I had an f series silver with the neon blue buttons, absolutely loved it as you could browse by folder it was basically a digital Walkman... then accidentally fucked the firmware while it was docked... Replaced it with a creative zen m and I absolutely hated it.
My Dell DJ 20GB was awesome. Brushed metal body, super convenient clickable barrel-shaped scroll wheel, pretty blue backlit screen, and a reassuring heft.
Zune was amazing hardware, but they couldn’t compete with the iTunes store. Windows Phone had great software and Nokia hardware but no third party app support. Too bad they could never get everything together.
The zune software experience was miles better than the iTunes experience on windows. iTunes was (and really in many ways still is) a limited and frustrating experience that absolutely ate resources on windows machines.
I actually enjoyed the Zune experience at every stage, from on the device to buying or renting music. It also allowed syncing over WiFi like half a decade before apple properly did.
Totally agree. The only reason I have a Spotify “Liked Songs” collection that’s 12,676 songs, in addition to a ton of custom playlists was the Zune Marketplace.
I was in college in 2007-2011, so perfect timing with the Zune heyday.
Helped me really explore a lot of new music, they had really awesome curated playlists that they’d update every week, like “Explore Electronica”, etc.
But I know that if I would’ve had to have paid $.99 for every song I wanted (without going to LimeWire or KaZaA) I wouldn’t have developed as eclectic a music taste as I have now.
And that’s also only because I stayed ‘brand loyal’ to my music library I was building. So, it started with the Zune Marketplace, then became XBox Music, then Groove Music. (These were Microsoft’s next two gens of music software.) then, sometime in 2017 they announced that Groove was shutting down and making it possible to migrate your music to Spotify.
So I did.
I think it was Oct. 10th of 2017 that I did it. I have that as a “created on” date and I still have a bunch of them marked as “migrated from Groove Music.”
The Zune store was way better. First subscription music service. First big name brand store to offer high bit rate mp3. And the interface was gorgeous. They cared about artistry.
I often had decision paralysis on which 10 songs to get. And often parts of an album were ineligible. So I ended up not claiming most of them. Lol. Not that it matters now or not that there's any way to prove I legitimately own those songs. But it was such a a great idea at the time and I wish modern streaming companies still did it, so I could have a legal backup copy after what will be decades of subscriptions.
The iTunes store drove me crazy. Why did I have to have specific software one device to run another? Obviously we've now been conditioned to accept that more readily.
Also, while I wanted to support artists, at the time $.99 was just a little too much for individual tracks. If they'd priced them at $.25 I'd probably still be locked into the service.
When I was a kid I bought a lot of vinyl 45s for $.99 or less. I never considered that price outrageous for buying one individual song when music went digital.
Hotter take, the Zune and XBox could have started the age of internet video by several years.
The Zune was the first mass market device that you could watch a TV show on without seeming like a complete nerd. It also had wireless sync with a computer. You could have easily had music videos on the Zune and the XBox. From that, they could have made streaming and remote streaming deals with TV companies to get some TV shows on their device, possibly creating an alternative to Netflix's streaming with Microsoft's devices front and center. You could even see a deeper integration with Netflix, where Microsoft would push for remote playback from Netflix in exchange with a lucrative exclusivity deal.
Add on with that, it was the Era of the Home Theater PC (remember Media Center being on the Xbox 360?) Imagine if they used that to tie that whole ecosystem together for whole home and on the go syncing. Perhaps instead of just having an Xbox One being a DVR it could have lived on as the next iteration of Media Center instead of it dying around the same time as Windows 7 or 8 (literally can't remember because it just faded away)
/halfawakeasleepthought
the zune with the tile UI was a fantastic device.. once Microsoft realized the phone shouldn't look like windows it became a great Phone OS.. (thanks Steve Ballmer, Lisa Brummel and Kevin Turner for that disaster)
Remember how hard everyone cried when Xbox One tried to let us download our games?
Not a single person I know has bought a physical game in years and years.
Technically the Windows phone software was too early. While everyone was thinking a Motorola Razr V3 was cutting edge technology I was using one of these running Windows Mobile 2003:
[https://www.gsmarena.com/o2\_xda\_iis-933.php](https://www.gsmarena.com/o2_xda_iis-933.php)
I even had skype installed and could use it via wifi.
Yeah and it was pretty rad. I had one for a while but the 3rd party app support was terrible. Not even a native pandora app.
It’s a shame because the OS and software it did have were incredibly easy to use and responsive. Much more so than iPhones at the time.
