8GB Zune now $179

It's been slowly spreading from one retailer to another today, but it looks like the Zune 8 is now officially just $179. No word on what spurred the $20 price drop -- hey, Microsoft is feeling rather generous today -- but if you were looking for 8GBs of the social, now seems like as good a time as any. Just don't spend the coin you save on a tattoo, okay? We'll cry.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

[Tim @ Feb 1st 2008 6:50PM]

I'm just gonna wait a couple months... Till it gets below $100...

[Neebs @ Feb 1st 2008 6:53PM]

This makes it a viable competitor to the Zen 8GB, which still often goes for $200 but often has rebates marking it down.

[blueadept1 @ Feb 1st 2008 7:07PM]

Is a 16gb in the works?

[low tech @ Feb 1st 2008 7:10PM]

@Tim
Good luck with that.


Is there any reason why the different colors are priced differently? Or if its just Amazon?

[Neebs @ Feb 2nd 2008 8:20PM]

*racist joke*

[Tits @ Feb 1st 2008 7:14PM]

even an endgadget tatoo?

[R @ Feb 1st 2008 7:15PM]

In a recent note to investors, MS released a statement trumpeting that Zune sales have skyrocketed 200% since the new models were released and that they expect sales to quintuple after this price drop.

In related news, Steve Ballmer's cadre of nieces and nephews received Zunes for their 3rd grade graduation.

[Bob @ Feb 1st 2008 7:22PM]

The ipod nano 8gb is still better :-)

[Apple Fanboy #3782 @ Feb 1st 2008 7:38PM]

the new price makes the touchscr......wait....zunes don't have touchscreens!! take that fanboys!

[computer.dude.28 @ Feb 2nd 2008 10:31AM]

Enjoy your 16GB of storage!

[giislander @ Feb 1st 2008 7:45PM]

@ Apple Fanboy #3782

With a name like that, you should not be allowed to even think about or mention anything that has to do with fanboyism ever.

[computer.dude.28 @ Feb 2nd 2008 10:42AM]

Oh, please don't go gizmodo-style on us! Reply by clicking the date on a comment and clicking reply on the following page!

[Z Monster @ Feb 1st 2008 7:46PM]

I'm waiting for the 80GB to drop to about $200

[iPriest @ Feb 1st 2008 7:48PM]

Wow sales skyrocketed with 200%?? They managed to sell 3 zunes? Ok seems I got it wrong, never thought anyone would be that stupid. With this price drop they might even pull it off to sell 10 units.

[stephenbratz2 @ Feb 1st 2008 7:51PM]

@Apple Fanboy #3782

So how do you activate the touch screen on the 8GB Zune's direct competitor, the 8GB iPod Nano? Is it yet another a $20 upgrade that you need to purchase? Can you tell me how to buy it so I can show a friend who owns a Nano so he can upgrade his? The click wheel on the Nano will be redundant, but then the Nano will have a touch screen.

[Erik @ Feb 1st 2008 7:59PM]

@iPriest:

My god, you should be in stand-up. After you tell that fresh number, you can tell the one about how "M$" is evil and Apple is not.

[ark_v2 @ Feb 1st 2008 8:01PM]

@ Apple Fanboy #3782

Neither the iPod you idiot :|

[computer.dude.28 @ Feb 2nd 2008 10:43AM]

So you're saying the iPod doesn't have a touchscreen? You definately need to get out more..

[snitch @ Feb 1st 2008 8:12PM]

the Zune should had never been priced the Same as the iPod Line, not if they really wanna compete with Apple. Apple owns the MP3 market The same way microsoft owns the OS market, thats why although Leopard its 10x better than Vista it cost less than 1/2 of vista. am not saying that the Zune should be price 1/2 of what a iPod cost but for a player just interring the same market and that also does not even have a LED screen and a really bad battery life, i think that the $199 should be $150 and the $150 should be $99 it will make it look way more appealing

[Patrick @ Feb 1st 2008 8:44PM]

@snitch
Dear god, I hope English is not your native language.

Anyways, as soon as Target gets the $20 pricedrop, I'm buying a black 8GB. Have a $50 GC burning a hole in my pocket.

[Tiptup300 @ Feb 1st 2008 9:14PM]

MS should do half of the ipod 8gigs price. It would really spread out the userbase.

[Frank Furter @ Feb 1st 2008 9:40PM]

What's a 'Zune'?

[Joshua Walters @ Feb 1st 2008 10:00PM]

@snitch

Bad battery? Whats that? I believe that the current gen Zunes get the equivalent battery life of the iPod (or within an hour).

