Microsoft Zune

This is my second 120G zune. I had to send my old one in for repair because the screen had factory defects in it. Microsoft replaced the unit with a refurbished one in 5 weeks, a little too long if you ask… me. The sound quality is not as good as the 30g zune. Lots of BASS is missing. I am an audiophile so these minor changes would not bother most people, but I noticed a big difference in sound quality. Kind of dissaponined. I have done a side by side comparision of the two devices with the same music loaded on each, the 30g always sounds better and louder. I cant complain too much. 120 gigs is a lot of space in such a compct design. Bottom Line: This is a great player with a great screen but do not expect the best sound quality.

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The problems with the Zune far outweigh the pleasures of owning this product. Software issues are terrible. Syncing sucks and the linking to Windows Media Player creates hell on earth for those who just… want to put music on the unit and go away to listen in peace. 1) Ease of use - It is constantly losing sync with items on the unit. One year of owning these units has lost me countless hours loading and reloading files. The Playlist feature is a nightmare considering that I created playlists in Windows Media Player and then saved them as Zune playlists. This is a total nightmare since Zune duplicates files, renames them (Playlist-Name of file or adds a (2) then a (3) and so on...), then duplicates those if there are changes I as yet have been able to fathom. I started with 40,000 songs and 100 playlists. I now have over 800 playlists that have been created by Zune and not by me. Deleting them was another nightmare. Zune loses sync when you delete original files or files duplicated by Zune. Leaving you to delete all content and playlists and starting over loading tunes again. 2) User Friendly - What is an attempt by Zune to integrate Zune playlists, which are clumsy and difficult to put together, leaves you with a situation that is unworkable for those who have large collections of music and just want to Zune as an MP3/WMA player. I can't comment on the other features since I bought this to play my cd's that I ripped to my computer and transferred to the Zune to listen. In conclusion if you buy this to use as a music player, think again... unless you like to spend 5-7 hours to repair whatever the Zune decides to do to your music library (which is averaging about once a week). Too bad cause it sounds good with headphones purchased as an upgrade from the ones they give you on purchase.

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I've had this for a month now. I really like it. The video quality is great (when you convert videos to use the H264 codec) and mp3 sound quality is great. The Zune software is ok at best. Some things I… should mention is only the Zune software works with managing the Zune. You can't use Windows or Winamp or iTunes. Also when I bought this off Amazon I paid $220 for it. The date of this review, I see that the price is at $339.99. Either these things are really in demand, or Microsoft/Amazon is purposely trying to get you to buy the Zune HD models.

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