Microsoft’s Zune Priced At $249.99

Mike Howes 30 Sep, 2006 at 1:20am ET Article published in Tech

Microsoft has announced that its Zune portable audio player will be available on [i]November 14[/i] and will match the price of the 30GB 5.5G Apple iPod.

Microsoft’s Zune player features a 30GB hard drive, 3″ color display, limited WiFi connectivity for Zune-to-Zune media sharing and a built-in FM tuner. It will also come pre-loaded with a number of audio tracks, music videos, short films and images. Songs will be available for 99c each and a $14.99 monthly music subscription service will also be a part of the package.

Source: Daily Tech

Comments

30 Sep 2006 ~ 2:02am Thrax And it doesn't play PlaysForSure WMA tracks. Hmm.
2 Oct 2006 ~ 12:43am Garg Kind of crappy that Microsoft got everyone but Apple on the PlaysForSure bandwagon and then doesn't use it themselves.
2 Oct 2006 ~ 12:43pm Enverex /me uses a PDA because he knows that "plays-for-sure".
2 Oct 2006 ~ 6:20pm jhenry I'm gonna go take my iPod back right now and buy a "Zune"... right...

There's no way in hell I'm going to buy on of those things.

Why?

It's first generation -- it's gauranteed to have major problems (Xbox, X360, PSP, PS2 anyone?)

It's Microsoft, same reason as above

The Zune is not an attractive device. Not only does that brown look like baby turds, the white and black colors are too flat. On a device like this, we want gloss baby!

Oh well, once my 4G Photo dies, guess what I'm getting... A 6 or 7G, whatever is out. Plus, I have about four hundred dollars worth of music from iTunes that I'm not willing to give up (and i doubt MS wants to pay for all of that.) Plus, my iPod "just-works-so-nicely-without-drm-issues" (TM)
2 Oct 2006 ~ 7:16pm airbornflght yeh, DRM blows. I will probably get an ipod, after I save up some more money. I'm hoping the 6G ipod is out when I buy it, but I have no idea when it will be out.
4 Oct 2006 ~ 8:46pm Jengo zune sucks

get an ipod

zune is a stupid name

get an ipod

zune = microsoft

get an ipod

zune is ugly

get an ipod

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*goes and buys a zune*

j/k!
4 Oct 2006 ~ 9:49pm Thrax Circle the bandwagons, boys, we got summat micro$oft hatin' ter do.
5 Oct 2006 ~ 10:48am Enverex iPod Zealotry ahoy me mateys.

jhenry wrote:

Plus, I have about four hundred dollars worth of music from iTunes that I'm not willing to give up (and i doubt MS wants to pay for all of that.)(TM)

Erm... why would you have to give it up? Just put it on the Zune (unless the Zune is much like other sucky standalone players and supports f-all formats).
5 Oct 2006 ~ 11:03am CB Personally, I just don't like that they gave it WiFi connectivity, but didn't give them the capability to connect to anything other than other Zune's... Why can't it interact wirelessly with a PC?

Then again, I would never buy a portable music device of anykind anyway, so I'm not exactly the target market segment...
5 Oct 2006 ~ 11:45am shwaip

Enverex wrote:

iPod Zealotry ahoy me mateys.

Erm... why would you have to give it up? Just put it on the Zune (unless the Zune is much like other sucky standalone players and supports f-all formats).

i'm fairly sure, without even looking it up, that the zune won't support protected mp4 files.
5 Oct 2006 ~ 11:47am Enverex Yay for "DRM". People need to stop funding the thing that everyone claims to hate so much, heh, then we wouldn't have this problem.