Zune Digital Music Player and others

The ipod has hogged all the spotlight to the point of becoming a generic name for digital music players even though it is a trade name. 

I'm on my third DMP, which is a Zune (80gb) and I have had no direct ipod (iPod?) experience.  My second was/is a Toshiba Gigabeat (40gb) .  My first was, definitely a "was", was a Creative Labs thingy (30gb) (the hard drive wasn't apparently wasn't ready for prime time).

I am not a Microsoft nut or anything (it's their creation/version though) but trying to take a look at these devices with an open mind, with a focus on the Zune for this thread, since it is my current main unit.

Also of interest is that they currently made available a download-adable major upgrade/update to your computer's software and the device's software that adds some new features.  I'm just trying those out but the progression of these devices, in general, is getting interesting...



Edited by Slartibartfast - January 08 2010 at 13:37

My 4th generation iPod is on it's last legs... the battery was on the way out when the hard drive finally failed after being persistently temperamental from day one (its been "repaired" by Apple 3 times under warranty). Being a technical person, I decided to fix rather than replace since aside from all of the apple-related quirks, I like the minimalist design. Changing the battery was relatively easy, however, rather than replace the hard drive like for like, or even slotting in a larger one, I've converted it to Compact Flash.

Edited by Dean - September 18 2008 at 04:44

This is pretty cool.  I'm playing The Incident on my new computer (alas the old Vaio croaked) and I'm using the Zune software and if you leave your computer alone a video of sorts is being displayed.  Just a mutating still of the band with the song title and album title sort of animated.  I don't know if this is particular to Windows 7.  I'll have to experiment as I have a Windows Vista (formerly the music room computer) and a Windows XP (work) with the Zune software and my music collection installed on.

Anyone experienced this and know of any other artists that work with the Zune software this way?


Edited by Slartibartfast - January 26 2010 at 20:30

Slartibartfast wrote: This is pretty cool.  I'm playing The Incident on my new computer (alas the old Vaio croaked) and I'm using the Zune software and if you leave your computer alone a video of sorts is being displayed.  Just a mutating still of the band with the song title and album title sort of animated.  I don't know if this is particular to Windows 7.  I'll have to experiment as I have a Windows Vista (formerly the music room computer) and a Windows XP (work) with the Zune software and my music collection installed on. Anyone experienced this and know of any other artists that work with the Zune software this way?

That's one of the settings of the Zune software, it works like that on Vista as well.  If it doesn't have any pics of the band, it generally pulls up a collage of random album covers in your collection.

Ok.  I have some questions as I'm considering upgrading my mp3 player or getting an ipod.  My current mp3 player is a cheap piece of .... It has an astounding 2 GB of memory, and the battery has never worked properly.  But, if you turn up the volume on it all the way, it sounds just like the band is playing live.  In the next town. 

Yeah a Bose dock would be what I would want probably. 

I was considering starting a thread on mp3-player advice but I could probably just hi-jack this one, if that's okay...

My ancient iRiver is finally giving up the ghost (battery issues and more besides) and it seems as though I've missed out on about 15 generations of player since. I need something relatively inexpensive (under £100 would be nice), last.fm compatible, and with a decent amount of storage (32gb or thereabouts).

But most importantly I want something which won't require additional software. The beauty of my iRiver (apart from having an excellent recording function, which was the primary reason I opted for it at the time) was that it worked just like a flash drive. I could plug it in and drag and drop files/folders as I pleased. No software, no fuss. Any suggestions?

I have been a Zune user, Zune Pass subscriber since day 1...Nov 2006. I can't express how pleased I have been with the whole Zune experience. It has one of the best softwares I think, as usual you will see/read about problems but iPod has their share also. I personally have had no issues. We have 3 Zunes in the family......I have not upgraded to ZuneHD yet....just waiting to see what everyone says and all the bugs worked out.