[New Toy] Zune 80GB

[Sazar]

I had been reading a lot about the new Zune and decided, what the hey and purchased one 🙂

I haven't set it up completely yet because of the firewall here at work. I need to run the setup application and the setup won't work without a particular windows update that I cannot run now. But, I'll be home in a few short hours and I will write more as I work on this beauty.

Those of you who know me likely know that I have a Cowon iAudio X5 and I enjoy it thoroughly. It has better sound quality and does more than any of the iPods on the market. My pet peeve has always been about the accessories, or lack thereof for the product.

Well, no longer. The new Zune is pretty sweet. It is a little larger than the iPod classic but the screen is to die for, the headphones are SWEET and the touchpad is, well, it's a really, really nifty little gadget. I am shocked at how intuitive and easy it is to use. The click-wheel on iPod's is positively dated compared to this.

I had the choice between this and the iPod touch but I wanted storage space for my videos and 16GB was simply too puny. My 20GB iAudio X5 was severly limiting me as it was so anything less would have been just ridiculous. I also purchased the car kit and I am going to stop over at Best Buy and pick up the dock and uber-cool remote soon after work 🙂

I am just really ecstatic about this 😀 Pictures when I get home, probably from my camera phone so I apologize in advance.

I will also post a rating on the actual product once I have managed to use it more and have experienced the whole shebang 😀

 

[Electronic Punk]

Looking forward to reading your thoughts. I have utterly no need for one, but am tempted to try and get one.

 

[Tuffgong4]

I have one and love it, plus i got the zune 80 with a fancy 40 dollars off 199 at circuit city so I got it for a great price... only problem I'm having is converting videos. I've used media coder and I can't keep aspect ratio to 16x9, and I've used videora itouch converter (which handles the same files the zune does) and it makes my 700 meg files 1400 megs and it looks all stretched.

If you find something sazar please post here!!!

 

[Sazar]

Well Tuff, I have to find something to convert the dang videos 😀

I'll see if I can get something, definitely don't want it getting LARGER 😀

Currently, I have a lot of videos pre-converted and waiting uploading, ranging from 600-900 MB, already in widescreen format (I ripped them from my WS DVD's) so I am going to try and slap them on there.

iAudio provided a great tool for converting videos but I have to see about the quality of the rip before slapping it on. It looks perfectly good on my 1.8" lcd screen but this sucker is WAY bigger. It looks monstrous compared to my old screen, or the iPod classic my colleague has at work.

@ EP, I didn't have a need for it but what the heck eh 🙂

 

[Electronic Punk]

Well as I said last night to you I am sure -- I got my phone so I can behave for a bit.
(then the next day you run out and get one? typical!)

 

[Sazar]

lol, well ok, point taken 😀

You have your toy and I don't 😀

But, thing is my mp3 player will be a work/home and car device and the wifi features were the real seller for me, especially at home.

Maybe if the whole vegas thing for next year/end ever gets put together, I can introduce you to my new toy.

 

[Electronic Punk]

Will be old news by then ;p

 

[Grandmaster]

You know, this post made me re-think my perceptions about the Zune. All they need to add is WiFi and I'd be sold.

 

[Sazar]

It has wifi numbnuts 😎

That's one of the cool things. I can sync with my wireless network at home.

If you are talking about a wifi setup like a browser well, in that case, no, it doesn't have that.

 

[Grandmaster]

It has wifi numbnuts 😎

If you are talking about a wifi setup like a browser well, in that case, no, it doesn't have that.

Yes, that type of wifi, beeotch.

 

[Sazar]

I have one and love it, plus i got the zune 80 with a fancy 40 dollars off 199 at circuit city so I got it for a great price... only problem I'm having is converting videos. I've used media coder and I can't keep aspect ratio to 16x9, and I've used videora itouch converter (which handles the same files the zune does) and it makes my 700 meg files 1400 megs and it looks all stretched.

If you find something sazar please post here!!!

I am currently using Movie Maker to try it out.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932614?sd=zune

I'll let you know what I find out.

I am LOVING this thing so far 😀

No pictures, unfortunately. Will try adding later.

Btw, do you have the fancy dock with the remote holder?

 

[omg its nlm]

Yes, that type of wifi, beeotch.

I really see no reason for an MP3 Player to have a browser. I guess maybe cause I can just use my smart phone?

I like the sync feature. I might get carry all my music from work to home...

 

[Grandmaster]

No particular reason, but I want a device to browse... ala iPhone and iPod Touch. I don't have a smart phone.

 

[Sazar]

Honestly, it was a toss-up between this and an iPod touch. The touch is simply too small in memory capacity. I needed something more 🙁

Btw, Movie maker just converted my Hot Fuzz dvd (once I ripped it) to a perfectly suitable, wide screen video 😀

 

[Tuffgong4]

Btw, Movie maker just converted my Hot Fuzz dvd (once I ripped it) to a perfectly suitable, wide screen video 😀

do you mean just regular windows movie maker?!?!?!

If so that is awesome, can you add multiple files so it can do file a then file b to separate files and also what are the settings that you used??? And then what type of time did it take? I'm liking mediacoder but can't get the aspect ratio to stay.

Sorry to ask these question in a thread about your (the one I bought as well) new zune 80 but I figured the more activity the better the responses and the more people that will know how great the new zune 80 actually is!

 

[Sazar]

It takes a while to encode. I am using a 4400+ and I have multiple apps running in the background. Given that it is sucking up both my cores, I wager a quad-core might be better served for this.

I am converting to 320x240 at the moment. Takes about 20-30 mins or so for a movie but I am thinking of trying out a different resolution and seeing how my Zune responds.

-edit-

Btw, I agree, this thing is amazing. The touchpad is better than any other interface I have used, including the iPod Touch. It just feels so intuitive 😀

 

[Sazar]

Ok, update. Before heading to work I converted 2 videos this morning. It seems that if I am not doing anything in the background, it only takes between 8-10 minutes or so for a 700MB file. I haven't worked yet on converting my Lord of the Rings DVD's.

The size is typically around 100-150MB after conversion.

 

[kcnychief]

I still have an ipod mini (no jokes about mini!)

I can't imagine going from 4GB to 80GB for music - holy ****!

 

[Sazar]

I have about 50 gigs left and I have to move over some family videos and pictures 🙂

Plus I haven't yet tried out the whole "social" thing yet 😀

 

[Tuffgong4]

saz...any particular setting to keep the aspect ratio intact.

to add, I just popped open movie maker and I feel dumber doing this more than anything else I've ever done. I can't figure a darn thing out.