Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #133205 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Microsoft
• Model: Zune
• Released on: 2006-08-20

Manufacturer's Description
Zune is here. Designed around the principles of sharing, discovery and community, Zune will create new ways for people to connect and share entertainment experiences. The Zune experience centers around connection-- connection to your library, connection to friends, connection to community and connection to other devices.

The Zune has arrived, sporting sharing features that may revolutionise the way we experience music.

Zune starts with a 30GB digital media player and adds a twist. You can wirelessly share selected full-length sample tracks, playlists, pictures or your home-grown tracks directly from Zune to Zune. You can listen to the full-length songs that you receive up to three times in three days, flag the ones you like and easily buy them the next time you sync up. You can discover new music in the Zune Marketplace, and show off your favorite pictures and videos on the big, bright screen.

Zune stores up to 7,500 songs, 25,000 pictures or 100 hours of video. You can make playlists on the go and watch a slide show while you're listening. Watching video in landscape mode gets the most out of the vivid display. Zune has all that and a built in FM tuner, too. Zune comes in three colors: black, brown and white.

Wireless Zune-to-Zune Sharing
Every Zune device creates an opportunity for connection. Wireless Zune-to-Zune sharing lets you spontaneously share full-length sample tracks of select songs, homemade recordings, playlists or pictures with friends between Zune devices. Listen to the full track of any song you receive up to three times over three days. If you like a song you hear and want to buy it, you can flag it right on your device and easily purchase it from the Zune Marketplace.

The 30 GB player comes in three colors.

Zune Marketplace
Zune makes it easy to find music you love--whether it's songs in your existing library or new music from the Zune Marketplace. Easily import your existing music, pictures and videos in many popular formats and browse millions of songs on Zune Marketplace, where you can choose to purchase tracks individually or to buy a Zune Pass subscription to download as many songs as you want for a flat fee. It's simple to buy music and sync it on your player. The Zune Marketplace works with the Microsoft Points program so you can purchase music online without a credit card.

To get started with great music and videos out of the box, every Zune device is preloaded with content from record labels such as DTS, EMI Music's Astralwerks Records and Virgin Records, Ninja Tune, Playlouderecordings, Quango Music Group, Sub Pop Records, and V2/Artemis Records.

Zune's three-inch screen can be switched to landscape mode--great for video.

Import Your Music
Zune software can automatically import your existing music, pictures and videos from iTunes and Windows Media Player in a variety of formats, including your existing playlists and song ratings, as permitted by the online service from which it was purchased.

Room to Grow
As Zune evolves, your device can be easily updated. The Zune software on your PC will let you know when updates are available for download. And with built-in wireless capability in each player, the future is filled with possibilities.

Zune Accessories
You can choose from a full line of accessories to outfit your Zune. Three Zune Accessory Packs provide complete solutions for Zune in your car, in your home or while you travel. Individual accessories are also available.

• The Zune Car Pack includes everything needed to hit the road with a Zune device, such as the built-in FM tuner with AutoSeek and the Zune Car Charger.
• The Zune Home A/V Pack enhances your experience in the home through five products that integrate Zune with the TV and music speakers: Zune AV Output Cable, Zune Dock, Zune Sync Cable, Zune AC Adapter and the Zune Wireless Remote for Zune Dock.
• Zune Travel Pack is a set of five products designed to keep friends and family entertained on the road: Zune Premium Earphones, Zune Dual Connect Remote, Zune Gear Bag, Zune Sync Cable and the Zune AC Adapter.

Customer Reviews

Fantastic..........................
I have no brand loyalty at all to any specific company or brand all I want is the best MP3 player to suit my needs. The Zune is my 4th mp3 player, I have had a sony, an ipod video and a Samsung YP-K5. the Zune by far tops them all. The screen is huge with a good resolution and displays album art and pictures very well. The way it uses Album art and pictures is incredible with Album art zooming and panning from menu to menu. The menu system is very easy to use and you can skip between menu and functions with ease. Video play back is crisp and vibrant but this for me is a novelty as for me an MP3 player is all about the music. The sound quality is excellent quite punchy and very loud. There are only a few EQ settings but they are effective at tailoring your musical sound taste.