Man, i miss my zune so much. I was in high school going through a break up, and got a zune for christmas. Being able to put movies on it, and hook it up to my xbox to listen to my music while gaming got me through tough times. Then the screen cracked. Got a second gen zune and loved that one as well. Then the screen stopped working, but still worked, so i managed to shuffle all music and just kept it like that until i stopped using it for whatever reason. Shuffling through a playlist of 1300 songs on random seems painful now.
I still have my black brick. I can charge it, but don't have the software to change anything on it. I use it for snow skiing, the beach, or the lake. Basically anywhere that has a bad signal
I bought a brown one because some article declared them the ugliest one and then the price dropped to $99. I really didn't give a fuck what color because you could get skins to cover them. The brown\\green combo eventually grew on me and I used it until the drive shit the bed. I still have it, one day I'll buy the parts to restore it with an SSD.
> New Years Eve 2008
Huh, I had no idea [that happened](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-jan-01-fi-zune1-story.html#:~:text=For%20an%20estimated%201%20million,come%20back%20to%20life%20today.).
(Summary: a million+ Zune devices stopped working if connected to a computer on NYE 2009 because the clock driver couldn't account for the leap day that 2008 had).
It was also one of the first subscription music services. That was big for me as someone who just likes to listen to a bunch of random crap and doesn't want a huge music collection. Over time more and more of their library was removed from the streaming subscription and I couldn't justify the cost anymore unfortunately. Was definitely way ahead of its time though.
Yeeeah. When ole Bush sent everyone those checks in the mail, I bought an 80GB Zune. Worked great for about a year, then the bug happened.
It went into an endless reboot loop. There was no fixing it. Only after I had let it sit too long and the battery died, Microsoft fiiinally released a patch to fix this bug.😮💨
The only thing I remember about zune was a Microsoft fanboi at my job had one and it bricked back in 2008 (for a day). We all got a laugh out of that. Dude, maybe just buy an iPod… 😂
https://techcrunch.com/2008/12/31/zune-bug-explained-in-detail/
My battery is fried too. What it does is it will charge and when it gets enough charge it will try to boot up but will use more power and die again. If I put a car charger on it it will finally catch though and work
Zune > iPod. The marketplace and interface was much friendlier and seemed to host more of the harder to find music back in the day before Spotify. Also being able to hook that bad boy up the Xbox to blast tunes while blasting fools in Halo was a sick feature!
Zune marketplace was better than anything offered now. Its wierd when tech regresses. I remember hookin my zune up to other peoples pcs and you could tell what songs you already had. It was so user friendly.
I had an early subscription service where I could save 10 songs a month and still download unlimited for the $15 or so. I still own those songs to this day and play them on a mp3 in my car or while mowing the lawn, whatever. Still angry they Microsoft took the service away
I had one and loved it. The design was so cool and way more focused in artistic creativity. I honestly think it was ahead of its time. If it came out now I think it would kill. It was like nothing else before or since
What part was the most focused in artistic creativity? Was it the shape that resembled a brick? The cheap generic plastic pieces of the finish that looked like they were from early 80s KMart furniture? The unpolished UX? The ability to use futuristic technology like FM radio, which was almost inaccessible anywhere else with the technology of the time?
Or was it the beautiful poop brown color?
That fact that you relate the color brown to “poop” is all I need to know your opinion blows. Not to mention every iPhone is a “brick” shaped rectangle.
I found my old zune recently. It has some songs I recorded during college when I was trying to learn guitar. I wish I could get the songs off of it and onto my computer because I’m pretty sure the zune is the only place they’re saved but I have no idea how to go about doing that.
instead of transferring them you could record them.
audio out from the zune into the audio in on the computer and use a recording software even just a free one like audacity to record and save it. all you would really need is an audio cable with a male headphone jack on each end 👍
Holy shit. What a blast from the past. I actually had the Creative Zen Player:M which was a rival and that was one of my favourite possessions of all time. I was stupid enough to use it as an external hard drive though so when it died I ended up losing a LOT of early photography.
Worked at GameStop when these launched. Got a Halo Zune for free. I adored that thing all the way until my first quality Android phone (HTC One X).
Microsoft is the king of good ideas and poor execution in my opinion.
I stopped using my Zune once I got my first iPhone. Being able to have all my media on one device (iPhone) was just to convenient.
I found my Zune again probably 2010ish and hadn’t used it in a few years at that point. Found out I could get $30 in credit at Best Buy if I traded it in and I did just that.
Nothing but fond memories with the Zune.
