Jul
25
Zune = Fail
Filed Under Music
I was given a Zune as part of a Microsoft campaign. Companies do it all the time- get the product into people’s hands, and if it’s good they’ll let other people know. My Zune arrived 5 days ago and I sang it’s praises for the first 4 days.
Today I give if a mark of FAIL. The “why” is after the fold.
The way you get content, be it music, pictures or videos, is to create “Sync Groups”. Groups can be comprised of folders, artists, podcast subscriptions, albums and/or specific tracks, whatever you want. Upon plugging the Zune in it will check the groups to see if the content contained within has changed on the host computer and update the Zune accordingly. You can also say “Sync automatically” or “let me choose when”. Aside from podcasts, I always chose the latter. This method is completely different from what I do with my Zen 30gb, which I’ve chosen to go the drag and drop route with content. It’s manual, but the fact is that it doesn’t depend on software to check for things that have changed and possibly update things I don’t want updated at that exact moment on the player itself.
Now the whole sync group thing wasn’t a problem at first because it worked as advertised. Pocasts would delete themselves once new ones arrived and the player would update accordingly. I even had the Zune sync itself through my wireless network while I was in my living room, a very slick option that would be useful if I had it permanently in a car in my non-existent driveway.
The problem is actually the result of the Zune thinking it had been plugged into (and what I would call “married to) two computers with Zune software installed and sync groups set up on both. It wasn’t plugged into two computers, it just decided that the computer it had been plugged into several times already was a new one and then tried to sync all my content a second time (effectively doubling everything). It then ran out of space before being able to finish its second redundant content sync.
My first step was to tell the Zune software on my computer to “erase all content on the [Zune]“. It did what it thought it was supposed to do, and it only erased the content that this computer had just synced. The Zune won’t let one computer allow the erasure of content synced from another computer, so I get a message in graphic that depicts free/taken space in the software that says “Space reserved for another computer (if any)”. It actually says “If Any”.
What if there isn’t any? What if it’s completely wrong in its assumption? Nothing happens, it just won’t let me erase the content nor is there any way for me to tell it to combine its syncing or what have you. The only way around it from what I can surmise by looking at the forums (and seeing that I’m definitely not the only person experiencing this exact issue) is to format the Zune and reinstall the firmware, then resync everything.
If this happened within the first week, what’s in store for me? For all my talk about possible hacks to the device I haven’t had the chance to try any of them yet. I’m quite literally using the device as it was given to me. There is a drag and drop hack, but in order to hear music and watch movies the Zune software must still be used- the hack is just to have some space to use like a USB thumb drive.
As it stands I will not recommend to anyone that they purchase a Zune. This might be damaging in regards to receiving future freebies from marketing and PR companies in Toronto, but fuck it, I’d rather be honest and tell people to buy a Creative Zen, which not only allows both drag and drop functionality (that lets you play your content as you’d expect it to) AND set up syncs (if that floats your boat), but it’s also cheaper than the Zune at only $139 for an 8gb Creatve Zen vs $189 for an 8gb Zune at Futureshop.ca.
Comments
One Response to “Zune = Fail”
Leave a Reply
496s4fs2402aa4p5