All Zunes to be Discontinued, Zune HD to be 'It'
It seems Microsoft will be discontinuing all other Zune models once the Zune HD hits stores later this month.
Set to launch in two weeks, Zune fans (and quite a few others) are eagerly awaiting the launch of the Zune HD. With its sleek design and full touchscreen, it makes the older Zunes look pretty bad.
Paul Thurrott over on WinSuperSite has said Microsoft plans to discontinue all old models of the Zune, flash and hard drive. In other words, if you want an older Zune, or a Zune with a capacity of more than 32 GB, you should pick one up as soon as you can.
The news echoes rumors that Apple is gearing up to move away from the iPod Classic and focus on the iPod Touch as the main iPod. Time will tell as Apple has an iPod event scheduled for next Wednesday, September 9.
- Tetris: It's Good for the Brain
- Lose Weight With Wii Fit Plus: Launching Oct. 4
- FCC Investigating Ways to Block Sex, Violence
- PS3-Compatible Phone Coming October
- NFL: No Tweeting for Players, Media, Officials
- Woman Fired for Using ALL CAPS in Email
- Spotted: iRiver's eReader Offering, The Story
- U.S. Getting Black Wii Controllers, Not Console
- eBay Announces Skype Sale
- Nokia Officially Reveals the N97 Mini
- Japanese Men Want Date Game Characters
- PS3 Slim Made Faster With Firmware 3.0
- UK: Samsung LED TV Ads Are ''Misleading''
- Boeing Successfully Tested Laser Cannon
- Track Swine Flu Outbreaks with iPhone App
- Duke Nukem 3D On, then Pulled from iTunes
- Microsoft Dropping HD Lock for Xbox 360?
- Sony to Make Big 3D Push in 2010
- Nokia's New Music Phones: the X3 and X6
i look forward to liquidation prices
and woot.com for $50 =]
32 gigs isn't enough for music and you're supposed to put video on it too?
I'm talking to you too itouch/iphone
Hmmm the real news in this article for the iPod users was
I disagree with that decision, the Apple touch may have more bells n whistles but when it comes to playing music, the iPod classic can't be beat. It has 120GB of space vs. 16 & 32GB and has longer battery life.
so what if your zune breaks and you have to send it in. do you think they will give you a discount on the new version or will they keep all of the old refurbished models to pass out and just discontinue them in stores?
Interesting...I've been set on buying a Zune HD since the first previews trickled out, but if the 80 or 120 is offered at a great price I might get that instead, as i imagine many others will.
32 gigs isn't enough for music and you're supposed to put video on it too?I'm talking to you too itouch/iphone
32gigs isn't enough for music? What are you doing using uncompressed wav PCM lossless 32gigs is a ton of music 192kbp/s AAC ABR plenty of quality and room and roughly 47 hours of music play back you telling me you have more then 47 hours of music? well then choose your top 47hours and go from there, although as videos go it's very limited.
32 gigs isn't enough for music and you're supposed to put video on it too?I'm talking to you too itouch/iphone
I have the original iPod w/ 40 GB and have never come close to filling it with all of my music.
most people only have about 2-10 GBs of music anyway
Most people (probably 80%) have only 2-10 GBs of music anyway
I have the original iPod w/ 40 GB and have never come close to filling it with all of my music.
Ya, well they advertise the Zune HD as being able to play 720p video from the device. Each movie would be around 3-5GB at least for 5Mbps video. That should still last you a short vacation if you have long flights.
Some people just want like 1tb on their music/video players and use it more like load it all on there once and never have to hook it up to a computer again.
Ya, well they advertise the Zune HD as being able to play 720p video from the device. Each movie would be around 3-5GB at least for 5Mbps video. That should still last you a short vacation if you have long flights.
I don't think the Zune Screen supports 720, just from an output to the TV.
Most people (probably 80%) have only 2-10 GBs of music anyway
Yes, most people.
People who are really into music are more likely to have large music collections and encode their music at higher bit rates, or possibly into lossless formats which can be in excess of 1mbit/second. Even rates of 256kbps or 312kbps will eat away memory quickly.
Personally, I have 60.5GiB of music on my computer and a 30GB Zune. Trust me, it is annoying trying to add/remove large portions of music at a time and decide what part of your collection you want to have on there for the next few days.
Most people (probably 80%) have only 2-10 GBs of music anyway
Most people (probably 100%) have only 2-10 GB of legally bought music anyway...
It will be funny if Apple discontinues the classic, then Archos will be the only company producing high capacity players, hell they are about to launch one with a 500 GB hard drive and it runs Android, it is going to be sick.
32 gigs isn't enough for music and you're supposed to put video on it too?I'm talking to you too itouch/iphone
Definately. I have 26 GB of music, audio books (Harry Potter 1-7), and podcasts. Add in my video collection at 600-700kbps and even the largest capacities available today are too small for it all.
...and even the largest capacities available today are too small for it all.
Exactly, I fail to see the point of having to hook a player up to a computer every week just to load it with different music. That is a downgrade from the days of CD's when you could carry a good deal of stuff with you in a car or whatever. When the first 256 MB players came out I scoffed at it as worthless, and walked off with my MP3 CD player and 3-4 discs of MP3's. That was far more music to choose from without hassle of pluging it in every two seconds.
