Microsoft Zune 30GB Media Player - Black

Microsoft Zune

Zune 30GB Media Player - Black Review, by Eric Dahl November 20, 2006

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• Latest User Reviews 10 reviews
• Reviewed by: jftenispro

  Duration of ownership: 11 Months

  Strengths: 30 GB hard drive, nice clear screen resolution,software integration with MS Media Player, easy operation

  Weaknesses: 802.11 wireless limited capability an d not up to par cannot connect to a network

  Overall: Very good payer but sorry I have no experience with Ipod or other players. But I would not want to have to be locked into iTunes!

• Reviewed by: tgkillerman

  Duration of ownership: 1 Week

  Strengths: Very easy to use and sync

  Weaknesses: No instructions with zune

  Overall: I purchased an Ipod about 3 years ago and after 10 hours on phone between Microsoft and Apple and giving $30.00 of my hard earned money to Microsoft I still couldnt get my computer to work with the Ipod. After downloading software and plugging in my Zune I had all 600 songs on my Zune and was listening to it after it was charged up. I highly recommend this product to anyone

• Reviewed by: jmgeddis

  Duration of ownership: 5 Days

  Overall: In November of 2006, I received an electric shock through the earbuds of my Microsoft Zune. Simultaneously, the Zune software reset and emitted a very loud noise through the earbuds. Since the incident, I've suffered blood and fluid leakage from my ear canal, impaired hearing, and incessant ringing and discomfort. I've been treated with vitamins, steroids, pain killers, sleep aids, anti-depressants, and other medications. All, to no avail. I notified Microsoft of the problem and promptly received a phone call from Jaret Rettell of Microsoft Zune Escalations. Jaret stated that he was reviewing "a number of similar complaints." He asked me to return the device for replacement and authorize the release of my medical records to Microsoft. Please, would you? After eleven months of unsuccessful medical treatment, I filed a personal injury/product liability lawsuit against Microsoft. Since so many other similar incidents have been reported on the web, I intend to reconvene as a class against Microsoft. Have you had a similar experience with the Microsoft Zune? If so, please report a claim at www.microsoftzuneinjuries.com

• Reviewed by: ciraj

  Duration of ownership: 3 Days

  Strengths: Microsoft :), Sound quality, looks, connectivity, interface, TVOUT and so many

  Weaknesses: cannot use it as a flashDrive :(, can't delete any file from the device (needs sync), battery duration is really less...

  Overall: Well I was first gifted Creative ZEN:Vision 30GB then this (Zune30), there were so many good things in ZEN:30 but the screen of Zune is great and the interface too. (Oh and who cares about the price when you get gifts that often :D)

• Reviewed by: frostyswimmer

  Duration of ownership: 1 Year

  Strengths: large display, capacity, amazing audio quality, cool wireless, videos easy to watch, etc

  Weaknesses: a tad thick (makes it durable though)

  Overall: great player definitely would buy it over a ipod any day. toobad it doesn't seem to be sold in canada though:( I had to have a friend buy it during their vacation.

• Reviewed by: LagrothBur27

  Duration of ownership: 3 Months

  Strengths: Low weight, Good sound quality, Syncs and charges from Xbox 360, FM radia, Has a large screen, Videos can be easily organized, Charges fast, Not made by apple, Halo 3 edition zune looks really cool, Can work as a flashlight, Doesn't play videos of the .mov format.

  Weaknesses: Requires hacks to share music wirelessly, Zune marketplace automatically updates metadata when songs are first added to library.

  Overall: It's a good cheap mp3 player with a highly detailed screen that you can actually see the subtitles of movies with. It's durable and doesn't break easily, and due to the fact that it isn't shiny, it doesn't show fingerprints when you touch it. It shows album art when playing songs, but best of all, it doesn't require itunes.

• Reviewed by: pablitomon

  Duration of ownership: 3 Months

  Strengths: ease to locate files, quick recharge, quick sinch

  Weaknesses: VERY expensive, battery short life, so calles free musik download trial offer is a RIPOFF. They just want you to buy membership. very hard connectivity. bulksome, limpy, "economic" features.

  Overall: STAY AWAY from Zune. comes pre loaded w/bunch of garbage, need tons of passwords to access one song on line, sinch w/another Zune requires patience and many tries. easy to drop, clip easy breaks, burdensome, lumpy, heavy, earpieces don't stay put, accessories VERY EXPENSIVE. These ppl are out to get your mone and its not worth it. I just bought a 300.00 paper weight!! (sad..sad..)

• Reviewed by: Erey10

  Duration of ownership: 8 Months

  Strengths: Fast, sound quality is the best, it will load ANY KIND of music from anywhere. I have approx. 4,000 songs and 500 pictures and some short movies on mine and it has not slowed down one bit. The Radio is great I have no complaints.

  Weaknesses: Larger than an IPOD but worth it's weight.

  Overall: I love the Blekin charger that stands it up in the car to go along with it. I have had the zune from day one and am glad I made this choice. Reason I made the choice was because all my friends had Ipods and were complainting that after approx. 18 months it would break and they had to buy a new one, very few of my friends have had it longer than 2 years. Also the sound quality is unbelieveable.

