Thinking of returning Zune

[wilsonywx]

I purchased a zune 120 after my ipod broke last week. It is a very nice piece of hardware, with more features than the ipod. However, being a MS product, it suffers from software issues. The main grip is that there's no support for Asian characters. It is appaling to see that my Chinese songs become non-sense characters after being uploaded to the zune.

For one thing, it's a goddam mp3 player! It should work out of the box (instead of installation problems with the zune software, can't browse the zune hdd using windows explorer, and no Asian character support). This is where Apple shines compared to MS: the ipod has support for many more languages than the zune, and it *works* out of the box instead of leaving you scratching your head thinking what you should do with this piece of crap.

I am considering returning the zune, but two things are keeping me from doing so already:
1. It is a nicer player than the ipod, if not for the kinks I mentioned.
2. I don't want to pay the 15% restocking fee on Newegg.

[CrowdAds]

[sumx4182]

These issues are widely known and documented. You could have saved yourself alot of hassle by researching a bit before your purchase. The Zune isn't able to be explored as an external drive and never has been (save for a hack that worked on the Zune 30 but does not currently work on the newer Zunes that I'm aware of). Either way, I guess it's ultimately you're decision whether or not to keep the player. Just be sure to learn from this situation and research your next purchase a little more when you know you are looking for certain things (like asian character support).

[sketchy62]

ya the asian character support bugs me too especially since its 3rd gen now...

but i learned to live with it, mainly cuz i just keep it on shuffle till the battery dies.

but aside from tht, it is definatelty a nicer lookin device than the ipod in terms of hardware and software.

i have the 4gb flash btw

[wilsonywx]

Originally Posted by sumx4182

These issues are widely known and documented. You could have saved yourself alot of hassle by researching a bit before your purchase. The Zune isn't able to be explored as an external drive and never has been (save for a hack that worked on the Zune 30 but does not currently work on the newer Zunes that I'm aware of). Either way, I guess it's ultimately you're decision whether or not to keep the player. Just be sure to learn from this situation and research your next purchase a little more when you know you are looking for certain things (like asian character support).

Yes the issues might be well known after the fact, but really, would you have expected that an mp3 player from MS would suffer from such issues? I don't mind if the zune can't be used as an external hdd, but it just plainly sucks that Asian character support is non-existent. Hmm I guess I'd give it a couple more days, and if I can't live with it, I'll just get an ipod classic. So much for abi.

[Cruleworld]

@Sketchy62 It is the Second Gen product not third gen

It has not gone to many other languages because as of now it is only avaible in the US and Canada. So unless you happen to listen to Asian music, which very few people do. It is a small market to cover for such a large feature. It's not a large enough market for them to rush such a thing to being.

As for the Exploring it as a hard drive, this was for "Simplicity". While I don't not agree with their decision to lock the player down in this way, I understand why it was done. There should really be two modes of operation. Stupid mode where you are limited and Advanced mode where you can use it as a hard drive. It was really a move that was taken to make it "Stupid" easy and to give everyone the same user expierence. Not to mention to lock you to using the Zune Software.

[Ricardo Dawkins]

there is an apps for displaying unicode and asian characters. Check www.zuneboards.com

[Cruleworld]

Here is the thread for it

http://www.zuneboards.com/forums/app...e-support.html

[wilsonywx]

Thanks Cruleworld. I'll check it out when I have time.

[Synthesis]

The lack of Asian character support is annoying (thankfully, it isn't really a problem for me, since I end up re-organizing my songs and translating names as a result of it).

However, as to "Not working out of the box"...my Zune 80, purchased more than a year ago during the initial launch, worked fine out of the box. Ultimately, if you're having computer issues, no MP3 player, by its very design, is going to work properly.

That being said.....if the issue of Asian characters is a dealbreaker for you, than the Zune may not be for you (there are also several other MP3 players that I would suggest you stay away from). At the risk of sounding condescending, do make sure you do some research on your next purchase as to language support, ID3, etc.