Thursday, November 16, 2006

Zune




























I went to Walmart last night to see if they had the Zune in... wait a minute... There are probably some of you that don't have a clue what I'm talking about. The Zune is the new MP3 player that is supposed to be the rival for the iPod. I mean, I like my iPod alright, but it's time there was some real competition.

Anyway, I went to Walmart, expecting to see them sold out, but they had a few still in the case. I'm interested to see how it plays out. Mostly in sales I mean. I l would love to have one because it's got some great features that the iPod doesn't have.

Anyway, I really want a brown one! They look cool in the pictures, but they look even better in person!

If anyone has one, tell me what you think. I read a lot of reviews and watched videos on it, but I want the general consumer viewpoint.

Like I said, I have an iPod, but this looks to be a serious rival. I'm going to go over some basic pros and cons that I see with it, keep in mind I don't own one yet though.

The main thing is, it is not Mac compatible. I certainly hope that it will be in the future. It's doesn't affect me directly because I have a PC but I read online something that stood out... Most Mac owners are really big into music. With the Zune being a music player, they should have catered to Mac users as well. I don't believe in this all out war of Mac vs. PC. Both have features that I really like. Although, with the new Intel Macs, if someone buys a Zune, they can boot in XP and use it there, but still go back to their OSX when they want to compute stuff.

Zune pros:
- 14 hour battery life (same as 30GB iPod)
- Screen orientation vertical and or horizontal
- Larger screen than iPod
- Wireless connectivity to transfer songs & pictures to other Zunes
- Plays .wmv, .mp4, h.264 videos
- FM Tune
- Earbuds have a magnet on them to attach and not get tangled
- Preloaded music, videos, and pictures
- Cool pouch instead of the iPod slip case
- Recognizeable with XBOX 360


Zune cons:
- Doesn't want to touch my purchased iTunes songs
- Slightly larger in pocket size than iPod
- No scroll wheel (may actually be good, I saw a demo video, but I'm just used to the scroll wheel)
- Not able to use as a hard drive

Overall, it would be a nice breakaway from the "white earbuds." They are becoming too popular, it's more of a fashion statement. The Zune could be something to really rock the boat of iPod users everywhere.

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