MS Zune

Microsoft announces Zune, still not available, looks like shit, comes in white, black and brown. But it’s got wifi which could be a fantastic feature although assuming Microsoft’s usual execution and slavery to DRM I’m expecting disapointment and, really, who are you gonna share songs with? The 0.8 people you might eventually know who own a Zune too?

(more pics here)

3 Comments

Blork September 15, 2006

Only the brown one looks like shit. The black and white ones look pretty slick actually. Especially with that big screen.

Given that it’s Microsoft, I was expecting a bunch of annoying buttons all over the place, but it’s a very clean design. It also has a built-in FM radio, which for me (because I listen to the radio a lot) is a huge feature. You should have seen me swearing at my Nano the other day when I was over by Dawson trying to figure out what was going on. “Fucking iPod! What good is a podcast when I need to know what’s happening NOW!”

The DRM and wifi thing could be slick. Apparently, if you have a Zune with a tune you want me to hear, you can just zap it into my Zune, and I can listen to it three times (over three days) for free. Then I can either pay for it or delete it. Sounds sweet, but since its from Microsoft you know that doing so will be far more difficult than they imply. It will be full of annoying and incomprehensible “options,” not to mention bugs, glitches, and hiccups.

Patrick September 15, 2006

The fact there actually is a brown version is only fortuitous in terms of my “shit” comment. If you look at highres pictures, it looks all plasticky and a bit like a toy where even the small Apple nano shows it’s build quality and perfectly fitted parts.

It’s clean as in simple but doesn’t show quality in the manufacturing. Although, as I realised in the process of writing the original post, the one showed is barely pre-production, they have no set ship date or price so it could be better or worse than what we see.

The screen is bigger but the same resolution as the iPod’s.

zune September 16, 2006

Not sure you can determine the quality of manufacturing from a .jpeg. Anyway, call me crazy (most do) but I like the brown color.

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