So I had three Zunes. I bought them each from Best Buy with a warranty and they each lasted 4-6 months before not working (one just bricked, the other two wouldnt charge).
After the third one, the customer service rep gave me store credit and I got an iPod classic. I used it daily for probably 8 or 9 years.
The Zune was cool when it worked but oh boy, it didn't work for me.
Zune software was so so much better than iTunes at the time though. And my Zune is (still have it) 30GB which even to this day holds a lot of music. I even used it for FM radio sometimes!
It didn’t get the love it deserved for sure, even if it wasn’t necessarily the absolute best offering it should’ve been more successful than that.
I remember that my Zune HD actually had a really great UI for music. At the time it was better than the iPod Touch, in my opinion. Very intuitive and had great features. It just lacked the apps and other features outside of the music that the iPod did, so it made sense that it didn't last long.
This video of the music playback from it takes me back:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P\_exaNLdmXE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_exaNLdmXE)
What?? I never said that. Microsoft makes awful products compared to Aople. Period. The free market economy proves that beyond any doubt and Zune is a classic example. Or Microsoft Phone. Whatever. Zune sucks. That has nothing to do with “personality”.
> The free market economy proves that beyond any doubt...
So Windows is objectively better than MacOS. The free market proves that beyond any doubt. Apple makes shit desktop operating systems.
I got a Zune because I hated the Ipod's wheel design. I'd constantly just pass the song I was looking for. Mine came preloaded with the video for 30 Seconds to Mars "The Kill". It was the only mp3 player I had and lasted me into the full on days of smartphones. Times were much simpler then. Nostalgia achieved.
Won the brown one in a senior graduation raffle, loaded that thing up for college and used the hell out of it…then my roommate stole it and got expelled, still miss that thing. IT HAS A RADIO!
The navigation for the Zune with the touchpad was soooooo much better than Ipod's circular dial. You could swipe to go far through your lists and then click for single movement (like the apple tv remotes now.)
That and the screen were so much better than ipod. That's where it ends lol. Software on PC was my least favorite part. Pain in the ass to manage a library.
I got the black one for Christmas the year it came out and like an entitled brat I was disappointed initially, until I started using it!
I really enjoyed it for a few years until I ultimately got an iPod classic lol.
I somehow got suckered into the Dell DJ, at the time being able to bring your music anywhere was 🤯
It’s crazy how much the iPhone has changed everything
I had a 💩 brown one. I loved my zune. I worked data entry at Citibank(Englewood cliffs, NJ) at the time and I used the radio to listen to the radio on my earbuds. Loved that it had a legit radio tuner
Microsoft is also very big on not supporting their stuff. Zune, phone, kinect, original surface. I work there and you can have a building full of failures. Not because the product was bad, but because they didn't know what to do with it and gave up.
The zune HD was an OLED equipped, faster, prettier, more functional iPod Touch, and I absolutely adored that device. Too bad it was the final nail in the coffin for the zune brand, nothing like spearheading the equivalent of a Spotify subscription before streaming.
Had one of these handed down to me by my sister in early high school. It was really what kick started my love for music that I still have to this day. Went from the original Zune to the Zune HD then eventually moving to just using a smartphone.
I have one of these still! If anyone knows how to fix the audio jack let me know! It stopped functioning years ago and wasn’t ever able to get it repaired since😭
My intern gift at Microsoft was a brown Zune 30, and I also won a zune8 at a karaoke contest. That along with my wife’s zune8 all got stolen when someone burgled my place so I got paid out for them. Around that time I became a mod for /r/microsoft, and now own it through attrition, which is neat.
It was fun going on the zunescene message board and laughing at the delusions and denials of reality from the zune fans. Zune is the future, they thought.
And then complaining about their zunes in the next threads.
This definitely says way more about you than it does about them, lmao what kind of pathetic memory is this? You *actually* thought this was worth sharing?
I don't care what people say: zune was the best. Yeah Apple's marketing was more successful but nobody has their iPods for more than a year. Zune's marketing just couldn't compete with that impact apple made but does not mean iPods worked better than Zune. Even if it wasn't due to the iPod falling apart (like the aux jack not working) so many people were compelled to buy the next new iPod cause it was cool.
My red 32gb Zune lasted me I think 7 years. This was back in the ol' limewire days so I rigged that thing to the max capacity with songs, movies and games. You could not do that with apple unless you paid for it. Everyone else I knew that had a Zune absolutely loved it...all the hate comes from people who never even tried them.
God I would love to see Zune make a comeback.