@32 GB ... this is the range where the flash based players became interesting to me. Next year should easily see these densities double ... of course waiting til next year would suck lol.
I don't see a problem here. Both Apple and Microsoft have researched trends that indicate non-touchscreen devices are not selling as well as their touchscreen versions.
Think of it this way:
If you are a business owner and you stock your shelves with Intel and AMD Processors, on a daily basis you sell out of the i7core and don't sell out of the AMD Phemon and in fact you seem to purchase the same amount of inventory for each processor, at the end of the week you are stuck with a bunch of AMD processors no one is purchasing..
Pretty soon you will go out of business.
Exactly, I fail to see the point of having to hook a player up to a computer every week just to load it with different music. That is a downgrade from the days of CD's when you could carry a good deal of stuff with you in a car or whatever. When the first 256 MB players came out I scoffed at it as worthless, and walked off with my MP3 CD player and 3-4 discs of MP3's. That was far more music to choose from without hassle of pluging it in every two seconds.
So go back to carrying your portable cd player. Or run on out and buy a harddrive based player. I am sure you didnt carry all your discs with you when you had that portable cd player. So if you wanted a 5th disc you still had to choose which ones to carry. Not any different, except now you choose which 100 discs you would like to take with u. Quit being a whiny tit baby.
I don't see a problem here. Both Apple and Microsoft have researched trends that indicate non-touchscreen devices are not selling as well as their touchscreen versions. Think of it this way:If you are a business owner and you stock your shelves with Intel and AMD Processors, on a daily basis you sell out of the i7core and don't sell out of the AMD Phemon and in fact you seem to purchase the same amount of inventory for each processor, at the end of the week you are stuck with a bunch of AMD processors no one is purchasing..Pretty soon you will go out of business.
lol random hit at AMD kinda uncalled for? xD
I honestly think these big dog MP3 players should have expansion slots like the lesser brands. You could keep an endless amount of flash cards for different movies or what not. Its just that Apple and Microsoft are too heartless to do that....
Wow, this is a surprise. Except it isn't.
For people that actually listen to music or watch shows, go pick up the 120 gig for less than one of these. >>
30GB is simply not enough. Our old CD changer broke. Went to all the retail outlets to looks for a replacement. They all hadd the crappy sony 300cd carousels that are junk and overly priced Denon stuff. I just wanted a cheap changer. Off to convert the collection.... all 1400 CD's. 32GB aint gonna cut it. Changing cd's is quick and easy. Shuffling mp3's around with Itunes or Zune....not so. It's all or none for me.
Storage is cheap these days. the more the better
Storage is cheap these days. the more the better
Certain types of storage is cheap, the storage used in Zune HD and itouch are not on the cheap end of storage, also they are using space limitations in actual physical size of their device used to store the data =p.
I really hope Mircosoft is bringing the EQ back as it was in the original Zune. Buncha retards removed it in the 2nd gen Zune which is what kept me from buying one.
I really hope Mircosoft is bringing the EQ back as it was in the original Zune. Buncha retards removed it in the 2nd gen Zune which is what kept me from buying one.
They are bringing it back. I'm waiting anxiously =).
While it is a rarity for "some" people to actually buy music these days, there are people, like me, that actually buy cd's because we want the best sound and full liner notes. In 20 years, I've amassed nearly 4,000 cd's! They've all been ripped to lossless formats, some 43,000 tracks worth (and yes, I have all that store bought cd's).
For me, it is a real pain synching all of this to an 80gb Zune, let alone further reducing my choices to fit a 32gb flash player. The more space, the better. I hope my hard drive based players don't die anytime soon....
32 gigs isn't enough for music and you're supposed to put video on it too?I'm talking to you too itouch/iphone
Really? Thats about 30,000 MP3's, or in real terms 6 months of music, if you think that's not enough space for music you are a f**king retard.
And as far as videos, a whole season of 26 episodes (42min average) like 24 or CSI or Battlestar is around 8Gb, so I can get 4 complete seasons. That's around 72 hours of video.
The idea is that you have your music and video collection on your PC and you sync the stuff you want to carry with you and watch/listen. If you store your entire collection just on your player, you are asking to run out of space and serves you right if you drop/lose it.
One of the main attractions of these large multi-gigabyte players was the ability to put all or most of your collection onto your player and then be able to take them anywhere and not worry about being tethered to your pc (One of the reasons I'd never buy an Apple product, because of its reliance on syncing with iTunes).
Its nice to not have to worry about the power drain of the hard drive-based players and their tendency for failure and shock damage, but to take a 75% leap backwards in terms of capacity is a bit much to swallow, esp. when you add video to the picture.
I understand that flash capacities will most likely rise in the future, but hopefully there'd be hard drive alternatives available until they reach the level of their hard drive-based versions for those who *need* the greater travel capacity.
I think *all* flash-based DAPs should have onboard SDHC slots (Like the Cowon D2 and a few others..and not Micro SDHC as its more expensive and SDHC allows the use of Micro SDHC with converter cards anyways) to alleviate and bridge this limit in capacity until then. In the future I can easily see SDXC cards (Promises to offer densities which scale up to 2 Terabytes in the SDHC form-factor with increased speed) coming in to bridge this gap (If they can be perfected) until then.