Zune 80 GB Digital Media Player, Red (2nd Generation)
 |   Publisher : Zune Company : Zune |
Features
- 80 GB digital media player stores up to 20,000 songs, 25,000 pictures or 250 hours of video
- Features wireless Zune-to-Zune sharing so you can swap tracks and other media
- Big, bright, 3.2-inch color LCD
- Compatible with Zune Marketplace for media downloads and subscription services
- Automatically imports your existing music, pictures, and videos form iTunes and Windows Media Player in a variety of formats
- Premium Earphones included
Amazon.com Product Description
Music and entertainment, your way. That's what the Zune 80 GB Digital Media Player is designed to deliver. The Zune easily connects you with your music, videos, and pictures wherever and whenever you want, and unlike the iPod, it even has a built-in FM tuner so you can keep up with local news and sports. Your Zune gives you the power to wirelessly share full-length tracks, playlists, pictures and podcasts with your other Zune-wielding friends. And when you receive songs that you just can't get out of your head, you can easily tag the songs and buy them the next time you sync up. Whether you're listening to music, radio, or rocking out to the latest music videos on the bright, roomy screen, the Zune allows you to tailor your entertainment, right in the palm of your hand. Watch a demo on Zune. 
The Zune easily connects you with your music, videos, and pictures wherever and whenever you want. 
Share full-length tracks of your favorite songs, albums, playlists, pictures, and even audio podcasts with other Zune users.
(Black Zune shown here with Dock Pack v2 with remote, sold separately.) 
Store up to 20,000 songs, 25,000 pictures, or 250 hours of video. 
Get all your favorite music at the Zune Marketplace. Simple, Innovative Controls
The Zune is a breeze to use with new, intuitive touch controls. Don't subject yourself to cumbersome, slow scrolling. The innovative new Zune pad makes browsing your music, video and picture collections fun and effortless. You'll fly through your favorites and get to just what you're looking for in no time flat. This powerhouse device stores up to 20,000 songs, 25,000 pictures, or 250 hours of video. (Please note that music estimates are based on 128 kbps WMA files, with length of 4 minutes each; pictures transferred to Zune will be optimized for Zune screen size; and video estimates are based on 500 kbps WMV files with 128 kbps WMA audio tracks.)
That's a lot of entertainment, and you'll appreciate it even more with the Zune's awesome screen. The big, beautiful, 3.2-inch color screen provides uncompromising portable video viewing. This Zune also comes equipped with premium earphones. Designed to block out external noise, these earphones provide superior sound and bass response, and leave your ears with nothing but your favorite tunes. Your favorite music, videos, and pictures have never looked and sounded better.
FM Radio
The Zune also features a built-in FM radio tuner so that you can listen to local FM stations or tune-in programming while you're at the gym. Advanced tuning capabilities allow you to see the name of the song that's currently playing on select frequencies.
Wireless Sync
We're all exhausted by the cables and wires that tangle up our lives. Luckily, the Zune is one device that doesn't require another cord. You can easily connect to your home wireless network and sync your Zune with your PC collection of digital goodies. You can also sync using the dock, AC adapter, or speaker dock accessory (not included).
The Zune Community and Marketplace
Zune is all about sharing and community. At the Zune Online Community, you'll discover, share, and leave your musical mark. Create a Zune card and Zune profile page to reflect your musical identity. From the Zune Online Community, you can invite friends, share song recommendations, post comments, and browse member pages to unearth new tunes and connect to others who share your musical tastes.
When you're ready to purchase music and load your device with new tunes, turn to Zune Marketplace. With more than 3 million songs, DRM-free MP3s, music videos, audio/video podcasts, and more content added every day, you'll certainly get your fill. The store is always open and just a mouse click away. You also can choose between the download or subscription packages--buy individual songs and albums, or snag a Zune Pass subscription with all you can eat access to discover and explore the nooks and crannies of artists and genres.
Zune-to-Zune Sharing
Once your Zune is loaded with good stuff, you'll be ready to embrace wireless Zune-to-Zune sharing. Share full-length tracks of your favorite songs, albums, playlists, pictures, and even audio podcasts. You can listen to the full track of any song you receive up to three times, and you can even pass along songs that are shared with you to other friends. If you find a song you really love, you can easily add it to your wishlist and buy it later when you sync to your PC. When it comes to syncing and importing your music, the Zune makes it easy. Zune software can automatically import your existing music, pictures, and videos from iTunes and Windows Media Player in a variety of formats, including your existing playlists and song ratings.
Recorded TV or Movies to Go
The Zune will also automatically import TV shows or movies recorded using a PC running Windows Media Center in Windows Vista. Record all your favorites, sync to your Zune, and hit the road with your favorite TV shows right in your pocket.
Your Games. Your Music. Your Way.
Another awesome feature is the Zune's compatibility with the Xbox 360. Plug your Zune into your Xbox 360 to customize the soundtrack in supported games. You also can stream music, pictures, and videos from the Zune software on your PC to your Xbox 360 console using a wireless connection. Whether you're staying in or going out, travelling or working, the Zune can be right there with you, providing loads of entertainment direct from your pocket.
What's in the Box
Zune 80 GB Digital Media Player (red), premium headphones, sync cable, and three sizes of ear sleeves.
Customer reviews
The best gift !!! 
by .. Trouble (Columbia, SC USA)
I bought the Zune 80 GB as a graduation present and my children and I just love them. They look great, they are so easy to use, downloading music is totaly easy. Everybody with basic computer skills can use it. The screen is wonderful. I was kind'a sceptic about watching movies and videoclips on a screen like that but it looks brilliant and you can see all details. If you are looking for a MP3 player with lots of space and cool features ( like the social , where you can send songs and pictures to each other!) thats the thing to buy.