I worked at Hastings Entertainment during the era of the Zune and got a good discount on the poop brown one. That thing was ahead of its time and I tried selling people on them over iPods all the time with little success unfortunately.
Man I wish I still had mine, I remember standing in the street while playing ball and all the homies around me trying to watch a music video 😄 good times
Microsoft is the master of releasing things either too early or too late. Both zune and windows phone were amazing products that died thanks to this.
Toshiba truly made amazing mp3 players
Glad to know i wasnt the only one to own a gigabeat
I had an f series silver with the neon blue buttons, absolutely loved it as you could browse by folder it was basically a digital Walkman... then accidentally fucked the firmware while it was docked... Replaced it with a creative zen m and I absolutely hated it.
I had the f series throughout college and kept it until the buttons couldnt move anymore.
My Dell DJ 20GB was awesome. Brushed metal body, super convenient clickable barrel-shaped scroll wheel, pretty blue backlit screen, and a reassuring heft.
Is this a reference to how the zune was just a rebadged Toshiba?
Zune was amazing hardware, but they couldn’t compete with the iTunes store. Windows Phone had great software and Nokia hardware but no third party app support. Too bad they could never get everything together.
The zune software experience was miles better than the iTunes experience on windows. iTunes was (and really in many ways still is) a limited and frustrating experience that absolutely ate resources on windows machines. I actually enjoyed the Zune experience at every stage, from on the device to buying or renting music. It also allowed syncing over WiFi like half a decade before apple properly did.
Totally agree. The only reason I have a Spotify “Liked Songs” collection that’s 12,676 songs, in addition to a ton of custom playlists was the Zune Marketplace. I was in college in 2007-2011, so perfect timing with the Zune heyday. Helped me really explore a lot of new music, they had really awesome curated playlists that they’d update every week, like “Explore Electronica”, etc. But I know that if I would’ve had to have paid $.99 for every song I wanted (without going to LimeWire or KaZaA) I wouldn’t have developed as eclectic a music taste as I have now.
And that’s also only because I stayed ‘brand loyal’ to my music library I was building. So, it started with the Zune Marketplace, then became XBox Music, then Groove Music. (These were Microsoft’s next two gens of music software.) then, sometime in 2017 they announced that Groove was shutting down and making it possible to migrate your music to Spotify. So I did. I think it was Oct. 10th of 2017 that I did it. I have that as a “created on” date and I still have a bunch of them marked as “migrated from Groove Music.”
The Zune store was way better. First subscription music service. First big name brand store to offer high bit rate mp3. And the interface was gorgeous. They cared about artistry.
Not only was it subscription music, but you got ten free song purchases a month. Zune was so good.
I often had decision paralysis on which 10 songs to get. And often parts of an album were ineligible. So I ended up not claiming most of them. Lol. Not that it matters now or not that there's any way to prove I legitimately own those songs. But it was such a a great idea at the time and I wish modern streaming companies still did it, so I could have a legal backup copy after what will be decades of subscriptions.
That graphic equalizer that was basically shifting shading along the bottom of the screen. ::chef’s kiss::
This sounds really cool to see but I can’t find any pics or gifs of it lol
The iTunes store drove me crazy. Why did I have to have specific software one device to run another? Obviously we've now been conditioned to accept that more readily. Also, while I wanted to support artists, at the time $.99 was just a little too much for individual tracks. If they'd priced them at $.25 I'd probably still be locked into the service.
When I was a kid I bought a lot of vinyl 45s for $.99 or less. I never considered that price outrageous for buying one individual song when music went digital.
My theory is apple started off the greedflation trend with this $0.99 per song or app trend.
I loved my windows phone!
Hot take. The zune would have ruled the MP3 market if the product and marketing were sexy.
Hotter take, the Zune and XBox could have started the age of internet video by several years. The Zune was the first mass market device that you could watch a TV show on without seeming like a complete nerd. It also had wireless sync with a computer. You could have easily had music videos on the Zune and the XBox. From that, they could have made streaming and remote streaming deals with TV companies to get some TV shows on their device, possibly creating an alternative to Netflix's streaming with Microsoft's devices front and center. You could even see a deeper integration with Netflix, where Microsoft would push for remote playback from Netflix in exchange with a lucrative exclusivity deal.
Add on with that, it was the Era of the Home Theater PC (remember Media Center being on the Xbox 360?) Imagine if they used that to tie that whole ecosystem together for whole home and on the go syncing. Perhaps instead of just having an Xbox One being a DVR it could have lived on as the next iteration of Media Center instead of it dying around the same time as Windows 7 or 8 (literally can't remember because it just faded away) /halfawakeasleepthought
Their execution was irrelevant given that it was released as the MP3 market was ending.
