Zune 80

[NewsBot]

I was going to post this in the what did you get for Xmas thread, but It got a bit long winded:

I got a Zune 80

 

The device is great, but I miss the ability (from my Creative Zen Extra Super Turbo Edition Alpha) to manipulate the now playing list on the fly. The Zune has a QuickList feature that is close enough, but you have to plan ahead and put what you want to play first on it. Then you have to go over to Playlists to actually play it. After that, you can tack on more tracks and albums as you go.

*

Even then, there seems to be no indication of which track in the list is currently playing. You have to go to the now playing screen, remember the track, then go to the playlist screen and find that track in the list. It would be nice if the current track in a playlist was highlighted.

 

I turned off the touch sensitive "swipe" feature (too many accidental double moves from swiping and pressing at the same time), but the buttons will still wake up the device when touched (not pressed), So I have to use the button lock switch.

 

The software is pretty and functional enough for browsing the Marketplace and syncing with the device. But it's not that great of a player. There's no miniplayer toolbar of any type. It took a while to find the now playing list. I'll have to fiddle with it more, but I'm kinda dissapointed there as I was hoping to cancel my Rhapsody subscription and use the Zune Pass for listening to subscription music on my PC. It is nice to have a working subscription music "to go" though.

 

There seems to be a dearth of satisfactory cases for the Zune 80 right now, but it looks like some new ones are coming in the next several weeks, so I'm making do with a neoprene pouch I had lying around.

 

I got the dock for my PC, so I could use the included cable with the AC adapter from the dock kit as a secondary charging cable.

 

More...

 

View All Our Microsft Related Feeds