It's only fair and wise for Microsoft wait until the dust settles before coming to some hard and fast decisions on the release and pricing of a device being posed to take out the iPod. Now that everyone's reacted to the many posts on
prospective and
vaugely officious prices and theories, it would appear they've settled on $249.99 (not to be undercut by Apple after all), and will be launching the device in the US market on November 14th. Other pricing includes individual tracks for 79 Microsoft points apiece, and your standard $14.99 monthly fee for the Zune Pass service; Microsoft's also released some details on the Zune accessory line, which will run between $19.99 and a hundred bucks for:
- Zune Home A/V Pack ($100 - dock, remote, AV cables, extra battery, sync cable, adapter)
- Zune Travel Pack ($100 - Dual Connect remote, premium headphones, bag, cable, and adapter)
- Zune Car Pack ($80 - FM tuner, car charger)
- AV cable ($20)
- AC adapter ($30)
- sync cable ($20)
- car charger ($24)
- dock (with AV output, but no AV cable for $40)
- wireless remote (for control of zune dock, $30)
- Dual Connect remote (for inline control and splitting the audio out for two people, $30)
- Zune FM Transmitter (with autoseek, which finds the optimal station and, at $70, the optimal way to sap your cash),
- gear bag (which, um, contains all these friggin' expensive accessories, itself $30)
- ... and premium earphones (sound isolating canalphones for $40)
It'll also, as you may have heard, come with a ton of preloaded content from such bands as CSS (Cansei de Ser Sexy, not cascading style sheets), Band of Horses, The Rakes, The Thermals, etc., and videos from Serena-Maneesh, The Fruit Bats, and even some film shorts and images of classic rock posters (huh?). We'd kind of hoped the whole pandering to the disenfranchised iPod user might have resulted in more included (or at very least cheaper) accessories, but $20 for a USB cable is indeed low hanging fruit that apparently not even the artful Zuners could pass up.
posted September 28th 2006 9:01AM
I cannot wait to git one!!
The Zune actually is not much "thicker" than the Ipod. The 30GB ipod is 10.9mm compared to 14.7mm of the Zune. A little over 1/8" bigger. Not too bad to get Wifi and a bigger screen in my book.
Someone askes why all the hate for iPod, and someone else asked, why all the hate for microsoft...
No hate here, i just want to see some good competition and someone who can compete with iPod and their advertising budget.
Someone made a good point that no one is forcig me to buy an ipod, but in some cases, thats not true. While we here on engadget are mostly consumer electronics educated, most of the world is not. Ask some a guy or girl over 50 wondering around the mall, what an MP3 player is or what a DAP is or even spell it out - digital audio player... and they won't have a clue!!! Then ask them what an iPod is and they'll know all about it... in fact, they might own one, and if they don't.. i bet you they bought one for thier grandkid/neice/nephew/son/daughter, etc
therefore, poor consumers are being sucked into a device that may not be the best for them.. just cause its all they know, and apple has them brain washed.
So your wondering.. what do i have, well I have an ipod mini (that someone bought me) but now its time for something new.. so I am going to look at all the devices out there and compare and then decide... the Zune looks pretty good. Maybe ipod will come out with some new features to compete.. who knows.. i like features.. or maybe i'll end up with some off brand piece.
And for those of you that think microsoft makes unreliable crap, i got news for you, the ipods aren't perfect either.
And finally, engadget folk are awfully quick to jump to conclusions... i see people saying, what it doens't come with a usb cable or headphones... think for a second people, befor you type. of course it does, this is just a list of extras... and its just like he ipod, lots of extras. and eventually other companies will probably make add ons for he zune just like the ridiculous amounts of stuff out there for the ipod.
holy crap. it comes out on my birthday. sweet.
CSS...funny.
I have one 60Gb iPod and I love it. Unfortunatly apple doesn´t have itunes store here in Brazil. If MS releases Zune here with good prices (less then iPods) with a good subscription service and full of national artists, i think they will succeed (at least here).
So it seems that the "best" feature of the Zune is Wi-Fi, yay, I can give my friend a song, that will either work for 3 plays or 3 days. Wow, that's awesome, oh wait...it's not. The FM tuner is a wash, who is going to put 7,500 of their songs on an MP3 player and will actually want to listen to the radio? The screen is a whole .5 inches bigger than the iPod's screen, not THAT much bigger, half of the top part of your thumb, that's GIANT ZOMG! not really. It's also thicker, and doesn't have nearly the battery life of the iPod.