Overall a solid player but could be more compatible 
by .. S. J Mahoney ()
I purchased my 2nd generation Zune a few weeks ago and the experience has been a roller coaster. When I'm running and doing nothing but listening to songs I've bought online and were properly tagged it performs flawlessly. But throw in a bunch of songs that weren't properly tagged (that is to say, if your music collection isn't 100 percent from sources that properly classify the meta data) it has become a nightmare. The Zune software does not do a good job of recognizing and inserting meta data based on the song name. There are other applications that do this for you, and after a few hours of searching and experimenting I came across a program called MusicBrainz Picard that did a pretty good job. After "Picarding" my music collection I had a much easier time actually finding the song I wanted to listen to. Before that I had an enormous amount of music that just fell under the "Unknown Artist" selection even though it showed the actual artist's name! So the early loading of the zune was extremely frustrating to say the least. I highly recommend you use the above program if your collection has not been properly sorted and tagged.
Next thing I decided to do was load all my pictures on the unit. I have about 9 gigs of pictures and I store them on both my external hard drive and my local hard drive. So I directed the Zune software to automatically sync the pics on my local hard drive and started the load process. 24 hours later I was at around 47 percent complete and extremely puzzled. So after erasing and reloading my zune a few times with both the pictures and the music I was still getting the extremely slow load times. It turns out that the zune resamples and reformats the pictures for the zune, so it was doing that for every single picture I owned. There was also a conflict with the external hard drive because when I later turned it off and manually synced the picture folder the sync went much smoother. To this day I'm still not sure what the problem was.
After that I tried to load videos on the zune. Well I knew the zune was extremely selective about what it did and didn't play but had no idea it would be so picky with it's own wmv format. I tried several video conversion tools (cucusoft first and some others I can't remember) and the zune simply did not like the outputted wmv format they produced. Finally I discovered Allok video converter and instead converted the files to mp4. When converting to the 4 to 3 aspect ratio the movie still doesn't take up the whole screen and the top and bottom has the black letterbox type bars which is annoying on a small screen.
So I've finally sorted out all my issues with the media. I'm not happy that the zune doesn't support various formats (xvid would have been really nice and it still does not support .aa files from audible.com) but I knew that when I bought the player so I can't really hold that against the zune's rating. The zune marketplace is absolutely atrocious. For some inexplicable reason they went with their own currency in the form of Microsoft points and you have to actually purchase these points instead of just spending cash each time you buy a song. I dont want to perform another conversion in my head to figure out how much different songs cost! I also dont want to spend gobs of money up front to spend the points over time. I do not use the marketplace at all and instead buy all my mp3's from amazon.
Other quick notes: The accessories for the zune are plentiful and adequate. The earbuds are top notch for the player. I haven't used the wireless feature so cannot comment on that. Out of the box the unit cannot be used as an external hard drive but some creative people have figured out work arounds for this.
That's all I have to say. Overall I'm happy with the zune but the initial setup was a nightmare.
Beats Ipod by a landslide by .. Ralph Flugan (Ohio)
There are so many reasons i prefer this over ipod and you can probably find them below me from other people so i wont bother listing them again.
But i will say there is only one thing i dont like about this and i might have just not figured out how yet. When you are playing a song i dont think you can go back to a particular moment during the song or fast forward though a part. Other then that this has so many more features then ipod including my favorites, accepting almost all video file types, finding the album artwork if your files are missing it, wireless syncing through your computer router or zune to zune, customizable background.
Great Player by .. toedtoes ()
After my 2nd generation (15gb) iPod died after 4 years of use, I found myself in need of a new player. Having success with my prior player, as well as all the power cords, etc., I first looked at the new iPods.
That's when I realized that none of my cords will work with the new iPods and I'd have to buy everything all over again. So, I compared costs to the Zune.
For less than the 60gb iPod alone, I was able to buy the 80gb Zune, 2 docking stations (v1), 2 remote controls, 2 power blocks, 1 car charger, 2 A/V cords, and 4 sinc cords.
As all my music is from CDs (rather than bought via iTunes), converting to the Zune software was as easy as downloading the software. It automatically pulls everything from the My Music, My Videos and My Pictures folders on the computer.
While the playlists didn't automatically add to the Zune software, the playlist titles and song names did, so it was just a matter of using the list of song names to re-create the playlists. Much easier than trying to re-create them from memory alone.
The software is easy to use and has a pleasant look and feel to it. Very easy to move around in, and syncing to the Zune was as simple as right clicking (I turned off the auto-sync, so I can pull only specific stuff into the Zune as desired).
The Zune itself is very stylish and easy to use. The sound is great. The buttons are easily worked. After having an iPod, it took a few minutes to get used to the scroll - I kept scrolling in a circular pattern. Once I got used to a "paper turning" movement with my thumb, I find it easier on my hand to scroll on the Zune.
While I didn't think I cared, I rather like the "social" ability. It's easy to send a song to a friend's Zune, and fun to see Zunes come in and out of range. I'm almost positive my Zune was sending "crash" waves to a friend's iPod today also. :)
Price is TOO high!!!!!!! 
by .. Sarah (Kansas City, KS United States)
What is up with the prices of the MP3 players! You've got to be kidding me, right?!!!! Over $200 for these things that are no bigger than a credit card! Come on people! What are you thinking? Granted the Zune can hold up to 80 GB but YOU have to put 80 GB worth of data on it. Maybe if it came with 80 GB worth of info on it already, it might be worth $200!!! Stop and think people....if we stop paying this much for stuff, the prices would go down to more reasonable prices.
