NoGame22
Shared on Tue, 11/28/2006 - 09:00So I got the newest gadget from Microsoft for my birthday, and let me tell you I am pleasantly surprised. I have been wanting a bigger MP3 player for quite sometime and my wife finally broke down got me one for my birthday. I say broke down because she has told me over and over that I don't need a bigger MP3 and it is just a waste of money.
So when I ripped open the wrapping paper I was excited to see that she had changed her mind.
First thing I did after I figured out the controls, there is only four button on the device, was flip on the power and check out the video quality of the over sized screen. When I powered it up I thought that you would not be able to see anything on such a small screen, but boy was I wrong. The quality of the video, they have some pre-loaded sample videos for you to watch, is like watching a miniature HD-TV. I kid you not the Zune has a better picture than a good portion of the regular TV's on the market.
Along with the pre-loaded video you can also get on to Microsoft's Zune marketplace and Xbox live, (the new TV option in the dashboard), to download music videos and your favorite television shows.
The over sized screen is also good for viewing your favorite pictures that you've downloaded from your PC. This option if very easy to use and I have no doubt that my wife will be using it more than me to show off our son to friends and relatives.
In the pictures menu you can either select to view pictures by date, folder, or you can select them all. You also go through and look for individual pictures or watch them in a short slide show. The slide show option is really easy to use and customize. You can't put any titles on the pictures or anything like that, but you can change the length of how long a picture stay on the screen.
If you like to make things your own you can also take one of your pictures and make it your background for your main menu page.
Music quality on the Zune is pretty standard for any walk-man type listening device. They do have an equalizer option that enables you to select one of seven styles that you wish your music to be played in, but sadly you can't adjust individual levels like bass and treble. Other than that the only thing you can do is adjust the volume. So if you like to have presets that change with each song you can customize a little, but not a lot.
If you don't want to cycle through the menus to find your favorite songs you can set up play lists on the Zune itself or do it from your computer in the Zune file management application.
The 30GB hard drive is huge and I am quite sure that I will never fill it up. At the moment I have 700 mp3's and around 600 pictures uploaded, and that has only scratched the surface. So farI have taken up somewhere around 3.5GB of storage, and my wife is taking bets on if I will ever be able to fill the whole thing.
The other feature that I like is the radio. It works just like the old school hand held ones that you used to have when you were a kid on this one had a cool digital display.
I cycled through the radio stations to see if it had good reception, and I didn't have any problem picking anything up. I was even able to get a few stations that I usually am unable to receive in my area.
Last but not least the Zune is wireless capable, which you can switch on and off for airplane travel, so you can send pictures to other Zune users, or beam your favorite playlist.
The only things that I didn't like about the Zune are it's size, if you like the Nano then you won't like this clunker, and menu system, with only three controls it took a little while to figure everything out. Other than that in my opinion the Zune is a definite must buy for the music, video, picture, or radio fanatic.
So when I ripped open the wrapping paper I was excited to see that she had changed her mind.
First thing I did after I figured out the controls, there is only four button on the device, was flip on the power and check out the video quality of the over sized screen. When I powered it up I thought that you would not be able to see anything on such a small screen, but boy was I wrong. The quality of the video, they have some pre-loaded sample videos for you to watch, is like watching a miniature HD-TV. I kid you not the Zune has a better picture than a good portion of the regular TV's on the market.
Along with the pre-loaded video you can also get on to Microsoft's Zune marketplace and Xbox live, (the new TV option in the dashboard), to download music videos and your favorite television shows.
The over sized screen is also good for viewing your favorite pictures that you've downloaded from your PC. This option if very easy to use and I have no doubt that my wife will be using it more than me to show off our son to friends and relatives.
In the pictures menu you can either select to view pictures by date, folder, or you can select them all. You also go through and look for individual pictures or watch them in a short slide show. The slide show option is really easy to use and customize. You can't put any titles on the pictures or anything like that, but you can change the length of how long a picture stay on the screen.
If you like to make things your own you can also take one of your pictures and make it your background for your main menu page.
Music quality on the Zune is pretty standard for any walk-man type listening device. They do have an equalizer option that enables you to select one of seven styles that you wish your music to be played in, but sadly you can't adjust individual levels like bass and treble. Other than that the only thing you can do is adjust the volume. So if you like to have presets that change with each song you can customize a little, but not a lot.
If you don't want to cycle through the menus to find your favorite songs you can set up play lists on the Zune itself or do it from your computer in the Zune file management application.
The 30GB hard drive is huge and I am quite sure that I will never fill it up. At the moment I have 700 mp3's and around 600 pictures uploaded, and that has only scratched the surface. So farI have taken up somewhere around 3.5GB of storage, and my wife is taking bets on if I will ever be able to fill the whole thing.
The other feature that I like is the radio. It works just like the old school hand held ones that you used to have when you were a kid on this one had a cool digital display.
I cycled through the radio stations to see if it had good reception, and I didn't have any problem picking anything up. I was even able to get a few stations that I usually am unable to receive in my area.
Last but not least the Zune is wireless capable, which you can switch on and off for airplane travel, so you can send pictures to other Zune users, or beam your favorite playlist.
The only things that I didn't like about the Zune are it's size, if you like the Nano then you won't like this clunker, and menu system, with only three controls it took a little while to figure everything out. Other than that in my opinion the Zune is a definite must buy for the music, video, picture, or radio fanatic.
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