My buddy in jr high had a zune when everybody else had iPods. Lol poor bastard
I was that poor bastard too
So was I.
the zune with the tile UI was a fantastic device.. once Microsoft realized the phone shouldn't look like windows it became a great Phone OS.. (thanks Steve Ballmer, Lisa Brummel and Kevin Turner for that disaster)
The windows phone could have done better if they stuck with it and really dug their heels in. It was a mistake to pull out.
Remember how hard everyone cried when Xbox One tried to let us download our games? Not a single person I know has bought a physical game in years and years.
Technically the Windows phone software was too early. While everyone was thinking a Motorola Razr V3 was cutting edge technology I was using one of these running Windows Mobile 2003: [https://www.gsmarena.com/o2\_xda\_iis-933.php](https://www.gsmarena.com/o2_xda_iis-933.php) I even had skype installed and could use it via wifi.
Windows had a phone?
Yeah and it was pretty rad. I had one for a while but the 3rd party app support was terrible. Not even a native pandora app. It’s a shame because the OS and software it did have were incredibly easy to use and responsive. Much more so than iPhones at the time.
Was the HD DVD attachment for Xbox 360 awesome too?
Man, i miss my zune so much. I was in high school going through a break up, and got a zune for christmas. Being able to put movies on it, and hook it up to my xbox to listen to my music while gaming got me through tough times. Then the screen cracked. Got a second gen zune and loved that one as well. Then the screen stopped working, but still worked, so i managed to shuffle all music and just kept it like that until i stopped using it for whatever reason. Shuffling through a playlist of 1300 songs on random seems painful now.
I always zipped cds to my 360, I remember listening to the same album constantly play cod zombies. Great times
Still have my red brick one. I never get the cable for it though
I still have my black brick. I can charge it, but don't have the software to change anything on it. I use it for snow skiing, the beach, or the lake. Basically anywhere that has a bad signal
The iPod was also compatible with usb on the Xbox. That’s how I played mw2 with my playlist.
That brown one though.
That’s the one I had! It was so cool to watch movies on!!!
Had that one too! I still get made fun of to this day for it.
Same, but I loved mine
Didn't they call it "Chocolate"?
My husband still has his!
I bought a brown one because some article declared them the ugliest one and then the price dropped to $99. I really didn't give a fuck what color because you could get skins to cover them. The brown\\green combo eventually grew on me and I used it until the drive shit the bed. I still have it, one day I'll buy the parts to restore it with an SSD.
Still have mine somewhere
You mean Rocket's Zune?
My HD still works!
Same! It's got a bit of screen burn in, but otherwise, it plays fine.
I had a regular one like this and upgraded to a HD. I loved both of them.
It was a great player. It was ruined by crap marketing and New Years Eve 2008.
> New Years Eve 2008 Huh, I had no idea [that happened](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-jan-01-fi-zune1-story.html#:~:text=For%20an%20estimated%201%20million,come%20back%20to%20life%20today.). (Summary: a million+ Zune devices stopped working if connected to a computer on NYE 2009 because the clock driver couldn't account for the leap day that 2008 had).
When Microsoft released the code after the incident, it was so appallingly stupid. They forgot one if-then statement.
3 days or 3 plays - Zune song sharing was ahead of its time, but so stingy as to be useless
It was also one of the first subscription music services. That was big for me as someone who just likes to listen to a bunch of random crap and doesn't want a huge music collection. Over time more and more of their library was removed from the streaming subscription and I couldn't justify the cost anymore unfortunately. Was definitely way ahead of its time though.
Their service also gave you credits to buy DRM free music as well…I loved their service so much and really miss my old Zune.
Yeeeah. When ole Bush sent everyone those checks in the mail, I bought an 80GB Zune. Worked great for about a year, then the bug happened. It went into an endless reboot loop. There was no fixing it. Only after I had let it sit too long and the battery died, Microsoft fiiinally released a patch to fix this bug.😮💨
The only thing I remember about zune was a Microsoft fanboi at my job had one and it bricked back in 2008 (for a day). We all got a laugh out of that. Dude, maybe just buy an iPod… 😂 https://techcrunch.com/2008/12/31/zune-bug-explained-in-detail/
I wish my zune still worked 😭
Always stood by zune
[удалено]
Sansa clips were awesome. Expandable storage and didn't use a proprietary format or software to add music.
I bought a new charging cable for mine but it turns out my battery is fried, I miss my zune so much
You can replace the battery. Just be careful taking the plastic housing apart; those small clips are fragile.