"The iPods always break" Yeah, so does everything, how much you want to bet the Zune's battery dies after a year or so like the iPods? Oh wait...you can buy AppleCare, it's $60 for 2 year warranty, so if your iPod dies, you send it in and get a brand new one for free. Is microsoft offering anything like that? Probably just the one year warranty, then after the year, you have to do the same damned thing and fork out $100+ to get a new battery in it.
"iPods are defective" Oh yeah, great point, because Microsoft will test every single one of the Zunes that come off the line, right? Wrong, they'll test about 10% of them, just like every mass produced electronic items in the world. "iPod screen scratch" yep...it's plastic, it's not titanium, neither is the Zune, it'll scratch too.
Microsoft won't be selling moives off the store, iTunes does, yes it's only disney, but the TV shows began with 5 shows a year ago, now look how many there are, yeah, there'll be more than just Disney soon enough. The quality is great, and so are the prices, i don't mind putting out $12.99 for a movie that was just released on DVD.
Call me an apple fanboy and null and void all my points all you want, but they're all true, so deal with it.
"Frontline" by Pillar
Hooah :-)
me wanna a zune...pleeeeze!
Apple is crap and shit and cack and all its followers are gayfanboys who think its cool to love off a corporate company, sad loser Apple fanboys - put down your 'mighty mouse' and lets learn a lesson shall we. Apple has lost at every step of its sad pathetic exsistence... this iPod thingy that you fanboys keep yapping on about will die too... sorry MS is a Goliath that you little David's cannot takedown. Apple innovation????? YEA RIGHT - DON'T make me laugh... you intel inside using, 2 button mouse clicking will slowly realise that your misguided allegiance was a sham all along as Apple continue to go back on everything they ever said, and turn their own hardware into everything they said they wouldn't. HAHAHAHAHAHHHHAHAHAHAH - you losers; it's in your nature to lose - you are losers, look at your pathetic corp's history and realise it's future is bleak. The iPod lynchpin will breakaway and leave you with nothing. We are MS, and we will reign as we always have. All these years to get to where you are at - pathetic nobodies. Bow down to MS; NOW! NOW I TELL YOU!
Buy a Zune and ditch those archaic shitty iPods... go on, it's inevitable...
HHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Yup I can't wait either. iPods are getting old.
personally, im interested in the zune. i would never get an ipod, simply because everyone has it. i rather be an individual, rather than keeping up with the latest trend.
the wifi idea will AT FIRST be used for transferring songs to other zune users. it is very possible for this capability to be expanded to buying songs wirelessly from the zune marketplace, IM, email, whatever. you people just focus on what its coming with on the release and nothing else. when the apple first started it wasnt much, now look where it is.
i am a little skeptical of the quality of the zune, but the ipod cant be any better. and id prefer something thicker than an ipod: i would probably lose the ipod or break it.
the limitation of the itunes store is frustrating and a turn off. so once u download a file from iTunes, it can only be played in iTunes or on your ipod. if you get wma, u can play it with wmp, winamp, other mp3 players, cell phones, etc. sounds like the Zune Marketplace will trump the iTunes store in every way.
the price? no question. more features for the money. the battery is the only forseeable problem at this point (pre-launch), but is the case with any device with any rechargeable battery (just hope the batteries aren't made by sony).
lets face it, apple hasnt made any changes to their ipod, just said its the sixth generation ipod with "general bug fixes". it's about time a big company come out with something competitive with the ipod. and the ability to have a wallpaper (desktop picture) is really appealing to me, rather than just a bland white background. customization is everything to me: im an individual, a leader, not a follower. always have the latest stuff.
isn't this another mp3/media player? why is there such fuss? aren't there like stacks of the these things out already?
Man people are stupid... zune xbox 360 ps3 psp like come on buy a zune or an ipod (i perfer zune because gates actually helps people with the money he makes) and live your life save the rest of your money for somthing useful like a house. you guys are all kids. and yea ipod does charge alot for a litte i thought i had to pay for the headphones the way ipod was seeling there shit.
iPods are so over, not to mention the bull@#$@ sound we had to deal with, thank goodness more mp3's were created (like the gigabeat...best mp3 sound). damm people learn how to be open to new technology no need to be hating. ipod's were never anything special, it was the advertisement given to it that made it "popular" and what it became. its amazing to see how people are so obessed and protective over their little ipods...its funny. PROPS TO THE CREATERS OF THE ZUNE, awesome sound, model, and graphs.
You could see this site:
http://www.zunecost.com