Following up with out Zune review round up, we have a round up of most of the 3rd party Zune accessories to launch with the Zune come November the 14th. Manufacture: VAF Product: Octavio 1 Price: $499 Specs: The Octavio has to be one of the biggest speaker docs to come out for the Zune so far. This [...]

Want to go party down and watch some live bands such as Queens of the Stone Age, Red Hot Chili Peppers, T.I. Lupe Fiasco, The Secret Machines and Morgan Heritage Band & Richie Spice. Well there are 6 (so far) Zune Launch parties going on in 6 different cities, NY, LA, Seattle, Miami, Chicago and Atlanta. [...]

Just like Gizmodo went to the Zune LA party, so did Engadget, where they also took some pictures, this time of the Zune working with the Xbox 360. Once a Zune is plugged into the 360 it becomes identified on the 360 dashboard. You are then able to brows all your Zune content. Allowing you to go deeper [...]

To mark the launch of its Zune media player, Microsoft is paying for New York rockers Secret Machines to play a free concert Monday at the Westlake park at Fourth Avenue and Pine Street.
Similar "flash" concerts are happening in New York, L.A., Chicago, Atlanta and Miami on Monday, featuring an assortment of funky bands. Funny, they forgot the Bay Area.
I wonder if any members of Microsoft's Vista team will still be partying downtown when Monday's show begins.
The Secret Machines sound fun, but L.A. and New York are getting the A-listers: Red Hot Chili Peppers and Queens of the Stone Age.

Much has been made of the latest review by Mossberg. What I think is interesting is the apparently negative reaction throughout some of the blogs. When Walt concludes his article this way, "Overall, the iPod and iTunes are still the champs. Still, I expect the Zune to attract some converts and to get better with time. And this kind of competition from a big company with deep pockets and lots of talent is good for consumers in the long run." I don't see it as a negative. In fact, that's pretty good praise from Walt. So, I thought I'd look at the biggest concerns these guys have and see if there is merit to them.

Size - the first gripe is that it is "chunky." There is no denying that it is larger than the iPod. True enough. But, the stats don't really do it justice until you hold it in your hand. We could debate that the larger screen means a bigger physical size (it does) and the double-shot process adds a bit of bulk (also true), the real test is does it feel good i...

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Portable Audio
You didn't think that Creative was going to let the iPod and the Zune (or heck, the PSP) have all the slick speaker-docks, did you? Nah, those crafy folks in Singapore wouldn't stand for it, no sir. Sure, we've seen the TravelDock, but nothing yet for this wanna-be nano killer. Creative has just announced the TravelSound ZEN V, a shiny black dock for the ZEN V and ZEN V Plus. The dock comes with a little matching remote control as well, and has a rod antenna for the FM tuner. It's powered via an AC adapter or with batteries, and should hit the streets of Japan (and possibly other Asian countries) for ¥12,800 ($108) at the end of November. 
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If you have iTunes and you download a song then oops you lost it, what happens? Well you have to fork the money over again to re download the song. Ok now that scenario in Zune MarketPlace, you will be able re-download purchased songs up to five times and possibly more if you call up [...]

Here's a closer look at the premium Zune headphones and the magnetic remote that you can throw all up on your refrigerator door, yo. The remote has the same double glow (or whatever the kids are calling it these days) that the Zune itself has. The headphones have to be way better than the shit headphones we listened to tonight at the LA event. The headphones have windy carry case. Merchandising is the heart of the American Corporation.
More photos after the jump.

Jason Chen, Charlie White, and I Just got back from the LA Zune event's daytime activities, and found this amazing Octavio Boombox that we'd covered a little while ago. The $500 dollar dock is impressive as hell in person, made of the blackest leather they could harvest from biker jackets and baby cows. There's a controller on top with a slot for a zune. And the back panel has two sets of stereo analog inputs, and an audio/video output for watching zune videos on a TV. Look at the power requirements on the last photo after the jump: 24 volts at almost 4 amps. That's good juice for the 100-watt setup!
They speakers themselves consist of what looks to be around a 6 or 8-inch sub, plus 3 or 4 inch midranges, and tweeters. Sorry, no measuring tape up in the club when I shot it. There's not much info out there on the system, but I would go out on a limb and say this is going to be the Zune dock to have...if you buy a Zune.
Click through for more shots of this hot, hot, hot Z...

Filed under: Features, Portable Audio, Portable Video
So we just hit up the Zune preview event in Los Angeles (as if we really needed to get more dirt on the thing at this point). We basically saw a ton of Zunes, got a full walkthrough of the software (with a load of pics), got good long look at some of those accessories, and finally snagged some shots of the Zune / Xbox 360 integration. We're not exactly expecting this to be a hugely enlightening experience or anything, but it was finally nice to see some of this stuff.

Outside the event. Nice florescent bulb gradient.


More store.

Stacks of album art organized.

Guest mode allows you to connect to another machine with Zune software and share tunes. This mode isn't as strict as the 3x3 inbox, but it's got its own particulars (like no moving music off the device, for one).

File types associated.

Encoding rate: up to 192kbps.

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