(1888PressRelease)
November 23, 2006 - Due to be launched in Britain just after Christmas, the Zune™ is designed to capture a share of the lucrative portable digital music market pioneered by Apple. The basic price is $249, which is going to be a great competitive edge to the Apple iPod™.
When you open the box, that looks like it might contain fancy perfume, it say’s "Welcome to the social" in the kind of font you'd find on a club flyer. The only indication that it is a Microsoft product is the small print on the bottom.
The Zune™ is a 30 gigabyte digital music and video player, about as deep as a deck of cards, with a 2in by 2.5in screen. It feels slightly bigger compared with the iPod™ Mini but that's because of all its superior whizbangery!
Getting started is as simple as the iPod™: load the software, plug it in and charge up. You can upload your own CDs and buy music and video from the ZunePodWorld.com website from its connections with Amazon. Before you begin, you have to give the device a name. This tag is important because it enables your Zune™ to talk to other Zunes™, one of the device's iPod™-trumping features — the "social" part we were welcomed to earlier.
Whereas most personal music players encourage you to shut out the world, Microsoft's Zune™ wants you to reach out to it, albeit without necessarily speaking to anyone. "We wanted to add the social back into entertainment," is how Matt Jubelirer, a Zune™ product manager, describes it.
The device has a built-in Wi-Fi feature so Zunes™ can interact. When you're within 30ft of another Zune™, the devices' tags show up on each others' screens in a kind of random digital flirtation. Overtures can be rejected, but if you don't mind a stranger seeing your content, you can beam any song or picture to the other device.
The Zune™, which also boasts a built-in FM radio (the iPod™ doesn't!!!), has excellent sound quality and a sharp picture. Instead of the iPod's™ signature scroll reel, it has a round button which is actually four switches you use to navigate the menu, in some respects an easier system than Apple's overly sensitive wheel.
Visit www.ZunePodWorld.com for more information, to buy the Zune™, news, specifications and updates.