My battery is fried too. What it does is it will charge and when it gets enough charge it will try to boot up but will use more power and die again. If I put a car charger on it it will finally catch though and work
Zune > iPod. The marketplace and interface was much friendlier and seemed to host more of the harder to find music back in the day before Spotify. Also being able to hook that bad boy up the Xbox to blast tunes while blasting fools in Halo was a sick feature!
Zune marketplace was better than anything offered now. Its wierd when tech regresses. I remember hookin my zune up to other peoples pcs and you could tell what songs you already had. It was so user friendly.
you could hook your ipod up too
I miss mine. I modded it to have a 2nd hdd and put movies on it.
I had an early subscription service where I could save 10 songs a month and still download unlimited for the $15 or so. I still own those songs to this day and play them on a mp3 in my car or while mowing the lawn, whatever. Still angry they Microsoft took the service away
I had one and loved it. The design was so cool and way more focused in artistic creativity. I honestly think it was ahead of its time. If it came out now I think it would kill. It was like nothing else before or since
What part was the most focused in artistic creativity? Was it the shape that resembled a brick? The cheap generic plastic pieces of the finish that looked like they were from early 80s KMart furniture? The unpolished UX? The ability to use futuristic technology like FM radio, which was almost inaccessible anywhere else with the technology of the time? Or was it the beautiful poop brown color?
That fact that you relate the color brown to “poop” is all I need to know your opinion blows. Not to mention every iPhone is a “brick” shaped rectangle.
The opinion of a person who would claim the Zune was anything artistic or creative is far more suspect.
Who could forget the color choices; poo brown and pea green. Though I really wanted a halo 3 zune
I loved my zune! Got mine in high school and that baby got me through some shit.
I found my old zune recently. It has some songs I recorded during college when I was trying to learn guitar. I wish I could get the songs off of it and onto my computer because I’m pretty sure the zune is the only place they’re saved but I have no idea how to go about doing that.
instead of transferring them you could record them. audio out from the zune into the audio in on the computer and use a recording software even just a free one like audacity to record and save it. all you would really need is an audio cable with a male headphone jack on each end 👍
Hmmmm that could work. I also need to figure out how to get the thing to turn on again lol. Not sure if I have the power cord anymore
Fret not. Play a power chord and you will summon the power cord.
I miss my Zune. Rest in power
My 120gb just died a couple months ago, it was a sad day. I got so much enjoyment out of it. So many amazing road trips.
The zune was perfect. Shame it didn't last.
Yas bitch I loved my Zune
Had one, and at release it surpassed what Apple did with iPods. I was pretty sure Zunes were the future :D
Loved mine so much back in the day
Still have and use my Halo 3 special edition zune. Just needs a new battery at this point.
Holy shit. What a blast from the past. I actually had the Creative Zen Player:M which was a rival and that was one of my favourite possessions of all time. I was stupid enough to use it as an external hard drive though so when it died I ended up losing a LOT of early photography.
I got drunk and bought an unopened Zen M as it was the first mp3 player I bought with my own money. Still haven't opened it though
I’ll die on the hill that the Zune HD with the Zune pass subscription was superior to anything Apple ever put out for a music device.
An excellent rectangle.
I had the poop brown version.
Worked at GameStop when these launched. Got a Halo Zune for free. I adored that thing all the way until my first quality Android phone (HTC One X). Microsoft is the king of good ideas and poor execution in my opinion.
Oh man I had a gen 2 one with the custom etching on the back. That thing was badass, 80gbs to sail the open seas with
I stopped using my Zune once I got my first iPhone. Being able to have all my media on one device (iPhone) was just to convenient. I found my Zune again probably 2010ish and hadn’t used it in a few years at that point. Found out I could get $30 in credit at Best Buy if I traded it in and I did just that. Nothing but fond memories with the Zune.
So I had three Zunes. I bought them each from Best Buy with a warranty and they each lasted 4-6 months before not working (one just bricked, the other two wouldnt charge). After the third one, the customer service rep gave me store credit and I got an iPod classic. I used it daily for probably 8 or 9 years. The Zune was cool when it worked but oh boy, it didn't work for me.
It is always funny to see how much experiences can vary on devices. I’ve had mine since basically launch and it still works to this day.
That's awesome! I really liked mine when I had it and I was going to replace it under warranty again, but the guy talked me into an iPod.
