Zune Car Pack
by Zune
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List Price: Our Price: $59.99 You Save: $10.00 (14%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $19.00 (click here) 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 Car Pack
Customer Review: Great product!
Summary: 5 Stars
After owning this product, I have to question the validity of some of these negative reviews.
Let's get one thing straight: This is an FM TRANSMITTER; therefore, you are going to get FM quality sound. What do some of you honestly expect? Anyway, on to my experience.
I have two of these and use them in two different vehicles, one in an '03 Ford Escape (w/ Premium sound system), the other in an '03 Cavalier (w/ the most basic sound system). It works wonderful in both and sounds like any other FM station with great reception.
It's not hard to use. In both vehicles, I followed these steps to get it working. I plugged it into an outlet, auto-searched for station, turned radio on, THEN connected the Zune. The station I found that works the best in the Escape isn't the same station that I found works the best in the Cavalier. You may need to manually search for the station that works best for you.
In the Escape, I have the transmitter connected to the power adapter through the built-in magnet and have my Zune sitting in my cupholder. I get great sound quality and reception this way. In the Cavalier, however, it takes a different setup to get great sound quality and reception. I tried setting it up in the Cavalier the same way as in the Escape, but got static. The best setup in the Cavalier for me is NOT connecting the transmitter to the power adapter with the magnet, but instead, sitting it on the dashboard grip pad next to the Zune, even though the instructions suggest otherwise. In the instructions, if I remember correctly, it says that the antenna is the wire that runs from the transmitter to the Zune, therefore, you may need to separate the two (ie: transmitter connected to the power adapter with the magnet, and the Zune on the dashboard pad), yet, in the Cavalier, my best reception was achieved by sitting the two next to each other on the dashboard grip pad.
Also, at first in the Cavalier, it seemed as though I couldn't find a station without static, even with my best setup mentioned above. I found the best station I could though, at the time, and went for a drive. To my surprise, the static went away while I was driving. For some reason, where I was parked caused static. It wasn't until I was driving that I got good reception.
I drive 50 miles to work everyday in the Escape, and I only have to use one station the whole way. It is as static free as any radio station can be. There are A LOT of radio stations on my drive to work too, so it surprised me when I found a station that worked great in both areas.
The lessons to be learned here are don't be too quick to judge and have some common sense! Just because you get static doesn't mean this is a terrible product, like some of the reviewers on here say. As I said in the beginning, this is a FM TRANSMITTER, what do you expect? Take the time to tweak it and manually find the stations if you have to. Also, try it like you would in the real world. Go out and drive and find the best station. Like I said, where I was parked, all I got was static, but as soon as I drove away from there, the static was gone. You may also need to try different arrangements like I mentioned above.
Last, but not least, this is a great product and has a nice build quality. Be careful of how much you take from the negative reviews on here! Some of these people could have a bad radio/antenna in their vehicle causing the problem, but yet, they place the blame squarely on this product and label it as terrible. If you have any common sense at all, you should have no problem with this product! Another cool feature: if your radio can display RDS information, it will display the song/artist information from your Zune!
Customer Review: Works fine, don't listen to the haters
Summary: 5 Stars
Everyone here complaining in their review seems to be complaining about static, claiming that this item is junk. Let me set the record straight.
1. All FM tuners will have some static in the sound quality no matter where you live. Everyone, stop whining about static, claiming "Maybe if you live in the middle of nowhere it will work for you." I live in the middle of freaking Long Island. The amount of electronic waves passing through my body everyday is probably enough to cause brain tumors anywhere else in the U.S. and yet I never had problems with static, so long as I picked the right channel. This brings me to my next point.
2. People latch onto the directions like its God in paper form. The directions state you should use the auto seek, meanwhile auto seek is pointless in that it never selects a good station. Don't be lazy, flip on your radio, and use the manual tune to find a station that is empty. I promise you, it won't take longer than 15 seconds. Once you find it, manually set your tuner to that station. 90% of the time, it will work. The few times it doesn't, it's a matter of other wavelengths interfering with that station, which don't necessarily have to do with radio stations. I hate to break it to all of you, but Microsoft doesn't own the atmosphere. They can't prevent this from happening.
I bought one of these, five years ago back when I was in high school. I found the concept of FM tuners to be stupid, but got it anyway. Since then, it has provided me with endless hours of driving to music, podcasts, and even videos and saw me through college as well. Mine recently died on me unfortunately because after years of being used every single day, the wire began to get loose and worn down, and has since stopped connecting to the Zune period. $30 for a crummy piece of technology manufactured by a company notorious for its products breaking, that lasts miraculously five long years? I wish every electronic device I owned lasted five years.