Oh, and LED you say? Well that proves you have NO idea what you are talking about. LED is a type of light, not screen. If you meant LCD, the Zune has one.

Anyways, I have a Zune30, and I adore it. Come to think about it, every person I know that has a Zune (about 15 or so people) like it as much as an iPod. Many like myself like it more.

I like how people always compare it with the iTouch. Its not supposed to compete with the iTouch.

I also get a little laugh when people say the Zune is better than the iPod. Then they proceed to tell me that the iPod has so much more features.

Naturally, the only thing they can tell me that the iPod has that the Zune doesnt is iTunes (a crappy program anyways).

When I go over the nice list of things that the Zune has, they criticize the fact that it has the SAME res screen as the iPod.

Well, I have news for you, the iPod has the SAME res. The screen is SMALLER though. BIGGER still equals BETTER. Its not like the picture is distorted or anything.

Thats like saying that a 15in monitor is BETTER than my 17in, because they both are 1024x768.

Most people will still pick the 17in.

[chad_small @ Feb 1st 2008 10:33PM]

Joshua,

You are smoking something and not sharing. I had a Zune and it was the worst user experience ever. The Zune software is so unuserfreindly and complicated I am surprised there has not been a article done here or elsewhere about the absolute revolt taking place by the users. If you go to the Zune website's forums people are pulling there hair out and screaming that the new software was a complete step back and makes handling your media almost impossible for large libraries. Also, NOTHING beats the jog wheel capability for large MP3's. Fastforwarding and chapters in Audiobooks makes the iPod hands down the best portable media player anywhere!

[michael @ Feb 2nd 2008 2:44PM]

Sigh. Another person "making up" their [insert Microsoft product] experience and how bad it is.

The Zune software has to be practically the most easiest to use media managing software there is, almost. The 'problem' that Zune users are complaining about isn't the usability, it's just that it's VERY cut-down in function to make room for the simplicity. And they dropped auto playlists and EQ in the next version, which to me, isn't really that much of a killer.

And Audiobooks is a great feature in itself. It's up to the people at Audiobooks to make it compatible with other players, like the Zune. That's not a specific iPod feature. It's something that you could add on to your own.

I just wished Microsoft would beef up WMP 11 with extra codecs, podcasts, and other minor things, plus the fluid Zune Marketplace and Zune syncing, and it would be the best. But they aren't, and I'm rather disappointed over that.

[chad @ Feb 3rd 2008 2:15PM]

Michael,

You're quickly dismissing the playlist issue with the ZUNE software is either ignorance or stupidity. Ask anyone who has a large catalogue how easy it is to create a SMART PLAYLIST with iTunes and then have them go do something similar with the Zune software and they'll throw the computer out the window. It's horrible, and if you didn't work for MS you would agree so get back to work making bloated software and leave your idiotic somewhere else. Bet you like Vista too.

[sinai @ Feb 1st 2008 10:45PM]

i'm just an apple defector. cover flow would eat up ~1GB of RAM, ipod would constantly give me the frowning face (throwing it knock the HDD cable back in place), i had one replaced 10 times, and i was sick of getting an ipod only to have it outdated 6 months later.

i tried a few alternatives sansa e200, creative zen, and returned every single one.

say what you will about the zunes, but i got a zune80 and never looked back. despite the small annoyances, i still contend that this is the best PMP i have ever owned. most of the people talking trash about it have never used it, or are looking through the steve jobs reality distortion field.

@chad - i know you love your ipod and go to bed with it every night, but the scrollwheel is notoriously bad for making precise selections dependant on things like the weather, the temperature of your hands, conductivity, etc.

and if you want to talk about what people are saying on the forums, you obviously haven't been reading the apple forums where people are bitching about their ipod left and right.

[Jeff Lewis @ Feb 2nd 2008 1:26PM]

Just a comment on Coverflow...

While Coverflow is prettier, the Zune actually goes it one better.

When you're in Album mode, the UI becomes 2D - the album covers along the top which you can scroll through using left and right (like Coverflow but without all the animation), and the track list for the current album vertically allowing you to see the tracks and scroll through them using up and down.

That makes flipping through all your tracks way simpler and faster than using Coverflow.

[sinai @ Feb 1st 2008 10:49PM]

also:

new ipod nano is fat and ugly (speaking as an industrial designer)
ipod "classic" versus zune 80 is no comparison
comparing iPod Touch to Zune is stupid
zune scratch resistance > ipod scratch resistance
ipod means itunes. itunes means quicktime. quicktime fucking BLOWS.