I'm not ipod bashing here but the reason I departed from my ipod video is because I found the battery life on the ipod abysmal and despite looking after it the amount of scratches the ipod acquired made it look very tatty in a hurry. The Zune is larger (not by much)than the ipod but thats the price of having a larger screen. The build quality of the Zune is superior as its more sturdy and less flimsy then the ipod, and the zune also has a scratch resistant two tone colour body (mine is black with a blue tinge. Battery life on the zune is also great providing you turn the screen light down to a reasonable switch off time mine is set to 1 min.

Headphones are okay but as all mp3 owners know you need to invest in better ones to get the best sound quality.

As for software theres no doubt that for teh ipod itunes is fantastic, the Zune uses a modified form of windows media player (windows media zuned) so software and syncing to the device is intuitive and relatively easy. No doubt long term itunes users will find it hard to adapt but most people would have used media player in some form or another so in terms of software there isn't much in it. Songs purchased from itunes can not be played on the Zune the only way around this is to burn them to CD and then rip them into the PC again so that the Zune will be able to get them (thats how I manged to get my i tunes music on the zune). The Zune store is still in its infancy so as results can't compare to the itunes library for purchasing but all the latest songs are present.

So there you have it I rate the Zune highly, great build quality, battery life, screen, sound and software etc. A worthy alternative to the ipod.

It's what you come to expect
I purchased the Microsoft Zune of Ebay because I live in the United Kingdom, I must say i'm pleased with it to say the least, before the Zune I had a Phillips 20gb mp3 jukebox and it did the job for around 2 years and then I wanted something a little more, something that could provide me with video, pictures, radio and more all in one device without having to drag my psp, mobile phone with me so I decided on the Zune, I had read several reviews about the Zune and saw advertisements on it and thought it looked pretty slick seeing as it had built in wireless and a sexy looking design, now to the real content.

Good points:

Wireless.
Ability to charge off usb (sure not a new idea but pretty useful)
Click wheel (some may beg to differ but I prefer it to the Ipod touch pad)
Bigger screen although resolution same as Ipod
Flip screen (turns horizontal when watching a video or viewing pictures)
Maybe a few more I forget to mention.


Bad points:

Battery life, it's not the claimed 6 hours they state, sure it never is as they state but I've only managed to drag 2-3 hours out of it.

Not being able to use the 'squirt' feature with wireless in some regions due to the device not being out which buggers me but I guess it's not there fault other than not bringing it out in other regions.

No 'delete content' feature on the device but maybe they can add that in an update, my old trusty Phillips having that feauture built in.

No mic, I guess they don't want to clutter it out with features but I guess a high quality mic wouldn't of hurt, just for those people who want to spy and listen in on people.

No mass storage feature, in other word's limited file types supported as it only works through Itunes and Zune.


Conclusion:

The Zune is well worth it's money, it's what you come to expect from such a company as Microsoft, quality and a great design, lacked some of the features some would crave but they more than make up for it with other features, me paying 200 pounds 2 years ago seem's like a laugh now seeing as I got something which does more for less, but I guess times change.

So sure buy a Zune, read this review and decide carefully, my advice would be to get one, you get a nice set of headphones, although they use a pretty cheap wire being the same as everything these day's, the plastic coating that covers them but they have a cool feature of sticking together due to them having a magnet affixed to the side.

So buy one, I don't think you will be disapointed to say the least, another great product from Microsoft.

I doubted if this was it...
Got mine a month ago. In one word...great.

Previously owned iPOD. Passed to someone else :)

Tried all the features bar one. Easily transferred my iPOD library, radio is fantastic, video is great, use with Xbox 360 (connected to my expensive HiFi) is mind blowing, battery life comparable with iPOD, Zune PC software is more intuitive though MarketPlace could be more extensive.

I have not tried the Wireless connection yet.

Would I purchase again....definitley.