[pds6]

milkpowder says:
Quote:

Most would prefer a small flash player.

What kinds of bit rates do they rip at?

 

[vagarach]

Well, I had the opportunity to play with a zune today. It was the white one, and I must say, the casing is impressive. It's a lovely semi-opaque (for half of the depth, and opaque the rest of the way) matte finish back with a solid white front. The screen is simply amazing for 320x240. Sharp, vivid colours. The unit itself is not evenly weighted, one end being heavier than the other. Being used to the blazing menu response time of my nano, the zune felt slow, sort of like the ipod mini, everything takes a millisecond of time, not nearly instantaneous. Interface was nice and intuitive after I got past the fact that the fake scroll wheel is actually a 4 way d-pad.

No sq report, as I didn't have my e2c's with me at the time (it was a microsoft info session (co-op/intern job related) at my university).

 

[pds6]

vagarach says:
Quote:

It was the white one, and I must say, the casing is impressive. It's a lovely semi-opaque (for half of the depth, and opaque the rest of the way) matte finish back with a solid white front.

Good Blurb.

All us "expert", but now someone has seen what the fight is over. Every review I have seen talks about the finish, the screen and that they try to use the controller like a click wheel.

 

[uzziah]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pheonix991 Happy with what I've got, but, if it get rockboxed, and the wi-fi is made so I can transfer my files via my network, we might be talking.

bingo; and i'd add to this it has to sound excellent (better than ipod) and have extremely intuitive controls/interface, something i EXPECT MS to botch

 

[uzziah]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pds6 RedLeader says: GOOD NEWS: I bought a 5th gen refurbished 60gb iPod for $229.00. In my opinion the direct result of the Zune. Thank You Zune. BAD NEWS: I don't think there will be more "competition". It will become iPod vs. Zune. The other dap manufacturers will fall by the wayside. The PlayForSure format looks to be orphaned the result of the Zune. The only ones with the money and support to create better and better interfaces are Apple and MicroSoft. Creative is going into the iPod add-on market. I don't see them being much of a player in the near future. How much longer can iAudio and iRiver last in this market. Both companies are under assault at home with the influx of cheap knock-offs from China. I often see Archos players at substantial discounts. I have seen them on sale for about half list price. This is not a good sign.

meh, MS has a strangle hold on OS market because of intentional incompatability with other products; can they do that with zune? nah, unless they only let you use a zune with vista.................ha...not so much......

but even as i say it i worry....i can imagine ms trying to squeeze others out by making it easier to connect the zune to a windows pc and harder for others.....bloody MS

 

[uzziah]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pds6 RedLeader says: GOOD NEWS: I bought a 5th gen refurbished 60gb iPod for $229.00. In my opinion the direct result of the Zune. Thank You Zune. BAD NEWS: I don't think there will be more "competition". It will become iPod vs. Zune. The other dap manufacturers will fall by the wayside. The PlayForSure format looks to be orphaned the result of the Zune. The only ones with the money and support to create better and better interfaces are Apple and MicroSoft. Creative is going into the iPod add-on market. I don't see them being much of a player in the near future. How much longer can iAudio and iRiver last in this market. Both companies are under assault at home with the influx of cheap knock-offs from China. I often see Archos players at substantial discounts. I have seen them on sale for about half list price. This is not a good sign.

meh, MS has a strangle hold on OS market because of intentional incompatability with other products; can they do that with zune? nah, unless they only let you use a zune with vista.................ha...not so much......

but even as i say it i worry....i can imagine ms trying to squeeze others out by making it easier to connect the zune to a windows pc and harder for others.....bloody MS

and to be honest i'd love some terrible control-play by MS to throw normal folks towards linux

 

[uzziah]

and my final point: with dap's it's all about the sex factor. THIN, light, sexy, simple, attractive. a thick dap is a death sentance right now imo. apple keeps making everything thinner and thinner, and it's frustrating that i don't see anyone able to get this fact; i can imagine engineers not wanting to spend the cash to create a player half as thin as they imagine, possibly eliminating features they want; but people want a jeans-pocket device that slides right in.

 

[puiah11]

I thought women liked thick daps? Ok, bad joke but seriously all this zune stuff is to just get Apple to lower the price of the iPod and thus their net income. I don't think Microsoft is really interested in satisfying the consumer rather than messing with Apple.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pds6 blessingx says: With so much money out there to be made, I would think Apple would want to be the digital operating system of choice. It seems to me that they could make a lot of money selling an Apple Digital Platform to everyone from Sony to Creative. The first step, open iTunes and sell the operating system to third parties.

Apple is selfish imo. Their eula is illogical.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Norman Hunter "Well, it can't sound worse than the iPod, and because the Zune is a Toshiba Gigabeat in a yankee-costume it can't sound too bad." Do you think that part about the sound will be true?? If it sounds good I will get it. I bought a video iPod one day and tried transferring photos over to it and my PC locked up so hard that I had to unplug it from the wall ---The iPod went back to Best Buy that same afternoon--Too bad.

Yeah iTunes crashes on my x64 system about 1/2 the time during snycs.

 

[james__bean]

No digital output means I'm not interested.

 

[pds6]

puiah11says:
Quote:

Apple is selfish imo

I agree. Having the interface of choice = $$$$$$$$$$.

 

[]|[ GorE]

I think the Zune is gonna be awesome.I expect killer sound quality,an excellent OS and navigation.The wifi could also be of use for streaming audio from home devices.

 

[pds6]

]|[ GorE says:
Quote:

Zune is gonna be awesome . . . killer sound quality . . . excellent OS and navigation [and] . . . wifi . . . streaming audio from home devices.

You forgot to mention the solid gold case, 10,000 hour battery life and the new $4.99 price tag.

 

[jdimitri]

Quote:

Originally Posted by uzziah and my final point: with dap's it's all about the sex factor. THIN, light, sexy, simple, attractive. a thick dap is a death sentance right now imo. apple keeps making everything thinner and thinner, and it's frustrating that i don't see anyone able to get this fact; i can imagine engineers not wanting to spend the cash to create a player half as thin as they imagine, possibly eliminating features they want; but people want a jeans-pocket device that slides right in.

Hey you won

I'd rather have a thin player than a small but fat player (oh the zune is neither)
I have nothing against the 5G ipod either, SQ wise
Bigger screen? i hardly ever watch video on my music player anyway
Oh and all my music is in AAC

No reason for me to change really

 

[FA22RaptorF22]

Quote:

Originally Posted by puiah11 Yeah iTunes crashes on my x64 system about 1/2 the time during snycs.

Exactly, my friend. 64 bit architecture is still "beta" as far as the world is concerned. No one supports it and it is quite a bit unstable. I have every 32 and 64 bit os. Everything from the first windows to the lastest. 64 bit is unstable and itunes never crashes on my 32 bit pc.

macs are 64 bit, but they don't crash due to their type of os and itunes is native to that.