[sinai @ Feb 1st 2008 11:07PM]

zune is now offering a bunch of Valentines themed wallpapers on the site. it also happens to occur on the first of February. the $20 drop is probably to get guys to whip out their wallets and buy one for their wimminz.

[MaXxed @ Feb 1st 2008 11:23PM]

You guys at engadget should know why they dropped the price. Flash prices have tanked all around you! MS margins are constant, its flash that has dropped. Apple is making an extra $20/pc (minimum) for every 8gb nano sold, and at least $10/pc for every 4gb nano. Cowon reflected the dropping flash prices with their cuts, and now MS is doing the same.

Hardly rocket science for a gadget blog. Surely you guys know the state of flash in a given month?

[candafilm @ Feb 2nd 2008 12:48AM]

I've had a Zune 30 since launch. I loved it at first. Then I started having problems. It would start freezing every so often. Then they released the Zune 2.0 software and that just sent it into a downward spiral (and the software was really bad too). After I "upgraded" my Zune started freezing at least once an hour. This past month I couldn't go 10 minutes without it freezing. Finally last night it froze so I reset it as I always do. When it came back on I saw that all my content was gone. The damned thing deleted everything off of itself.

Needless to say, I am going back to iPod next week.

For the record, I kept the thing in perfect condition.

[ArcticFox @ Feb 2nd 2008 11:09AM]

Newsflash for you, every peice of electronics have failure rates, some fail straight out of the box, the rest last a long long while, just because youve had problems doesnt mean others will have.

At least with Apples competitors you dont have to wait for the 2nd or 3rd revision of the hardware before you can buy it without fear of it dying due to manufacturing defects like every other peice of apple hardware.

[Mark @ Feb 2nd 2008 2:37PM]

too bad that ipod you switch to will likely last about 1/2 that amount of time before breaking. (yes, zunes do have much smaller failure rates than ipods.)

[Eric @ Feb 2nd 2008 1:07AM]

It's so sad how some people still think they're being funny with comments like "What's a Zune", "They managed to sell 3 zunes?" and so on...get over it people, your "jokes" are old and not funny anymore. Before you diarrhea something idiotic from your mouth, I'm not a Zune fanboy, I have both a Zune and an iPod and actually like them both. I use the iPod in my car's Alpine and my Zune as my portable music.

[PenaltyKillah @ Feb 2nd 2008 2:15AM]

I sense the 16GB arriving any second...

My take on the competitors:
iPod -> Failproof comfort
Zune -> Leisured Gurantee

[Reader @ Feb 2nd 2008 2:41AM]

I'm truly very close to buying this... Could retire my beat up 3 year old Gigabeat finally.

[Meditry @ Feb 2nd 2008 10:19AM]

Nice, I kinda want to get one of these, but wasn't really wanting to dish out the full 200, I still think I'll wait for it to come down more, as is I'm beyond happy with my 30. It's not that the software is really bad, you just need enough ram, and enough wits to figure out how it works, if you can't deal with anything different, go buy the iPod. Overall. In my opinion, the Zune software is way more intuitive than the iTunes (I've used it and HATE it), the Zune Pad is easier on the thumb than the scroll wheel, and the UI is way cooler on the Zune.

[mattwier @ Feb 2nd 2008 10:26AM]

Saweeetttt.

[Scott @ Feb 2nd 2008 12:07PM]

Zune 80 battery life is about *half* that of the iPod classic.
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=3204&p=8

[Mark @ Feb 2nd 2008 1:21PM]

damn it! I JUST got a zune for my girlfriend from zune originals!!! LAME!!!

[Frank Furter @ Feb 2nd 2008 1:33PM]

Hey 'Eric' - Sad? Maybe. Getting people like you all defensive and having to tell us the joke is old? Priceless. Thanks for being consistent. Heh.

[kombizz @ Feb 3rd 2008 3:53AM]

Need two of them v. soon.

[chicken little @ Feb 3rd 2008 10:52PM]

price drop of the 8gb Zune...Target stops selling the 30gb Zune...hmm...coincedence? Kk..still not following me then lets go back to say Nov. 17th 2007 where Engadget and other places like gizmodo and etc. Posted about the "employee perk" Zune Citron-16gb flash drive...ppl said they wouldnt buy it bc of the price...now prices have gone down and companys now make 16gb players...still a coincedence? Too many...now lets keep going and say the zune citron is an employee perk...and say instead they just give us a line of 16gb Zune's instead...to much to hope for? We just gotta see...theyve now cleared room for one and its about time to