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| Acmlm's Board - I3 Archive - Hardware / Software - my personal review(and my friends') of the Zune |
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spiroth10 Paratroopa                   Since: 01-28-06 From: USA Last post: 6337 days Last view: 6337 days |
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| despite everything negative people say about it, I can only see goodness from this player.
I have not had one problem with it yet. The install went by smooth, and gave me no errors. Video quality is surprisingly good. So is the audio quality. The menu system seems perfect to me, and I prefer the analog joypad-style control to apples wheel (It just annoys me quite frankly). whats more is that IT HAS NOT WRAPPED ALL MY MUSIC UP IN DRM. and it WONT. I have already synched music to my zune, back to my pc, and to my other player, which plays it just fine. from what Ive seen and read, the DRM is specific to music bought in the zune marketplace. The 3day/play thing is only for music sent to the inbox, which the device is set to only allow 3days/plays from. The song itself is not modified in any way. as I said, video quality is good. WTF is with standards anyway (talking about H.264)? to my eye it looks the same, other than that, I dont give a flying ****. MP4 and WMA work good enough for me, and are easy to convert to. sure, wireless mode is useless, so I keep it off. on battery power -- I cannot see myself ever using it up. Heck, with my music usage/free time, I only have about 2-3 hours a day to listen. Even on overnight wrestling trips I'll be going on, I can see one charge lasting me 3+ days. heck, I only went to half power on a barely charged battery today, while presenting it to people in school. if you listen to enough music to constantly run out of battery power, you'll probably be deaf before you can recharge the thing. the it factor- surprisingly enough, the zune DOES HAVE THE IT FACTOR WITH YOUTH. I can prove it! People all around me thought the player was awesome. this proves my previous assumption was correct -- 99.9% of iPod users only have an iPod because the think it is the only/best player, and their friends have one. I had crowds of people wanting to see it play video/audio, and they we extremely satisfied with what they got. I might have just shifted the paradigm in my area -- but believe me it was not intentional (I pulled it out to play a song for myself -- the crowd came to ME). people who see it on tv are also drawn in. I had no idea this would happen, I assumed the zune would fail totally. Now I see there is actually going to be (at least a little) chance for MS to get a decent amount of sales out of this. with updateable firmware, the possibilities of this device are endless. I can see a slew of new features (official and hacked) come out of this player. not to mention improvements. I have to say, Im totally satisfied with my purchase. If I had any problems, believe me Id be yelling my pants off for buying the thing -- I was worried I would -- but I havent had a single problem (aside from the fact that Windows media player screwed up some song names, but that has nothing to do with the zune player) radio support is.. iffy. It works, and 100% at that, but it doesnt have as powerful an antenna as the SanDisk devices out there -- they pick up a bit better. mp3s/wmas play as good as/better than my PC (I have a realtek integrated so no big feat). Id say quality is better than SanDisk models, and as good/better than iPod, aside from that, I have used no other players, so I cannot judge. for the design factor -- I really like the look actually (of the black one, its the one I bought) white seems to look nice, and brown... is unique. Although I believe the look they were going for in brown was retro (wood-paneling style), but it just doesnt work. the players look awesome with the double-shot (traslucent colored plastic on the front, right over the black/white/brown) the black/blue combo is cool. overall though, many people like the iPods look better, I personally dont. headphone quality is as good as can be expected. they are great headphones (earbuds actually), but if you go out and spend $100+ on headphones, they're obviously going to sound better. The magnets are totally useless, but fun to play with if your bored in class  .
charging time via USB wasnt long, and song transfer rates were quite speedy. short videos (less than an hour) seem to convert at a decent pace (could be faster) and play at pretty much equal quality (aside from some resizing, which seems to be done quite nicely) I converted Star wars episode 3 for teh zune, and it took about 1:45 (maybe 1:55) to get on the player. It came out at good quality (great, if you consider that I ripped it to a >700MB file before converting) to the file I ripped from the DVD. I'd say it was excellent, but the zune converter seems to have a hard time converting big videos (by big I mean motion picture size) I only tried once, with the included converter, but even though quality was great, there were points it would skip, or give me a full screen of green (as if it were a CD skipping, but with a color). this seems more to be an issue with the copy of Ep. 3 I ripped. I have already converted it 3-4 times, so it probably just lost a LOT of quality that last time. I have converted countless videos already (a bunch of red vs. blue stuff -- I think its a funny series) and this has not happened to any of them. they all play excellently. Game trailers also play nicely. picture quality is very good. even the zoom works without any distortion (and my oblivion background looks nice-- the zune zooms in right on the oblivion character [a guard, looks like] to make it an excellent wallpaper) It is an excellent device for storing/showing off photos. more on the controls -- let me put it this way: I had an idea how to control the thing before I even bought it/read anything. take a guess what the darn buttons do -- its not that hard. I figured it all out while eating at taco bell last night. wasnt rocket science. up=volume up down=volume down, left= rewind/skip back, right=fast forward/skip forward, play/pause=play pause, back=back, and middle= OK hold play/pause at the menu to turn it off. I am already fluent at controlling it, switching quickly between settings/songs/movies/pictures seemlessly and easily using only one hand to hold and a thumb to control. it is about the same width as my external floppy drive -- which isnt really that thick, but it seems so when compared to an ipod (or one of the many flash based devices out