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The Microsoft(R) Zune player. It has been two weeks, and you find lots of reviews on across the Web. Some people loves it, some people hates it. But one thing is true: lots of people are buying it, and it might reach the goal of 1 million sold units by June
Microsoft is doing what it best does: it sells. The marketing strategy has been overwhelming, you have learned about dozens of Zune-related events across America, and surely you have seen any ad on the web. After looking at all those ways to gather customers, I cannot help but remember that lost phrase "This is not arts, it's business". For those of you who haven't bought one, you can check Engadget for some photos and a video on Zune unboxing.
Let us try to summarize the technical features of the player:
Let us discuss some of these features.
Why do I speak about music loaning? Well, the unaware music lover will believe that s/he can share music without limits, and that boosts the sales. Moreover, the wireless connection per se is cool in many areas and sells by itself. But there are limits to this sharing. You can only keep the shared song for at most three days or three plays, time in which you have the chance of flagging it to buy at Zune Marketplace.
In contrast, Apple's FairPlay allows you to keep playing the shared song and burn it to a CD. Of course, it is not very easy for you to share songs with your iPod, because you need a desktop computer to act as an intermediary.
The video downsampling is also a good feature for starting people: I think it is also available to PDAs running Windows Mobile. The FM radio is other comparison point with the iPod.
Fingerprints on your iPod screen? Fingerprints on you laptop/desktop screen? That will be no problem with the Zune. At least not a big problem. They have been trated in such a way that the fingerprints are not as notorious than on an iPod. They say that there are no annoying ads or logos when using your Zune, as typical with other corporative products.
The Zune case resists more shocks than iPod. Some believe that the Zune controller is intuitive, and others believe that it is not. Please take your own conclusions on this point.
I first tried to learn the official viewpoint on the Zune, so i pointed my Firefox browser to www.zune.com. It seems someone catched the site first, huh? Let us hope Microsoft buys the domain name so no misleading webpages are placed. Some of you will ask: Have you heard about Google?
The next, obvious choice, www.zune.net. I felt in a phising site!!! My God! Where are the traditional Microsoft logo, the CSS, the corporative page layout??? Where is the heavy, slow web page Microsoft has us used to?
Instead of the nice asian girl holding a handheld and smiling at you, the Zune official page shows you common people opening to the social. In this page you find a nice description, links to accessories, sponsored events with renowned artists, and the important Support page.
I couldn't find the Zune Marketplace. www.zunemarketplace.com is a forum managed by none and sponsored by Amazon.
Microsoft points... They will make you buy more. You will not want to loose the change in points, do you?
It seems that by transferring the music to your Zune, it converts MP3 to WMA, which is, with no doubt, degrading the sound quality. Switching the sound compresion format among ogg vorbis, mp3 and Windows Media Audio often means losing important parts of the sound spectrum. If you know how to avoid such a conversion with respect to Zune, please email a comment.
Why the default is to convert the music to WMA? Well, it is pretty simple. Digital Restriction Management works better with WMA.
You will probably say, "The music loaning scheme avoids piracy. How do you dare criticizing it?" Here is the why. There is people who creates original music with the purpose of freely sharing it. Do you wonder why? Well my friend, there is more in the world than people who want to earn money. Creative Commons is a great example. Recent contributions to Wikipedia are other examples. No matter if the song is to be shared or not, you cannot play it more than three times or three days. Why can't you use the Wi-Fi feature to surf the Web or sync music with your Desktop? Up to this point, I must say that Microsoft lacked a lot of the innovation they claim to have. They could have the chance of exploiting the wireless capabilities. In terms of money, they could implement a WiMax service, wireless streaming, or something else.
Have you met the DRM scheme of Zune? Let me tell you something about monopolies. Microsoft has established a standard called PlaysForSure to which several media content providers and media player makers adhered. Their technologies became fully compatible with Windows Media Player. Now that they invested huge amounts of money in PFS, Microsoft comes up with the Zune DRM scheme which is totally incompatible with PFS. And with Windows Media Player, AFAIK. Then, when Zune goes mainstream, the providers have to invest money again on Microsoft.
So you need to make a quick firmware upgrade of your brand-new Zune. It can mean one of two things:
The opinions I express in this blog are my personal views on the topics and do not reflect a very throughly knowledge of the themes. In fact, I do not own a Zune. I try to be respectful in my reviews, and I ask you to post also respectful comments. Your constructive criticism and corrections are always welcome.
You will find further info on the following articles: