Well it seems as if the economic design of supply and demand are at work once again.  I originally bought the Zune 30 (brown) for $100 back when they were trying to boost the sales of the brownie.  Shortly after the prices were back to normal with the exception of the white still floating a little higher in price.  Recent searches on prices show that the price of the Zune 30G is around $200 for the brown. 

I have nothing against a refurb (refurbished/remanufactured) device and will gladly pay the lower price for an item I feel has returned to have it's problems fixed.   My advice to you is shop around.  There are many price comparison websites that will do the searching for you; pricegrabber.com, bizrate.com, mysimon.com, dealtime.com and many others.

Currently the white Zune 30G is #4 on the Amazon.com shopping list.

And if you are a trendsetter then go get yourself a brand new one!

I'm not a doctor and any medical advice given should not be considered expert, consult your physician.

Why doesn't the Zune Team through us a few parties?  Has anyone been to a Zune party or visited Zune L.A.? I'm sure market share will increase if we can drown the masses with product exposure instead of vague trippy music commercials that leave us wondering what exactly is being sold.  Or there is the Zune Pass commercial where the camera flies over a table of LP covers with messages... Huh?  "Keep it simple, clear, and concise!"

Check this video about Friday's launch in Canada:

In addition to the new Canadian artists in Zune Originals, now you can buy Zune accessories via Zune Originals - check it out!

Zune Insider

I have been bragging and going on about how much I love my new Zune Originals.  I even bought a Griffin clear hard case at Target that I wanted to share as well. So it is unfortunate that I have decided to send it in for repair/replacement.  I may not even get back my Red, substituting for a black. Call me petty but when I spend more than $100 on an item I want it to at least meet some quality standards when it reaches my hands or home.  

After spending much time looking closely at my Zune I noticed a few issues that opened up to a few more issues.  It's sad how we continuously have quality issues with products from China.  I at one point believed China was trying to kill us slowly with the amount of lead products, razor blades in candy, paint in toys that metabolizes in the stomach as GHB (a.k.a date rape drug), and now my precious Zune.

I have read many times about dead pixels and dust under the screen.  I have found dust under the glass, scratches from taking it apart and a broken tab on the case (all of this due to them taking it apart to perform the custom engraving.)  See the pictures after the break.

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 My Zune ('Hikaru' meaning light / brilliance) has arrived a few days too early to get in on the new Artist Tattoos and a few thousand miles away from Canada where I could have gotten my engraving for free for a limited time (until Sept. 15).  But I still enjoyed every moment of opening the box, naming, upgrading and transferring files to me new Zune.

Below I have shared some great photos of the 80G Red Zune, the artist tattoo I chose and the artwork poster that came with the Zune.  I liked the cards and artwork just enough to put it all in a frame and put up on the wall for others to enjoy (I'll turn around the artist card so they can actually read it).  The package is very nice and can be re-gifted if that's your thing.

I did notice that I have never ONCE received an offer for a Zune Pass trial (I'm angry) and it would have been smart marketing to make this a standard.  Netflix does it and look at them!

 

More photos after the break...

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Microsoft is offering an extended warranty service on Zune devices to the US and Canada for $59.95.  And since my last check the USD-CAN dollar ratio is about the same so not much calculating needs to be done to figure out the difference.

The extended warranty plan can be signed up for under the services section of the Zune.net site here.  I checked my devices to see when they will be expiring and November is right around the corner.

Six exceptional reasons to invest in a Microsoft service contract

1. You'll stop costly repair headaches before they start, for a total of two entire years.
2. You'll have access to our Microsoft Customer Care Center seven days a week.
3. You'll enjoy fast, convenient service from the only company qualified to repair your product.
4. Our knowledgeable professionals can help you diagnose and correct some problems right over the phone.
5. There's no limit to the number of times you can obtain service during the terms of your coverage.
6. You'll have the option to renew your protection for as long as you own your product. (They should do this for Vista products!)

Source: Zune Extended Service Contract

So if your getting to the end of that initial one-year warranty you may want to consider it but as for me I never get extended warranties (except on my Playstation3) or own a single Zune long enough to need it.

I just went onto Zune Originals to start ordering another Zune for my best friends birthday that's coming next month and was surprised that my recently entered URL to the Zune flash site and got an ASPX web server error.  The site has undergone another change:

Zune Originals has a new look and new artwork, go take a look.
They have changed the order of the menu so Artist tattoos are first, great marketing strategy.  I wish the new designs waited a few more days so I would have had the additional options to choose from.  Although there is still no sign of the black-backed Zunes.

In just a few hours Zune.net opens the portal to Canada, a much anticipated change.  Maybe this change to Zune Originals is an effort to offer more options for Canada's unveiling.  We will still have to wait until 2009 for the Zune 3 to be released.

And by the way, my Red Zune 80G is here and being held at FedEx.  They actually called me at 9:30pm to verify that they have the package at another facility to be transferred to my local office for pick up.

