buy DRM music. NONE!
As for the Zune device itself. When I first synced the Zune to the PC it did a firmware upgrade to the Zune and, once finished, then started moving all the music to the device. Flawless process! After about two hours the battery was fully charged and ready to go. The "squircle", as some call it, is a little different than the Ipod, but works in a similar fashion that I found easy to use. When my wife first tried using it she found herself annoyed at first that it didn't exactly "work like the Ipod" but she quickly got the hang of it. I enjoy the FM radio capability. I would have enjoyed an AM receiver even more since I listen to a lot of political talk radio and my local sports teams. Maybe in a future model they will add this function into the device. Later on, I added in photos of my daughter. The display looks fabulous. All of my pictures show beautifully on the screen as well as album covers. As other reviews point out, there is no equalizer. This troubled me at first, but after listening to the device for about an hour I could care less. The sound is superb and the earphones are, without question, a hundred times better than the Ipod's. In comfort and sound, the Zune headphones are fantastic. The in-ear headphones do a good job of blocking out ambient noise and allowed me to keep the volume at reasonable levels while doing yard work for about three hours. My ipod would have left my ears ringing due to my having to turn the volume way up to overcome the hedge clipper noise. I am excited to see how this works on a plane ride, since I also always have to crank my ipod up to overcome the jet noise. I also really like the fact that the Zune does not use proprietary file types as Apple forces you to do. The device will accept just about anything you want to put on it, including TV you have recorded using Windows Media.
In conclusion, the Zune is a solid device and I am extremely happy with this wonderful gift. I have already showed it to several family and friends and have encouraged them to consider a Zune for themselves. Dump the ipod, get yourself a Zune!
Customer Review: 80 GB ZUNE wins against 80 GB iPod
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchased this Zune last weekend and I am currently very happy about it. I returned the iPod that I purchased a week ago and I was a lucky one to find the Zune for exchange.
First, Why did I return the iPod? I had problems with the iPod while watching video Podcasts. It was freezing,resetting, etc. After a massive research in Apple's discussion boards, I realized that the 2nd generation iPod has many more freezing problems. It deletes people's libraries, keeps on freezing till the battery runs out etc. Everybody was complaining that Apple released the product without enough testing. So, after spending 4 hours with their customer care, they pretended like there was no problems with my device even disconnected me twice on purpose. That was it. My first Apple product was gone back fairly quickly.
I am verry happy with exchanging the iPod for a Zune. I was lucky to find one on 17th of November because it was out of stock almost everywhere.
SCREEN:
It's screen is almost TWICE AS BIG as iPod's, the image is BRIGHT and CLEAR for both pictures and videos. It is great! Microsoft took the advantage and used the screen very well. THE ALBUM ART LOOKS GREAT while you are listening to music. The fonts in song /album/artist lists are perfect size you may see a lot on the screen.
NEW TOUCHPAD:
iPod 6th generation's click wheel was awful. People with 5th generation even says that it was more responsive before. MICROSOFT WIN AGAINST THE CLICK WHEEL WITH THEIR NEW TOUCHPAD. It is like the touchpad's of laptops, works like a scroll bar while you are searching for music or moving in your library. The faster you scroll, the faster it goes in the menu and with a touch it stops, if you release it slows down and stops eventually anyway. So I liked the touchpad a lot, much more then the irresponsive click wheel of iPod. It was a nightmare to go to the next song in the list with the click wheel. Zune's touchpad also works as a direction pad so you may just click if you need to go just to the next song, or album in the list. The back and pause/play buttons on the sides of the touchpad helps a lot as well. You may press the back button and go back to the main menu. While you are listening to a song you click the center of the touchpad and then you may move to another song in the album by up/down or even move to another album of the artist by left-right. It was not this easy in iPod.
BATTERY:
I watch video podcasts a lot so I cannot give a good review for battery life. But they say it runs 12-14 HOURS only for listening to music.