today). It is about the same size (thickness) as the older generation of iPods, and height, believe it or not, seems comfortable with the player. I wouldnt want to watch videos on the thing if it was any smaller -- it seems comfortable to watch is all I can say. The operating system looks very much like the media center mode on my PC -- which I live very much. The album art is a nice addition to the menus, and even though its a bit stretched, to the screen itself while playing music. The whole DRM thing is simple -- dont buy music with DRM unless you plan to stick with your player. Same goes for iPod or anything else. You cant play playsforsure or zune media on an ipod, ipod / zune media on a plays for sure, and etc. this problem has nothing to do with zune so much as (pretty much) all music companies trying to hook you in. Even DRM free players will not be capable of playing DRM music so wtf. Shareza is my ticket to unlimited music now ($0 for a lifetime! only at the cost of a few broken laws!) and even if I had money to shell out, I would only buy from places without DRM. so long as Im DRM free, I can use any player I want. 90% of the people I know use limewire anyway. if you dont, then it was poor judgement on your part, and its your fault you cant leave your iPod/playsforsure device/zune. You bought into a companies DRM, and basically signed a pact with them in blood. stripping DRM wont get you caught anyway. Im not even using my 14 days free unlimited zune marketplace downloads. why? DRM. even if its free, the DRM is still there. thats all I can think of right now, but if you have any questions you want answered (or rumors/myths proven/busted) just ask. But keep in mind, this is only the experiance I have had. |
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HyperHacker Star Mario Finally being paid to code in VB! If only I still enjoyed that. <_< Wii #7182 6487 4198 1828  Since: 11-18-05 From: Canada, w00t! My computer's specs, if anyone gives a damn. STOP TRUNCATING THIS >8^( Last post: 6338 days Last view: 6338 days |
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Originally posted by spiroth10 That's the problem (at least, one of them) with DRM, not with Zune. The problem people thought there would be with Zune was adding DRM to every file it gets. |
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FreeDOS + Giant Red Koopa Legion: freedos = fritos  Since: 11-17-05 From: Seattle Last post: 6337 days Last view: 6337 days |
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Originally posted by spiroth10 That itself should be a negative. Why can't you just plug it in, drop files into neat directories, and off you go? I wouldn't want any junk installed onto my PC just to use a DAP; especially if the player uses and obfusicated format to store stuff in, then I would have to hack it to let me work in my OS of choice. |
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drjayphd Torosu OW! BURNY!  Since: 11-18-05 From: CT Last post: 6340 days Last view: 6338 days |
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Originally posted by FreeDOS +Originally posted by spiroth10 I think it's also probably safe to say you aren't exactly their typical user.  |
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spiroth10 Paratroopa Since: 01-28-06 From: USA Last post: 6337 days Last view: 6337 days |
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| as stated by many others, it would appear the typical (unknowledgable in the area of computers) consumer actually likes a tight integrated system. Why? because it's easier for them. Heck, some people don't even understand how a flash drive works (I almost laughed at the girl Im talking about)
I do have one positive for this-- the zune will most likely run on Dell Computers because of this. Dell PCs Don't allow many hardware not made by Dell to function (at all) on the PC. For example, My Friends Dell refuses to recognise SanDisk players, but his Dell DJ works fine. I also wanted to add on to my review a bit. charging is an issue for me -- not because there is a problem with it, but because the zune refuses to charge from my PC while the power is off (on the PC). I think this is a motherboard/power source issue though (sounds like it doesnt output power via usb while the machine isnt running). My question is: if it is a hardware issue, why do my speakers still turn on/off (also USB powered) without the computer being on? Id also like to mention that you CAN USE THE ZUNE WHILE CHARGING. many reviews state that you cant, this is simply an error on their part. If you plug in the zune without loading the software, it will still take a charge without going to the connected screen. You can use your zune as normal like this, but it might not charge as fast. more on my first point -- I agree with you in my own opinion, but we must both accept that we left the realm of normal users (probably even beyond power-user if your like me) a long time ago. Our needs and desires are different than the general public, and whether or not we know more/better, society as a whole doesn't. I think a major part of the whole software thing is just to replace windows media player for the zune user. Windows media player ties in with MSN music (playsforsure) and Zune is tied to the zune marketplace instead. both are pretty much the same feature wise. |
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HyperHacker Star Mario Finally being paid to code in VB! If only I still enjoyed that. <_< Wii #7182 6487 4198 1828 Since: 11-18-05 From: Canada, w00t! My computer's specs, if anyone gives a damn. STOP TRUNCATING THIS >8^( Last post: 6338 days Last view: 6338 days |
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But can you use it like a flash drive without installing anything? As for charging, try the same USB port as your speakers. If that doesn't do it the system might just not be putting out enough power for it to realize it's being charged. Mine leaves the keyboard, mouse, and some (but not all) USB devices powered.  Weird, but useful because I can charge my wireless mouse while it's off. |
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spiroth10 Paratroopa Since: 01-28-06 From: USA Last post: 6337 days Last view: 6337 days |
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| I think that may be the problem -- my speakers are powered, as well as my (PS2) keyboard and other USB devices -- just not this one...
though Im not sure how to (safely) increase the power output of my (430 watt) power source to do anything about it. |
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