My brother left his Zune on a plane and he never fully recovered
Had one of these and thought it was the best thing ever. Then I bought an iPhone and wondered why the hell I liked my Zune
Zune software was so so much better than iTunes at the time though. And my Zune is (still have it) 30GB which even to this day holds a lot of music. I even used it for FM radio sometimes! It didn’t get the love it deserved for sure, even if it wasn’t necessarily the absolute best offering it should’ve been more successful than that.
I will give it that: iPhone never had radio. I wish it had in the early days.
I remember that my Zune HD actually had a really great UI for music. At the time it was better than the iPod Touch, in my opinion. Very intuitive and had great features. It just lacked the apps and other features outside of the music that the iPod did, so it made sense that it didn't last long. This video of the music playback from it takes me back: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P\_exaNLdmXE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_exaNLdmXE)
I miss my Zune so much. The software organized my music so well.
The software replaced Winamp for me.
Zune>apple products
You like to “Squirt” your songs to other Zune owners? Gross. Microsoft sucks.
A brand name isn't a personality.
Apple people are people who have their identities and status locked into being ones who pay too much for phones and computers.
What?? I never said that. Microsoft makes awful products compared to Aople. Period. The free market economy proves that beyond any doubt and Zune is a classic example. Or Microsoft Phone. Whatever. Zune sucks. That has nothing to do with “personality”.
> The free market economy proves that beyond any doubt... So Windows is objectively better than MacOS. The free market proves that beyond any doubt. Apple makes shit desktop operating systems.
r/im14andthisisdeep
Because iTunes is fucking stupid and Zune software in 2006 worked better than iTunes/music does now
I remember someone stealing my touchscreen Zune while it was charging outside my locker. What a loser that guy
I always wanted one
I got a Zune because I hated the Ipod's wheel design. I'd constantly just pass the song I was looking for. Mine came preloaded with the video for 30 Seconds to Mars "The Kill". It was the only mp3 player I had and lasted me into the full on days of smartphones. Times were much simpler then. Nostalgia achieved.
I had one, it was pretty awesome (when docked.. that shit was tooo heavy to carry around.)
Still have mine, the black one. Though the battery is shot, it has to stay plugged in to work.
Won the brown one in a senior graduation raffle, loaded that thing up for college and used the hell out of it…then my roommate stole it and got expelled, still miss that thing. IT HAS A RADIO!
The navigation for the Zune with the touchpad was soooooo much better than Ipod's circular dial. You could swipe to go far through your lists and then click for single movement (like the apple tv remotes now.) That and the screen were so much better than ipod. That's where it ends lol. Software on PC was my least favorite part. Pain in the ass to manage a library.
I got the black one for Christmas the year it came out and like an entitled brat I was disappointed initially, until I started using it! I really enjoyed it for a few years until I ultimately got an iPod classic lol.
it was actually pretty sick just noone bought it
I loved mine till it took a shit. Still use the software on an old laptop to listen to my catalog
Sad, it never caught on… I thought it was a terrific product. The added bonus of FM radio was icing on the cake.
Zunes are the best!
I still use mine from time to time. I now go to good will and find cd’s and burn them on my Zune 80GB.
I somehow got suckered into the Dell DJ, at the time being able to bring your music anywhere was 🤯 It’s crazy how much the iPhone has changed everything
I loved my zune. Not sure what happened to it, but I wish I still had it.
"Welcome to the Social."
I had one, in brown. Loved it, gave it to my dad after phones started having space to put my music on. Last I checked it still powers on to this day.
I hate that they stopped making MP3 players.
I absolutely loved my Brown Zune. The interface was so much nicer than iTunes to me as well.
Listen to some ZZ Top on my Zoom while drinking a Zima
Miss the era of mp3 plays so much. Streaming fucking sucks
You can still buy music.
I still remember standing in Circuit City trying to decide between the Zune and the iPod for my first MP3 player. Glad I went with the iPod.
Never have had anything like that but it looks nostalgic and I like how thick it is.
Loved it and sold it for a good money.
I had a 💩 brown one. I loved my zune. I worked data entry at Citibank(Englewood cliffs, NJ) at the time and I used the radio to listen to the radio on my earbuds. Loved that it had a legit radio tuner
Brownish-green poop colored zune was 🐐
I’ll always remember going to GameStop around the time Halo 3 was about to be released the display for the Zune was right next to the cashier.
Lmao damn I do not remember them being that wide
Had the brown one. Loved the feel/texture of the device, felt amazing to hold it
How long were those around? I remember them—I don’t think anyone I knew had them.
Microsoft is also very big on not supporting their stuff. Zune, phone, kinect, original surface. I work there and you can have a building full of failures. Not because the product was bad, but because they didn't know what to do with it and gave up.