SOFTWARE:
Zune has its own software. iTunes has been out for a long while and Zune software cannot compete with it yet...However, I found it enough for my needs. I transferred 50 GB of my music at once with NO ERRORS OR INTERRUPTIONS. I hope it keeps on running without problems in the future.
EXTRAS:
iPod had a lot of extras, clock, calendar, alarm, games, etc. Zune has NONE of them. One bad thing is that there is NO EQUALIZER you gotta live with what you get.
RADIO:
Zune has a radio INSTALLED in it, I have been reading to the radio only at the car but if you cannot watch a game and want to listen to it, there you go!
WIRELESS:
I have not tried the wireless sync. I bet I'll have problems because my wireless is not that reliable. But we tried to transfer files from my Zune to another friends 30 GB Zune and it worked pretty well. If you have friends around with Zune's, you may SHARE YOUR MUSIC, and listen to the shared files for a limited time.
FILE TYPES:
Zune is DRM-free, you may transfer divx and wmv files as well.
EXTERNAL STORAGE:
You MAY NOT USE Zune as an external hard drive like you can do in iPod. I could not do it so far. However, you may transfer the music on it to another computer.
OVERALL:
I definitely recommend the 2nd generation ZUNE over the 6th generation iPod.
I think Apple has just started to move to other directions with iPhone and iTouch and they are OK if they loose the competition to Zune in massive mp3/video players. If they keep on disappointing their customers like this, they will eventually loose it.
Customer Review: Zune 80 GB possible iPod killer? Almost.
Summary: 5 Stars
The new Zune 80 is either hated or loved. I've read reviews mentioning it to be the iPod killer. While I think it comes close to contending with the audio player currently holding the largest market share, it misses out on a few points.
The headphones that are packaged, are great if you're used to those garbage headphones packaged with other players. However if you have quality buds/cans or what not, I would suggest sticking with those.
Let's look at the dimensions. The Zune, by dimension is rather small by comparison to it's now older (and lower capacity) brother the Zune 30. It's 2.4" wide, 4.25" high and 0.5" thick. Around 25% smaller than the original, it also sports a much larger 3.2 inch screen made of glass. That's something I found interesting. As far as I know, most players have plastic screens. The added durability and clarity of the glass screen is very nice.
Enough of the dimensions though, I'm certain that software questions are prevalent somewhere. The Zune software, which is NOT packaged with the snazzy box that the Zune 80 comes in, is downloaded from the Zune's website. It looks pretty, but I can't honestly say I enjoy using it. Yes, you can sort audio by Artist, Date and Genre, it also requires association with mp3s. As in, you MUST use it for mp3 audio playback to use the software. That gripe aside, the software is fairly simple to use, syncs well and while I had some problems on my laptop, I had no issues on my desktop, or several of my friends. (I was fortunate in that they allowed me to test my Zune and software with several different brands. My laptop is the only one that experienced any issues). While the software left me wishing it worked on my laptop, the Zune's GUI is very nice.
A bit simple, with large text, but still very nice. Scrolling using the touch pad was complemented on the GUI with a large version of the letter appearing as you scroll fast. Tapping the pad stops it, while pushing down on the pad select the song/album/playlist, etc. (More on the touch pad in a moment)While the screen shows a giant version of the current track's album art, and you can select a background image of your own there is one gripe. Where did the EQ go? Microsoft, please rectify this. I am not a hardcore audiphile, and my headphones work great (Ultimate Ears Super.Fi 3 Live) with the Zune, I do like the option of selecting my own EQ settings.
The wireless, which is used to sync with your computer if you wanted to, works great and the setup (going back to the software for just a moment) was simple. Unfortunately, if you leave it on and forget to turn it off, it will eat up your battery life like a hungry elephant. Just remember to turn it off, and the battery life is great.
