What is Zune doing?

Just my opinion - but people aren't really willing to shell out nearly the same price for a Zune as an iPod Touch (with WAYYYYY more functionality/apps and better "fun factor").

I agree the sound quality on the iPod Touch is really blah (although I might be spoiled, considering I listen to my X1000 quite a bit)...but it's really great value for your money when compared to the Zune.  Despite the lackluster audio and my inner audiophile nagging at me, I would never hestitate to recommend the iPod Touch over the Zune (unless you're gunning ONLY for sound quality - in which case I would steer people away from BOTH players)
 

They just failed in mindshare. I love my Zune 120, the HD is a great media player (and stunning to look at) but the fact is that to most people a portable music player and an iPod are the same thing. No one does comparative shopping, if they want an upgrade, they get the newer iPod.

Also, to the post above, I would recommend a Zune 120 over an iPod classic any day of the week, month, or year. The 5.5g is loads of fun to mod though (rockbox+line out dock)

I'm going to guess its the Sony X1000, not the Teac. The Teac is slightly less portable (though perhaps not as bad as many "portable" rigs I've seen on head-fi )

Whoaahhh there cifani, calm down for a minute. I really don't like Apple as well, but the tech industry always goes in cycles. There will come a point where the public becomes educated and no longer buys into their overpriced, overhyped, over-controlled ecosystem. Then someone else's overhyped, overpriced, over-controlled ecosystem will take over. The best thing you can do is just not buy their products.

Quote:

Originally Posted by revolink24 

I'm going to guess its the Sony X1000, not the Teac. The Teac is slightly less portable (though perhaps not as bad as many "portable" rigs I've seen on head-fi )

Haha yup! Sorry for the confusion

Quote:

Originally Posted by revolink24 

They just failed in mindshare. I love my Zune 120, the HD is a great media player (and stunning to look at) but the fact is that to most people a portable music player and an iPod are the same thing. No one does comparative shopping, if they want an upgrade, they get the newer iPod.

 

Also, to the post above, I would recommend a Zune 120 over an iPod classic any day of the week, month, or year. The 5.5g is loads of fun to mod though (rockbox+line out dock)

I agree. I bought a Zune 30 because it was cheaper than the ipod with comparable specs. It ended up really liking the interface and had no problems with the sound so I upgraded to the Zune 80. As for the Zune HD, the main problem is that consumers want to be trendy and love apps which is where the Zune HD kinda lags behind despite its better specs. If Zune could create an app marketplace I'm sure they would sell more as it would cater to the app crazed masses. Also I get the feeling that it's a trend to laugh a Microsoft's attempts to beat Apple and is seen as somewhat of the evil, faceless corporation while Apple is seen as the savior of all things tech. Also the marketing for Zune needs to be pushed a bit more. Most of my friends didn't even know what a Zune was. Anyway, just my thoughts.

The Zune never really had much of a chance to begin with. It had no substantial advantages over the iPods besides an FM radio. Even that isn't much of an advantage. SQ wasn't that much better than iPods, if at all, IMO. I've had a 30GB Zune, 120GB Zune, 2 4th gen iPods, and a 5.5G iPod. Aside from Rockbox with crossfeed enabled, not one of those I mentioned seemed to stand out over the others. Haven't heard any iPod Classics, so I can't comment on them.

Being locked down to the Zune software wasn't very fun. Being locked down to the Zune firmware with lack of updates wasn't very fun either. There were so many little problems with it that could have been easily fixed, but never were. Gapless playback worked right maybe 10% of the time, and my Zunes kept adding diginoise to some of my songs. Reripping (dBpoweramp in secure mode), resets, etc. did nothing to help this. Why keep using an MP3 player that makes my music sound worse?
 

If the Zune 120 had a Rockbox port and relatively cheap working LOD cables, I'd definitely give it another shot. Until then, I'm sticking with my 32GB CF modded Rockboxed 5.5G iPod.

Also, I have a feeling that if Windows Phone 7 will succeed, Zune will succeed. Windows Phone 7 is tied into the Zune software just as much as the iPod is to iTunes, so it will introduce people to that software (and it is nice software.) 

The one problem I see is that the minimum specs of the Zune HD and Windows Phone will be different, so I don't know about app compatibility, which is a big minus if the HD can't run WP7 apps.

Agree here too. The Windows 7 phone will almost have to be the catalyst for people to switch over to the Zune platform. However, competition is stiff in the marketplace and Droid and Apple seem to have it locked down pretty well. Also, the majority of excuses from my relatively gadget savvy friends for not switching to a Zune dap (even though they feel the specs and price/performance ratio are better) follow the lines of "I'm using a Mac" or "I have my music on iTunes" so Microsoft needs some exposure to overcome these fears. Hopefully the Windows 7 phone will be a big success but there are many obstacles they'll have to overcome especially the already thriving app marketplaces of Apple and Google.

According to what I've read, Zune HD will be baked into Windows Phone 7 and eliminated as a stand alone product. Some of that is based on multiple signs of the Zune HD being discontinued, combined with rumors of Zune HD being the 'music player' in the Windows Phone 7 lead me to the above conclusion.

The Tegra chip they use in the Zune HD never got fully utilized and they are already moving on to Tegra 2 for the WP7. I think it's safe to say Zune HD is dead.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maxvla 

According to what I've read, Zune HD will be baked into Windows Phone 7 and eliminated as a stand alone product. Some of that is based on multiple signs of the Zune HD being discontinued, combined with rumors of Zune HD being the 'music player' in the Windows Phone 7 lead me to the above conclusion.

 

The Tegra chip they use in the Zune HD never got fully utilized and they are already moving on to Tegra 2 for the WP7. I think it's safe to say Zune HD is dead.

I personally think they need a non-phone Zune-branded media player with Windows Phone apps to compete with the iPod touch for the sole reason that it expands the userbase, which is very important to developers. Adding a non-phone device that can use apps would greatly enhance the app ecosystem.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maxvla 

According to what I've read, Zune HD will be baked into Windows Phone 7 and eliminated as a stand alone product. Some of that is based on multiple signs of the Zune HD being discontinued, combined with rumors of Zune HD being the 'music player' in the Windows Phone 7 lead me to the above conclusion.

 

The Tegra chip they use in the Zune HD never got fully utilized and they are already moving on to Tegra 2 for the WP7. I think it's safe to say Zune HD is dead.

You could be right about that but FWIR I always thought they were going to revamp the HD with the Windows 7 phone OS and integrate it more with the app store (and ditch the current version). That's really the only reason I've held off on getting an HD. I sure hope they don't scrap the the concept, I quite like it. Hopefully, we'll hear some news soon when they release the Windows 7 phone. That Tegra 2 is going to be nice.

I too rather liked the Zune HD 16gb I saw at BB a few weeks ago and I probably would have bought it but the lack of a clear future and current (almost) complete lack of expansion (software-wise) and attention MS is putting towards it means that unless MS pulls a rabbit out of it's hat before the 4G iTouch comes out I'll be wielding an iTouch come September.