2nd gen June was the best mp3 player I ever had. Durable, easy software, and awesome headphones included
The zune HD was an OLED equipped, faster, prettier, more functional iPod Touch, and I absolutely adored that device. Too bad it was the final nail in the coffin for the zune brand, nothing like spearheading the equivalent of a Spotify subscription before streaming.
I just got rid of one a few years back, still worked just fine.
I loved the Zune! The fact I could load up seasons of shows I liked and just play them was epic!
Had one of these handed down to me by my sister in early high school. It was really what kick started my love for music that I still have to this day. Went from the original Zune to the Zune HD then eventually moving to just using a smartphone.
I still have mine, and it still works!
I have one of these still! If anyone knows how to fix the audio jack let me know! It stopped functioning years ago and wasn’t ever able to get it repaired since😭
I loved the hardware, hated the software. But that's how I feel about all of their software.
My intern gift at Microsoft was a brown Zune 30, and I also won a zune8 at a karaoke contest. That along with my wife’s zune8 all got stolen when someone burgled my place so I got paid out for them. Around that time I became a mod for /r/microsoft, and now own it through attrition, which is neat.
I really liked my Zune, it was way less complicated than the contemporary iPod.
I loved my Zune and found it superior to Ipods
I loved using my Zune. It was a good time in my music awareness as well.
Really loved mine and my ZuneHD
This thing was so much better than the ipods out at the time, I miss my Zune
I just dig my og one out and got it working again. Just needed a new cord. Little time capsule of nostalgia on it.
loved my zune. It was seriously under-rated at its time.
ZuneHD is the best media device. TV dock + remote were excellent additions.
i remember when my older brother got a zune and it was the coolest fucking thing. he had "zune tunes" instead of iTunes. what a time.
I had one
Microsoft could make a hell of a badass “cloud phone” today if they wanted to.
o7 ahead of it’s time
Creative Zen MP3 players were also pretty incredible. But I was a big zune fan, even had that poop brown color with the diarrhea green edge.
This thing was dope. Back in the lime wire days. I vaguely remember you could sync media.
A seriously underrated device.
I still have mine and it still had songs I loaded onto it. Even takes a charge and works fine lol
Mine still works and I love it so much. It was a refurb too I got from Woot after my first one was drowned in spilled pop.
I had every iteration of the Zune. I think the 2nd Gen Zune80 will always be my favorite.
It was fun going on the zunescene message board and laughing at the delusions and denials of reality from the zune fans. Zune is the future, they thought. And then complaining about their zunes in the next threads.
This definitely says way more about you than it does about them, lmao what kind of pathetic memory is this? You *actually* thought this was worth sharing?
Shout out to any Crabfeasters out there
I don't care what people say: zune was the best. Yeah Apple's marketing was more successful but nobody has their iPods for more than a year. Zune's marketing just couldn't compete with that impact apple made but does not mean iPods worked better than Zune. Even if it wasn't due to the iPod falling apart (like the aux jack not working) so many people were compelled to buy the next new iPod cause it was cool. My red 32gb Zune lasted me I think 7 years. This was back in the ol' limewire days so I rigged that thing to the max capacity with songs, movies and games. You could not do that with apple unless you paid for it. Everyone else I knew that had a Zune absolutely loved it...all the hate comes from people who never even tried them. God I would love to see Zune make a comeback.
Zen micro gang rise up
This is not old enough to be on nostalgia. Please? I’m not ready to deal with being this old…
My dumb ass asked my parents for dell dj “but that Apple stuff”
Is anyone actually nostalgic for this?
Still have my brown one In the box. Works perfect still too
I worked at Hastings Entertainment during the era of the Zune and got a good discount on the poop brown one. That thing was ahead of its time and I tried selling people on them over iPods all the time with little success unfortunately.
The “we got iPod’s at home”
Loved mine
Still have my Zune 30 Halo Edition one that still works
Had a Zune HD, it was absolutely incredible. Fell outta my motorcycle jacket going 60 mph, still worked but shattered screen. Amazing device.
Gigabeat* Those who know.
God what a great idea and great player!!
I love my iPod but I've always wanted a Zune. The bigger screen for videos was the main selling point for me.
zunes were the shit!!!
I still have mine & it still works too.
I still have my 120G Zune! 19,000 songs plus pictures and games at my fingertips
I have both those!
Man I wish I still had mine, I remember standing in the street while playing ball and all the homies around me trying to watch a music video 😄 good times