I recently lost my Zune Brownie that I have come to love as a member of my family.  I took me a couple of weeks to deal with the loss of my beloved Zune but I am back on track.  I ordered a Red Zune 80G (I prefer to say eighty gee, a mere gig sounds demeaning) with custom artwork by Nobumasa Takahashi who is a Japanese artist known for his graffiti.

The total cost after the custom artwork (add + $15.00) and the tax was $280.89, an early birthday present for myself this month (June 20).

Although I have no idea how long it takes FedEx to ship from Zhuhai, China to Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  I've never been there but I feel as if I had been in the streets thanks to Goolge Maps and the Demilitarized Zones of China.

Check out all of the artists showcased on Zune Originals in the Artist Series:

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Most folks like the comfort zone where complacency meets safety. There are no worries and you have more certainty but at what cost. Exposure! What am I talking about? Changing your music choices to something you may not normally listen to even if you love the classics in your music genres, there is an artist you haven't heard.

I have spent much of my free time between full-time work school to continue exploring the Zune Social to check out all of the music my friends and my friends’ friends are listening to. I have found quite a bit of good music and most of the people that I have met through the Social have sent me messages with recommendations.  Thanks everyone!

Here are a few ideas for finding new music artists:

1. Explore the Social. You may be amazed at the stuff people are listening to, no really amazed. It can be nothing like your personal taste, you listen to it long enough to like it or you stumble across a rare find. Adding people to your social is easy and with the constantly growing features of the Social online or in the Zune software.
2. Find new artists or independents. Sitting in a café on Miami Beach over the weekend listening to a live singer perform or just visiting the Starbucks Music store on Lincoln Road. You can help but hear music all around you. Most restaurants and clothing stores have something playing or their own CDs, stop in and ask what song is playing. There are also the online Indie Feeds such as Indie-Music.com, BeatPick.com, AllMusic.com, AudioFeeds.org and even looking at the Billboard.com Charts songs for what is playing on the radio. You’ll be surprised at how often music changes.
   Also try muxfind.com or muxtape.com (thank Jonathan Flowers for the last two.)
3.  Strange Online Services. Pandora (Radio from the Music Genome Project©) is a great example of a service designed to better understand your music listening habits. Of course you should try to stay within some guidelines for your new music selection but don’t go from one extreme to the other like the difference between Acapella and Zydeco. Exploring what others have contributed brings me to the next idea.
4. Browsing the web. Where do you start and what do you do? Start with browsing your Zune Marketplace, Amazon Music, various radio stations online (recently played list) and any other idea you can think of. Remember the Internet is limitless, although I think I did reach the end of it once or twice.

I leave you with a quote to keep in mind with your music search and everyday life.  Happy hunting and enjoy music more.

“If you do what you have always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.� - unknown

On February 20th Chris showed some excitement when he shared with us the news about XNA and the possibility of playing games on our Zune players.  So today I want to share with you a the presentation from the GDC available in HD thanks to GameTrailers. Watch the demonstration and see for yourself how well the Zune performs as a simplified gaming device.

[Excerpt from XBox360 Fanboy]

During yesterday's GDC keynote, Microsoft announced that later this year, XNA development would be opening up to the Zune allowing XNA developers to create XBLA style games for Zune devices. The games can then be shared from the Zune itself to any Windows PC and also to a 360. So, Mr. Allard ends up being correct about Zune - 360 connectivity, but totally dropped the ball on Zune gaming. Why fight it Allard, why fight? Also, those cool cats over at Ars Technica are reporting that the Zune will allow for multiplayer gaming via the device's built-in wireless capability. Zune XNA development should be rolling out sometime by the end of the year alongside the new XNA / Xbox Live community features.

Watch: Game Trailers HD Video Link

From: Zune Thoughts:

Adam Krebs on Zune Thought recently posted his thoughts on a tagging work-around to help those with tagging woes.  Very effective especially if your wondering why your music doesn't have album art or show up in your "recently listened to" music in the Social.

His excerpt which references Shawn Oster's Blog is just another reminder that we are waiting for a Zune Software update that would put us back in control of our music libraries.  At the present time the software doesn't have the capabilities that we need to properly manage our music. "Make it your own" Without being able to provide any positive feedback for a solution, I revert to talking about temporary alternatives.

Shawn Oster points out how easy it is to hook the backend of the Zune marketplace into MP3Tag to get properly tagged and recognized files. He also points out that this could be helpful in getting Social to recognize the songs you play (though I'm not convinced of his argument that Social takes the album metadata from your computer--I'm pretty sure that comes from their servers).

He brings up another cool tidbit: "zune.net just made their 800x800 album art available via the back-end service I'm using so now you can grab full 800x800 album art even on tracks you didn't purchase directly from the Marketplace. Just download Marketplace.zip and extract the single Marketplace.src into your %appdata%Mp3tagdatasources folder and you'll be rocking! I'd also suggest you download the very latest beta of Mp3tag because the tag sources (what Marketplace plugs into) dialog is much easier to figure out for first timers, plus I always include the artist in the track listing and version 2.39n supports splitting this into the correct tags."

Source: Zune Thoughts