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Microsoft Takes Aim at Apple with Zune Price Cuts, Software Push

Mark Edward Soper — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:17:07 -0600

This holiday season, Microsoft is taking aim at arch-rival Apple's iPod - and its companion iTunes software. This week, Microsoft cut the retail prices on 4GB, 8GB, and 16GB Zunes as well as on the Car Pack, Home/AV Pack, and Dock Pack. With the 8GB Zune now selling for $139 (was $149) and the 16GB model now selling for $179 (was $199), Microsoft is undercutting the price of comparable Nanos by $10 (8GB) and by $20 (16GB). The 4GB Zune anchors the lineup at $99, down $30 from its old price.

The Car Pack now sells for $69 (was $79), but the Home/AV Pack, also formerly $79, is now just $59. The Dock Pack is also cheaper at $39 (was $49).

To help PC users get more interested in Zune hardware, Microsoft has borrowed a page from Apple's use of its iTunes software to drive customers to iPods. In a new video ad, Microsoft plays up the Zune's PC software companion, Zune 3.0.

Will Microsoft's one-two hardware-software combination be enough to make significant inroads into Apple's market dominance? Only Black Friday and the rest of the holiday shopping season will tell.

What do you want under your Christmas tree? An iPod, a Zune, or a third-party media player? Hit Comment and tell us what's on your wish list.

iRiver E100 Digital Media Player

Michael Brown — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 14:18:14 -0500

iRiver’s new E100 digital media player offers a several terrific features, including a MicroSD memory slot, FLAC and OGG support, and the ability to record audio (there’s a built-in mic and a line-level input). Unfortunately, all that goodness is undermined by the device’s many flaws.

Some would argue that FLAC files are too large to use with a 4GB flash player (there's an available 8GB model, too), but sometimes we’d rather carry fewer songs (and change them out more often) than subject our ears to music ripped using a lossy codec. iRiver includes a software utility for transferring files from your PC to the E100, but the software will only recognize the player if it has been formatted in MSC mode (in which case it behaves as an external drive when connected to the PC). Subscription music services such as Rhapsody, however, require the device to be formatted in MTP mode. Since that’s how the player is shipped in the U.S. market, the software is useless for file transfers (unless you reformat the player).

We did use the software to convert some WMV files (the player supports MPEG-4, WMV9, and XVID file formats) to the player’s maximum supported resolution of 320x240, but we weren’t impressed with the results: The video was grainy and exhibited poor contrast, and bright colors—especially yellow—appeared blotchy and badly pixelated. Off-axis viewing was even worse.

When we copied a FLAC file to the device using Vista’s Windows Explorer, the OS served up an error message stating that it would gladly transfer the file to the E100, but that the device wouldn’t be capable of playing it; as it turned out, FLAC files played just fine. We experienced a slightly different problem with tracks we ripped from CD and encoded in MP3 format: This time, the album art we embedded in the tracks showed up, but it was scrambled beyond recognition. When we synced the player to our Rhapsody library, on the other hand, the album art came over without a hitch. Go figure.

Reformatting the player to MSC mode got rid of the error message when transferring FLAC files, but it didn’t solve the problem of the missing album art. In this mode, however, you can’t use the E100 with Rhapsody, nor can you use Windows Media Player 11 (or MediaMonkey ) to sync the player to your PC’s music library.

The E100 has a pair of miniature speakers built into the back of the case, but they sound so tinny that we’d recommend listening to them only if you use the built-in mic to record brief voice memos (verbal shopping lists come to mind); they’re useless for music playback. Listening to the player with a good set of headphones delivers much better results, although nothing better than we’ve heard from any number of other digital media players lately.

You control the player and navigate its menus using a set of five buttons at the bottom of the player—four are the points of the compass points and the fifth is in the center. Drilling down into the nested menus requires lots of button mashing—and just as much to back out again. But there were many times in which the device responded sluggishly to a button click, and a few occasions in which the player didn’t respond at all. Not good.

With so many very strong digital media players on the market, there’s just not much of a reason to give the iRiver E100 a second thought.

Demise of Yahoo Music to Kill the Sansa Connect?

Michael Brown — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 14:34:25 -0600

SanDisk’s Sansa Connect has been one of our favorite digital media players, thanks to the built-in Wi-Fi feature that enabled you to download music from your Yahoo Music Unlimited subscription. But Yahoo’s announcement that it intends to shutter its subscription music service by the middle of this year will render the player’s Wi-Fi capabilities practically useless—a development that's almost certain to kill sales of the Connect.

If you’re a Yahoo Music subscriber, your subscription will be automatically transferred to RealNetworks’ Rhapsody service (unless you opt out, at which point Yahoo will refund the balance of your paid subscription). According to this FAQ on Yahoo’s site, Yahoo Music Unlimited subscribers will be transferred to a Rhapsody Unlimited account ($13.00 per month); Yahoo Music Unlimited To Go customers (the service Connect owners are most likely using) will be switched to Rhapsody To Go ($15.00 per month). A Rhapsody spokesperson tells me that Yahoo customers will receive special pricing for a limited time, but that those details have not yet been worked out.

The Sansa Connect is not currently listed as being compatible with Rhapsody, but we have confirmed with Eric Bone, SanDisk’s director of audio/video product marketing, that the device will be compatible by the time the switch takes place. The wireless functionality, on the other hand, will not function with Rhapsody. “The wireless connectivity for downloading music from the Yahoo service will be discontinued [when Yahoo shuts down its music subscription service]” said Bone. “Unfortunately, we’re not able to transfer the wireless downloading functionality to Rhapsody.”

In other words, the number-one feature that drove most people to buy a Sansa Connect in the first place is now permanently broken. In the words of the immortal Johnny Rotten, “Ever feel like you’ve been cheated?”