Seriously, just buy this if you need an FM transmitter for your Zune.
Customer Review: WORTH PURCHASING..
Summary: 5 Stars
I am glad I purchased this item although if I hadn't gone back to the review from Stan Johnson, I would not know how to use it. My purchase did not come with instructions. Thanks Stan!
I have hemmed and hawwed over whether to purchase this item for the past 3 months especially since the price was so high but when it came down and getting tired of all of the talking on the radio and reading Mr. Johnson's review, I took a chance and purchased it.
After fiddling with it (okay my boss tuned it in for me), I am in Zune heaven in my car now. The song titles and name of the artist also appear on the radio (if your vehicle has this feature). I live in a high frequency area in Virginia but once we found an FM station that was purely static, my Zune came in crystal clear. Now mind you, this is a FM transmitter not a Kenwood or Bose FM sounding device. In other words, it won't sound like you are in Carnegie hall but you can listen to your Zune without static (I do have to turn the volume up alittle more than I normally do on a regular radio station).
The only time it does get alittle static but does not go off, is when I go through the tunnel just like a normal radio station. I don't have to move my Zune around or point it in the direction of the antenna or hold it while I am driving...just plug it in, turn on my Zune and it works like a charm.
I will need to see how it does when I take road trips through the country (might be a pain looking for a good station to sync with) but it's better than listening to nothing but pure static. I am also one of those people who always seems to get buyer's remorse and I did when I first tried to tune it but once it was properly tuned, I haven't regretted my purchase.
P.S. The rubber pad works wonderfully, my player does not move at all.
Customer Review: This is the Nature of FM Transmitters
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchased this a month ago expecting to prove all the negative reviews wrong. When I ordered, I received a product that had great ergonomics and a lot of time spent in engineering the product.
I followed the instructions of tuning then turning the radio on. The problem is, I live in a very dense urban environment, and if I have a signal in one location, 8 blocks down its drowned out a channel occupying the same frequency. I have not tested in a rural environment, but I expect it would work a lot better. I have found the autotune feature will usually pull up weakly occupied stations over the unoccupied. I've noted between the channels, it is easier to transmit through these occupied channels than those filled with static, so I'll give this transmitter some credit.
I think the real problem here, that I haven't seen mentioned yet, is the cars antenna. Rear-mounted, roof-mounted, windshield-mounted or front-mounted. My antenna is rear-mounted and I haven't found a single transmitter yet that has broadcasted even a mediocre signal. All of the reviews I'm reading either have purchased the transmitter expecting it not to work, fulfilling their own expectations, or achieved satisfaction with certain frequencies. This is really the nature of FM transmitters, if you achieve poor reception with a few, the same will go for all of them. The FCC is the ultimate bottleneck, as many of these transmitters are at the max output to transmit a signal that generally still results in static.
I'd say if you have the transmitter very close to your antenna or do not live in a urban environment, give this a shot. Otherwise, expect it to work like any other FM transmitter. Ultimately, there is no substitute for hard-wiring.
Customer Review: Works like it's supposed to!
Summary: 5 Stars
After reading all the other reviews I was really doubtful about buying this but I found it locally for less than $30 so I thought I'd try it out. First off I'm not sure what people are expecting out of this, it's an FM transmitter so first off you as the customer need to see how crowded the channel is in your area. Second it's an FM transmitter so the sound quality is FM radio, not CD quality!
I'm pretty happy with it, I just bought it for use on an eight hour road trip and had to change/retune the channel every couple of hours but driving around Atlanta I had to just switch it off because there was just too much competition for the airwaves plus traffic was too heavy to mess with it.
Some tips for the people that are having issues are: 1. the two top buttons are your tuning buttons, if you hold either down for a second it will autotune to a station which for me worked most of the time and while driving if it starts getting drowned out by an existing FM channel you can just click one of the buttons up or down to manually tune it and then reset your radio to that channel; 2. I didn't have to turn the radio off and you shouldn't have too since it's looking for a signal.
I'm giving this a five stars because it works like it's supposed to and I'm glad that I didn't listen to the other reviews and just bought it to try it out myself. Like I said if your FM market is really crowded then you're limited to open channels and would be better off replacing your stereo and there are options out there for less than $200 that have auxiliary inputs and even USB connections so you won't have to worry about getting a channel plus you'd have true CD quality sound.