If you haven’t checked out the Zune you need to look again. The new Zune, which many are calling the Zune 2, will hit shelves and websites in just about two weeks and it’s better than ever. It has a killer screen for video and this little model comes with an 80 GB hard drive. To be honest I really do love iPods because of their simplicity, but their bloody, bloated, system resource devouring, price monopolizing, drm whoring iTunes has got to go. Granted Zune Marketplace might not be the saviour of digital downloads, but the Zune is a much more hackable device allowing clever users to use it in a variety of ways to play almost any type of media format including: wmv, wrm, avi, mp3, etc. I think the ability to play avi files alone is a big enough advantage to choose a Zune over an iPod, let alone the fact that you can share music wirelessly with other Zune users, sync the new Zune to your computer wirelessly, and watch video in wide screen mode on a display larger than the iPod’s.
Anyway, enough of that, just check the preorder site on Amazon
And if you want a quick comparison chart just check over here on Zunescape.
You’re being paid for this one, aren’t you?
Or you’ve got mental health problems.
i agree, how much money did you get for posting that?
i really don’t know why you all are hating on the zune. i understand that an iPod is an amazing music player, but the zone has a bigger screen and a comparable battery life. the only thing that it doesn’t have is the support of iTunes. and as i’ve mentioned i love iPods, but i absolutely hate iTunes. and i also hate how apple makes you download iTunes to get quicktime. yes i know there is a way around this, as my computer can attest, but honestly, that is just bogus shenanigans and it should be stopped.
itunes is easy to use, as is the ipod. my mac totally disagrees with you on quicktime–have you checked out mac os?
windows media player, winamp, and realplayer have nothing up on itunes.
yes, iTunes is easy to use. i agree with you there. but for most windows based computers it is extremely hard on the processor and ram. by that i mean that it takes resources like mad and leaves a lot of older computers limping. for listening to mp3s on a computer i prefer the classic version of winamp. uses very little resources and to be honest i don’t need album art and other junk mucking up my computer. i organize and tag all my files myself anyway, so who needs anything else.
my main beef with iTunes is that it only sells downloads that are heavily drm infested [er, protected, right?]. that’s why i like sites like emusic and the new amazon mp3 downloads as they sell music as it should be. plain and simple mp3 files. also, seeing as how iTunes basically wrote the book on legal digital downloads they essentially established a price fixing monopoly which has remained until this day. now granted, with the introduction of various other products such as Zune Marketplace, Rhapsody, Ruckus, the now legit Napster, etc., you could make a claim that it is in fact an oligopoly today. but i would argue the point that as iTunes is the biggest dog on the block they are currently setting all the rules, trends, and most of all prices. and if they’re doing those things they should take the blame.
hence, i don’t like iTunes.
and let’s be honest, the iPods were drastically overpriced when the first came out [might still be a bit high] and it benefits all consumers [whether you're buying an iPod, Zune, creative Zen, etc.] if there are more products made popular. if there is better competition then we, as consumers, win with better products and cheaper prices.