Back to the touch pad. I feel this is the most innovative part of the player. It is not simply a touch pad, but tactile controls as well. Called a squircle, I had my reservations but it works amazingly well. The scrolling is great with the touch pad, and the faster you move your finger on it the fast it scrolls through the songs. Alternatively you could hold down the touch pad, which would also allow scrolling. The touch controls can even be turned off for those who prefer tactile controls, a definite plus for people like me who only used audio players without touch controls, although as I stated the touch pad is very nice, responsive but not TOO sensitive.
Of course, the audio is the most important part, and the audio quality is good on the Zune. Podcast playback works great in both audio and video capacities. The video, with that very large screen looks great, and after going through several different videos of varied genres look amazing. The Zune natively supports H.264 and mp4 video playback, just in case anyone's wondering.
As you can tell, the Zune has a great feature set, making it a great player. While the Zune can compete with the iPod and even possibly give it a run for its money, I think it would put it far beyond by making some additions with firmware updates, such as EQ. Other than that, it's a solid player that I think many people will enjoy owning. Keep it up Microsoft, and you may even get some of that market share back.
Customer Review: Excellent music and video player!
Summary: 5 Stars
I have been holding off for a really long time buying a portable music player (PMP), mostly because few have had the capacity to hold my music collection, currently at roughly 70GB. Apple has offered iPods with enough capacity for a while, but they have disabled WMA-format playback (the format my music is stored in), so no iPod has been suitable for my use.
The original Zune wasn't an option for me because of the capacity, I didn't like the software that it came with, and I just plain didn't like the way it looks. But when I heard that Microsoft was coming out with an 80GB model, I thought I'd take a look. I picked one up the first day they were available, and I am very impressed.
The screen is gorgeous (and huge for a player this size), and the 80GB capacity lets me keep all of my music plus several TV shows (self-ripped) and cartoons with me at any given time. Having a standard video/audio out is also a plus. But one of the neatest features is the wireless syncing. When I'm at home at night I can use the wireless sync feature to update podcasts and any collection changes without having to wander downstairs to dock it at my computer.
I know most of you looking at this are wondering how it compares to the iPods, so here's a quick summary:
Advantages over iPod Classic: Larger screen, better navigation through library, wireless syncing, built-in FM radio, no special certified cable required for connection to a TV, overall probably easier to use for those not familiar with these types of devices, prettier user interface, feels more robust, wider file format support, more flexible navigation through music library, wireless syncing is killer, and on a personal note I like the Zune software much better than iTunes. Regular home dock includes Component Video output.
Disadvantages compared to iPod: No TV shows/movies are available in the Zune Marketplace, some may prefer the click wheel over the Zune's touch pad (though many may not), fewer accessories available (though the basics are there and are very good), purchased content from iTunes probably won't work, no equalizer.
Sound quality on the Zune may be a tad better, but it is close. Personally I don't miss the EQ because the sound quality is quite good.
Other little things that I like: Changes made to my music folders on my computer are instantly reflected in the Zune software, even if they are made by another piece of software. Starting a synchronization operation, even over WiFi, starts the Zune software automatically. You can change which album/artist you are viewing without having to back out to a higher level menu by clicking left/right on the touchpad, making for very fast navigation when trying to find a specific song.
Things I don't like: Creating playlists in the Zune software is kind of strange, so I use Windows Media Player to create them, then import the resulting M3U file. The Zune software doesn't have any ways to re-tag files, so another utility will be required. Zune software can't be minimized to the system tray. The touch pad, while a great idea which does improve using the device, does take some getting used to to avoid accidental navigation away from the music you are trying to select. On my super-sensitive high-end earphones I can hear the hard drive motor spin up before song playback begins (though it disappears immediately, and therefore isn't at all annoying).
Overall this is a highly recommended product, and unless you have a significant library of protected purchased iTunes content or a lot of iPod accessories, this makes an excellent replacement for (and is a more-than-worthy competitor to) the iPod Classic. Now we just need Microsoft to come out with a 160GB version.