• Reviewed by: yyz2112

  Duration of ownership: 1 Month

  Strengths: 30 gb is lots of tunes. zune market place is easy to use downloads and sync are a breazzze. controls are easy to use

  Weaknesses: the zune market place needs more tunes

  Overall: fun to use. controls are easy to use. you can list music how you want, what ever you see fit to do. i dont see me filling it up with just music. movies are the next big thing i cant wait till they become more available. radio works well. i live in a rual area and it works really well for me. microsoft dose a geat job on this little piece of heaven. no itunes on my machine is a good thing

• Reviewed by: mrczyk

  Duration of ownership: 1 Day

  Strengths: More robust than iPod, not iTunes dependent?

  Weaknesses: Size, battery, music sharing limitations, a Microsoft product

  Overall: I am Christmas shopping for my daughter's much requested Apple iPod 30 Gb Video. I was put off by the iPod's mail-in factory battery replacement ($65 + shipping + insurance), iTunes limitations and its inability to off-load music files. So, I considered the Microsoft Zune: same price, larger display, seemingly more friendly file swapping. On a hunch, I called Zune to ask about battery replacement. Apparently, when the battery no longer holds a charge you send it to Zune and they replace the complete unit. (So you better have backed up your files on a computer.) The battery/unit replacement requires however that you have a valid extended warranty. The Zune rep (Abdullah. Seriously!) could not give me the price for the extended warranty since Microsoft had not yet created it! So, if the extended warranty is less per year than Apple's $70+ battery replacement, it may be worth it. Does anyone else have any information or guidance? I have not yet made my Christmas purchase. Personally, neither iPod nor Zune make financial or technical sense to me - but I'm not 18 years old either.

• Reviewed by:

  Strengths: Good size video presentationeasy intuitive navigation thru the buttonsnice soundFM STATIONS!!Good memory for the buck

  Weaknesses: No manual to help start up. Smart wife took 3 hrs to set up.No included conversion software. (you have to buy one from a third party if your vids aren't in 1 of 4 formats)SLOW transfer rate

  Overall: I bought the Zune for my wife's daily subway commute. She seemed quite happy after her first day. Looks like decent picture quality and sound. (I'm used to high def TV with my 5.1 Bose and it seems fine to me)Setting the little bugger up was annoying though. b/cTHERE IS NO MANUAL that walks you through. A LOT of fumbling around like a monkey armed with a paper clip in a room full of electrical sockets. Till you finally get a OOooh! It'd be nice to have a couple of examples at least of how to load in the files. Turns out its all about having the right format of video in the right 'known' file and then synch em. A voila! two hours of downloading time later your ready to go!THERE IS NO PRELOADED CONVERSION SOFTWARE! You have to surfing for one and hope you find a programs that doesn't burn you wallet or your PC's phallus with some unknown VD. Since the Zune only handles a few specific formats you have to find at least one converted that'll prep the vids you wanna load. TRANSFER RATE IS DEPRESSINGLY SLOW. Maybe its so **** slow on purpose, to give the Zune a chance to recharge (via USB transfer cable), since that's the only way the boxed set allows you to charge unless you've paid a jacked up price on a charger just to get that initial discount.OTHERWISE THE ZUNE SEEMS GREAT!MORE CYNICAL REVIEWS WILL COME AFTER WIFEY USES FOR A BIT.

• Reviewed by: sandatc

  Strengths: Sound quality is great, versatiligy

  Weaknesses: lack of accessroies

  Overall: Love this. Sorry IPOD, but you're yesterday's news. Never been a big microsoft fan in general but this kicks rears! Very versatile networking platform. I really like it. I am thinking about an xbox next.

• Reviewed by: b_lubin111692

  Strengths: look, sharing with friends, syncs with my xbox 360

  Weaknesses: idk

  Overall: i bought a zune at eb games for 250, yes its the same price as a thirty gig ipod vid....but w/e. after i bought it i loaded all of the music by myself on my laptop...im 14 so its not that complicated plus i have the attention span of an monkey......i got all of my music right on and got some vids off limewire no problem...the next day i went to school and shared music with 8 friend...no lie...8.more people are starting to get them and they rock.

• Reviewed by: pkkirsch

  Strengths: the screen, FM radio, user controls very intuitive,sound quality is better than iPod,wiFi song sharing, better graphics10. Zune marketplace: The market place has millions of songs and I like it for music better than iTunes for the feel and graphics an

