Zune 8GB

[Slack3r78]

Just got one today, finally have some time to play with it.

So far: like the hardware, the software needs major work.

Sync management is cumbersome as hell. Lots of library-related sorting stuff feels less exposed than it does in iTunes, even though most of the functionality is there, somewhere.

Really digging Zune Pass so far, and will probably buy a subscription when my trial runs out. I do kind of wish for an easier way to find stuff grabbed from the marketplace to help figure out what to sync with the player.

Also would be nice to have a way to eject the player from the software, since I've already had the software refuse to recognize the player again after having pulled the cable once.

The Zune software is designed around drag and drop, but drag and drop is an inconsistent nightmare. It can't decide whether I'm trying to drag an item or if I want to mass select a bunch of items. That end of the functionality is flat out broken, as far as I'm concerned.


The player itself is better than any iPod short of the Touch, but I find the software getting in my way far more than iTunes did.

P.S. Categorization in the Zune Marketplace is pretty laughably bad. It thinks R.E.M is metal. That's just precious.

[Slack3r78]

http://www.thescoundrelcollective.com/slacker/remismetal.jpg

[Slack3r78]

Okay, one more. Marketplace search is pretty ridiculously broken. I like the idea of having a unified search for both your collection and the marketplace, but it doesn't do much good when you only seem to get marketplace results for an exact match in search term.

[Hexxagonal]

Weird, I've never had any issues with search. I could type in "me" and get metallica. Do you mean the autocomplete dropdown or the search results? Search results will cutoff after 100 for each category then you can filter it from there.

Oh, and for syncing I usually use sync groups between artists/albums/songs. When I want the song I last downloaded from zune I sort by date added.

[Shadowstorm]

Yeah, the software is decent at best. There's a lot of work that needs to be put into it. You should post what you said here at the Zune forums (zune.net/forums I think) as a suggestion. There's been a lot of threads users have made and some of those features that people have suggested actually became reality. See: the clock.

I am not sure if you remember this or not, but the older Zune software felt better IMHO. To this day, I am not sure why they felt the need to redesign it into what you see now. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that it looked ridiculously similar to Windows Media Player.

Aside from the Marketplace and some other features of the software, I don't see why they can't put out an update they enables Windows Media Player to sync content from your library that's already there in WMP to your Zune in a drag-and-drop sort of way. I'd imagine that it would feel a lot less cluttered.

[Talanvor]

Wow, that some pretty heavy metal there man. Be careful, you might just rock your balls off.

Is there a Winamp plugin to sync your Zune through? That's what I use for my crappy Shuffle (In my defense, it was free). iTunes was a HUGE pain in the ass and would not sync my Shuffle properly. Whereas the Winamp plugin is much easier, faster and will transcode the files automatically (FLAC/OGG/etc -> mp3) with no problems whatsoever.

[Hexxagonal]

I've got an example of why they changed it. My girlfriend (not a fan of computers) can't for the life of herself use Windows Media Player or iTunes but dominates the Zune software. After the update came out to make it this current iteration, she sat down and instantly figured out the basics. A few weeks later she had ditched her MP3 player (I think it was a creative?) for a Zune.

I don't understand it really as I prefer using Windows Media Player for listening to my music.

[TheEpicOfTyler]

I absolutely HATE the Zune software. It's bloated and cubersome. I wish there was a stripped down version.

[BabyJesus]

The last upgrade fixed the only issue I had with it.(Editing the musics/albums data)

Other than that I just plunk music in a monitored folder and sync when I have the time.