A Hands-On Zune Review

jayintune writes "2old2play.com got the chance to sit down with Microsoft's new media player, the Zune, to give some comments and insight into the players User Interface, Video Playback, Music Sharing, as well as software and setup." From the article: "I had expected the player to be fairly heavy, but after holding the Zune in my hand it was clear that I was wrong. It is not as light as the latest video iPod, but compared to my fourth-generation iPod, the Zune was lighter. The top of the Zune had a clear glass layer while the exterior had a tactile feel to it, nothing like the hard metal and plastic of the iPod devices. The 'skin' of the Zune was a 'rubberized' material that had a smooth seductive feel to it. I found myself unable to stop stroking the device, so much that the demo assistant asked me to put it down."

Comments

NDA? Goose?

[ackthpt]

The 'skin' of the Zune was a 'rubberized' material that had a smooth seductive feel to it. I found myself unable to stop stroking the device, so much that the demo assistant asked me to put it down.

Laughing off the uncomfortable silence, I focused on the player and the user interface (UI). The interface is amazingly responsive to my actions.

Um... Yeah. looks a news headlines, again. OK... maybe the author just having a little fun with the reader.

Clicking on the "community" button allowed me to see the other two Zunes nearby. I decided to send them my community member a song. Browsed to my music folder, found to a song and, instead of selecting to play it, I chose to send it. Prompted with a list of Zune's nearby, I chose one and sent it. Watching the other Zune, the user was prompted to download and accepted the request. It took less than 20 seconds to send the whole song which included album art.

Sounds lengthy, but if you're trying to chat up a hot prospect 20 seconds is plenty of time to break the ice.

Upon a successful transfer, the music is wrapped with a digital rights management (DRM) layer which will give the user a three day or three-listen license. I don't know about many of our readers, but I can listen to a song over and over again. Three plays... please!

DRM(!) huhhhhh HUUHHHHH huhhhhh HUUHHHHH Welcome to the dark side I wonder if there's something which allows you to add it to a wishlist to buy later if you decide you like it.

Yes, it is a first-generation product but I really like the direction Microsoft is taking with the Zune.

Clearly the reviewer is happy with DRM. Only one model, Hmm.. So when's the Zune Femto coming out?

Re:NDA? Goose?

[AdmiralWeirdbeard]

Actually, I'd *hate* to be walking around any hipster enclave with one of these.
I live on Capitol Hill in Seattle, and I can just see retarted hipster indie-rocker wannabe's walking around trying so upload their "band's" single on to any/everyone's Zune.
It'll be the next venue for that annoying asshat who hangs around the bar w/ cheap PBR pushing cheaply made cd's onto passersby.
If for no other reason, this should dissuade you from picking one up.
Just my $0.02

Zune Meme Analysis

[broward]

Microsoft's traditional marketing isn't working well.
Gee? What other ploys can Microsoft try?

Unfortunately, the mental bandwidth already belongs to iPod, it will be hard to dislodge them in favor of Zune.

http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme?entry =zune_meme_rerun

Re:Zune Meme Analysis

[nroose]

iTMS has sold over a BILLION songs. Probably tens of millions of customers.

So, what happens if you try to share an MP3 file? Does that get DRMed also? That would suck.

Seems to me like they might sell some of these if they allowed purchasing the song that someone shared with you, right from the device, and then letting you copy it back to your PC.

I find that compatibility thing funny. MS has spent soooo much time, effort, money, and compromise on backward compatibility in Windows over the years. Perhaps they just had enough of that.

smells fishy

[JJ!x]

2 articles; hmm first ditch the Apple iPhone and than stroke the Zune .. something smells fishy here :-)