  Weaknesses: battery could last longer than 12-14 hrs

  Overall: Microsoft came out with Zune in Nov.2006 and it has had mixed reviews. I know Zune has received a lot of bad press and it is wholly undeserved. I am going to explain why I know this to be true. You see I am the owner of a Zune and it has surpassed my expectations. This is going to shoot Microsoft?s stock off the charts when people get a really good look at Zune. I was going to buy an iPod and was originally not even prepared to look at Zune. That would have been a huge mistake I know I would have regretted. The advertising for Zune is not very good and it has not exactly had the best reviews out there today but that is changing and partly why I decided to write this article on Zune. I will also say I have yet to speak to anyone who owns a Zune that does not love it and that does not prefer it to iPod. As a matter of fact I spoke to iPod guys who would actually rather have a Zune but had already bought iPod. I did a lot of research on Zune before even going to look at the new MP3 player. I noticed that some of the reviews seemed to contradict each other and the positive reviews all had the same cons listed where as they said the opposite of the ones that trashed Zune. The thing that stood out the most about the reviews was the number of Apple guys who loved Zune and actually would have preferred to say they love iPod better but could not. This fact peaked my curiosity quite a bit. The positive aspects of Zune are astounding. I am going to let you know what I find true about Zune as someone who looked at iPod and Zune and was originally going to get an iPod. 1. Zune has a FM radio (iPod does not have this feature). 2. Zune?s software is upgraded through Microsoft and the Zune software on your computer. This feature is a major asset and one of the benefits of being a Microsoft product. (iPod does not have this capability). 3. Zune has a larger screen and the graphic seem to be superior due to the screen size. (this is a feature I normally always find superior in Apple products but not with Zune and iPod). 4. Zune has superior sound quality when compared to iPod. I can even listen to Zune at a lower level and it is very crisp and very clear even in the subway and that says a lot about the audio on this device. 5. Zune is very intuitive to use and extremely easy to get a grasp of its controls. It resembles the PC more that iPod does with the scrolling iPod uses. (This feature everyone loves. My friends with iPods really like the navigation of Zune). 6. Zune has song sharing capability via wifi or wireless song sharing. This here is very innovative and gotten mixed reviews. True, many more Zunes need to be out there for this to be even better. No doubt about that. Microsoft has received a lot of flack about not opening up Zune for sharing easier and downloading what ever. First of all it is the COPYWRITE Laws that DEMAND the restrictions on this NOT MICROSOFT. People need to stop slamming Microsoft for these restrictions. iPod has the exact same regulations it is just that people do not seem to care because there are so many out there now. When wirelessly sharing, you can keep a song for up to 3 days and listen to it 3 times then you need to buy it to keep it in your library. Ok guys the goal of this IS TO SELL MUSIC and make it more enjoyable for use as consumers and easier so we should expect this right? If we own CDs we can pass them off so same thing applies with the songs we need to own them to pass them on. This sharing allows us to try out songs we might not have looked at or listened to otherwise so it is a great addition (iPod does not have anything close to this technology). 7. The Zune Pass. Now this is innovative and awesome!! This is Zune?s method of giving you all you can listen to for a monthly fee. You do not own the songs or have burning writes unless you purchase them. There is no contract and it is month to month. $14.99 per month or $44.97 for 3 months. The songs you download on your Zune Pass are yours for as long as you hold your Zune Pass subscription. You can still purchase songs or albums individually, too. An added bonus here is the first one million Zunes purchased include a 14 day free trial of Zune Pass. This allows you to sample as much as you like and continue the pass or not. Kudos to Microsoft for the unlimited music possibility. Ok guys once again copywrite laws prevent Zune from allow us to keep the songs without the pass. Suck it up an either buy them, keep the Zune Pass, or get the CD. (iPod once again does not have anything even comparable). 8. The battery yeah the charge could be longer than 12-14 hours. The 30G iPod is the same though and nothing is perfect but this is one of the down sides but I would just prefer a longer battery charge wouldn?t we all? 9. Weight: Ok Zune is slightly heavier that iPod but still small enough to fit in your pocket and not all that noticeable in weight.Go to strenghts for rest of commentsI hope this clears up some of the misconceptions about what Zune is and can or can not do. Every One, yes every ONE, of my friends who play with Zune love it. Whenever I take it out to change a song or turn it on etc someone seems to stop me and ask: ?Is that Zune?? ?how do you like it? Can I see?? etc. you get the picture. It is kind of funny and I felt kind of like a rock start with it except that they want to see Zune not talk to me. IF you are looking for a MP3 player definitely look at Zune and you will be doing yourself a favor. I love my Zune and am so glad I did not just blindly buy iPod like I was planning to do. I met Zune and ended up a happy owner and am passing on the website url so if you want to meet Zune go ahead and use this url: http://www.zune.net/en-US/

• Reviewed by: thembc

  Strengths: 1. Big Screen2. Awesome graphic; epecially videos3. Interface is easy to use4. FM Radio with info of what you're listening to.6. WiFi Sharing.7. Own your music.8. Paste your own album art

  Weaknesses: Bulky, Zune Marketplace sometimes crashes (depends on your computer. Some people say iTunes crashes more...) No tactile control (only a big deal if you're a touch smart-freak!)

  Overall: I got my Zune for Christmas and absolutley love it. I have never owned an iPod, but I've used them before...and my sister has a 1st gen Nano. I must say: the Zune can really take a beating. I've dropped it more than a million times and it doesn't have a scratch! The iPod would've had so many by now...and no finger prints are left behind...unlike the iPod. Besides, it FEELS GREAT TO THE TOUCH, unlike iPod: which feels like it will fall in any second. I feel comfortable holding my Zune by the corner. The Zune is definitely worth the change!