Opening Zune Sales Flaccid

An anonymous reader writes "As 'Black Friday' approaches and consumers line up for the Playstation 3 it looks like Zune has become an afterthought. Despite months of hype, opening Zune sales are only so-so. While Zune did reach the top 10 on Amazon's Top 25 list for electronic product sales on its first day, it quickly fell below the top 15 and continues to drop. Six separate iPod models now outsell it as well as SanDisk's e250 player. In-store sales are not much better."

Comments

Re:Zune's Problem IS......Balmer

[vingt]

the newest iTunes update has apparently made it so that if I rip a CD and put it on my iTunes, upload to my iPod, I CAN NOT pull those songs off the iPod onto another computer... EVEN IF THAT COMPUTER IS AUTHORIZED for my iTunes account!

For a self-confessed Apple fanboi, you seem to have gone out of your way to deliberately misrepresent Apple on this one. Let's clear this up for you - Apple has added a feature! Prior to this update you couldn't pull any songs off the iPod onto another computer without third party software. Now they've added a way for you to copy the purchased music to a different computer. Ostensibly, this is to facilitate backup as well as allow playback. Let me state it again - something that Apple did not allow/facilitate before has now been added. It's progress not the regression you seem to mistakenly believe...

How 'bout Ars Technica reviews?

[MojoStan]

You can't trust amazon.com reviews.

I mostly agree with you on trusting "customer reviews" from online stores, especially if they accept "reviews" from customers who haven't bought the item being reviewed. These Zune "reviews" could turn into a flame war against Apple fans who haven't actually tried the Zune and others trying to counter the effects from fake reviews. See CNET user reviews for a really obnoxious example of this.

However, Ars Technica (an Apple-friendly, but fair site, IMO) gave a pretty positive review for the Zune (7 out of 10), even though they pointed out the early flaws of this product. If you're not familiar with Ars Technica reviews, they are the ones that published some rather infamous iPod reviews where they tested durability by putting an iPod in a washing machine, running it over with a car, and dropping it from a third-story balcony onto concrete (covered on Slashdot). BTW, they gave the newest iPod Shuffle 7/10 and the 2nd generation Nano got 8/10.

Re:Welcome to the social?

[The Great Pretender]

The Sandisk has the option of DRM or just using it as a drag and drop drive with no DRM. We use the later and just drag and drop. I didn't even install the Sandisk software until I decided to update the firmware and I've never used the software since then, still drag and drop. It's a simple toggle in the software of the device under USB Options. All I use is MP3 format (192kbps) on the Sandisk, but I know that WMA works and from experience I know that M4a doesn't (iTunes ripping for the nano). I understand that it should work with WMA and the WMA DRM, but never used those. Any other formats are beyond my knowledge or experience.

Sound wise they're both the same to me, I'm no audiophile and I don't think I need to be for this, it's an MP3 player that goes in my pocket. As an everyday user the software on the device is pretty much the same, I'm not going to quibble over the little things. A nice thing on the Sandisk is that a quick press of the power button takes you back to the first screen from where ever you are. The screen is bigger on the Sandisk compared to the nano we have (I don't know if they changed with the last revision). Also the Sandisk has the FM tuner which makes a huge difference down the gym when watch the TV's, the nano doesn't. The sizes are equivalent to me, I don't care about a few millimeters here or there and the Sandisk has an overall better solid feel as it's slightly heavier. However, the controls on the Sandisk are not as good as the nano, the nano definitely wins out there (except for the blue light), but I pick an album and put the thing in my pocket, so tactile control feel is not that important to me. Both require USB charging, unless you pay the cash for the external chargers. The biggest plus to the Sandisk is no software required. As long as I have the cable, in the mode I have it (no-DRM) it acts just like a USB drive with the computer.

All this is just my opinion, based on my preferences for using the two players. Other people will think differently, obviously. Oh, and I've not had any problems with lock-up on either.