WANTED: Zunepad Feedback <stickied>

* What was your initial experience with the Zunepad?
    I was awesomely surprised and loved it from the minute I discovered it had this capability...

* How did you learn how to use the Zunepad?  (Experimentation, friend showed me, website, etc.)
   Just started scrolling to see my different albums/artists... and discovered it then...

* Did you face any difficulties while learning how to use it?

   At first I was scrolling vertically way too fast... and then learned how to scroll more slowly...  : )

* How long did it take you to discover the touch navigation features?

   Just a few minutes... it's pretty intuitive and easy to figure out...

* How long did it take you to become comfortable with touch navigation after you discovered it?

  Within say 5 minutes, I could see how cool it was as my previous Samsung 1GB did not have this feature...

I’m also interested in any detailed feedback you have, such as:
* Do you experience any incorrect clicks or dropped clicks?

Not really... sometimes I don't seem to click "hard" enough on the center button to choose the song I want and then have to re-click to get the right song...

* Does the touch navigation respond well?

   Yes... it's very responsive and easy to use...

* When using touch navigation, do you ever accidentally get a vertical movement when you meant to do a horizontal movement, or vice versa?   Nope... if you just brush lightly in the direction you want to travel... it responds very well...

* Does the Zunepad behave consistently?

  Mine does... I would like to see more levels of touch sensitivity like others here have suggested...

* Do you use your Zune with one hand or two?

  Just one hand... my right one w/the right thumb...

* Which part of your finger do you use on the Zunepad?  (Because of the way I hold it I tend to use the side of my thumb right next to my thumbnail.)
Tip of my right thumb while holding w/my right hand...

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Wolves A Courting... 

Living by Faith not by sight... +

Luther Vandross Forever!

I'm "Old School."  My son has an IPOD Nano 1st Generation because Zune did not have a comparable version at the time and I hate that scroll feature.  I could never quite get it right (Too Fast, Too Slow).  So when I purchased by 80GB Zune, I loved the fact that you could turn that feature off and actually click the pad to make selections.  Options are good and this is one that is greatly appreciated it.

 

Hi Dak,

My responses are inline. 

Some things I’d like to hear about:

·         What was your initial experience with the Zunepad?

The look and feel of the device is awesome.  However, my utilization of the Zunepad is so utterly terrible that I am actually planning on returning my device tomorrow at Best Buy in the hopes that my issues were a flook in the hardware manufacturing process.

My symptoms:

1. When I hit the Center button, the device thinks I am hitting Down.
2. When I hit the Center button, the device jumps up/down N menu items.
3. Roughly 1 out of 18 (yes, I counted) Center Button clicks successfully brings the UI to the sub-menu.

·         How did you learn how to use the Zunepad?  (Experimentation, friend showed me, website, etc.)

I have not yet figured out how to make my device work the way I expect it to even though I know the way it is supposed to work.

·         Did you face any difficulties while learning how to use it?

See above.

·         How long did it take you to discover the touch navigation features?

~30 seconds after picking up the device

·         How long did it take you to become comfortable with touch navigation after you discovered it?

See above.

 

I’m also interested in any detailed feedback you have, such as:

·         Do you experience any incorrect clicks or dropped clicks? 

Yes.

·         Does the touch navigation respond well?

As I type with one hand, I try to scroll up and down with my thumb in my other hand.  The device does not respond.

·         When using touch navigation, do you ever accidentally get a vertical movement when you meant to do a horizontal movement, or vice versa? 

s/horizontal movement/center button click/ -- All the time.

·         Does the Zunepad behave consistently?

Not at all.

·         Do you use your Zune with one hand or two?

One hand.

·         Which part of your finger do you use on the Zunepad?  (Because of the way I hold it I tend to use the side of my thumb right next to my thumbnail.)

·         Etc…

Please tell me there is a way to force a firmware update so that I don't have to return this in favor of an iPod.

I loved the zune pad the moment I used it. It really wasn't that hard to use considering that all you had to do was brush your fingertips on the surface. The main reason I like it is because it seems more fun to "zoom" through your music list rather than just click to it. I love to brush my fingertips really fast on the zune pad, then remove them, and watch the highlighter thing keep going through my list haha. It's rather amuzing

Other than that, only minor problems when clicking it might go to the song underneith, but nothing too big. I love it!

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"You can pay for school, but you can't buy class"
---Zuning since December 2007

My daughter loves the push/click pad as opposed to the iPod's soft touch pad.  She says she knows when she is pushing a button with this design.  She intended on using Christmas money to purchase an iPod but went with the Zune because of the sharing capability (and at my request as well for PC compatibility).  So far so good with the Zunepad!

 

PS: The easy to read, understand and plain out idiot proof start guide makes those who have troubles look like the idiots they are.

 

UPDATE:  We power off like it says (press and hold the play/pause button for 3 sec) but if we push down on the control pad it is up and running again.  Is it really off?

a way to delete songs from the device and/or remove them from playlists would be nice.
Also I would like to have the "add song to quick list" option show up while im playing music back in shuffle. instead of having to find the song some how through a seperate menu.

No. (Thanks to people on forums I learned this one). In order to really shut off the zune, press and hold the back button and the bottom of your zune pad simultaneously. Then it will only start back on when pressing the play/pause button. What I do after I completely shut off my zune, I lock it using the little button on the top left of my zune to make sure it doesn't turn back on by accident.

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"You can pay for school, but you can't buy class"
---Zuning since December 2007

I very much like the Zune pad, having just recently purchased a Zune 80. It is very easy to use and intuitive enough that I did not have to look anything up to learn how to use it, I simply started using it right out of the box. I have not experienced any misclicks as some have reported, it's all been smooth sailing.

The only thing I did not like is that the touch feature seems to respond better or worse depending on what direction I'm scrolling, when I scroll up and down a quick swipe of the finger is all it takes, going horizontally I normally have to make sure my swipe has a bit of pressure and goes across the whole pad, this could easily be fixed by creating a sensitivity calibration settings option.

Thanks for such a great product!
- Leif

the pad is perfect on my zune 8 the only things i could imagine being need is the double tap to accept feature and sensitivity adjustments.

Just got the 8 gb zune.

Overall the touchpad works as expected.

However, I was wondering if anyone else has the same issue as I do when clicking the pad to go left (backwards).
I notice that if for instance I wanted to scroll back in a song, I would have to hold down when clicking left longer and
use considerable more effort to press left rather than right.

Do other people notice this?  Or is this a manufacturing glitch in my zune?

When the Zune 80 is in the official MS case, left and down button presses often register as clicking in.  Also, swipes are very erratic for all directions and often don't register at all.  Outside of the case, this is still present but much less pronounced.

The zunepad was extemely easy to figure out and use. It's completely intuitive. It took about 2 seconds to learn how to use it with no instruction.

However, the device itself is not good in my opinion. This is mainly for two reasons. First, it is not infinite, such as the ipod's clickwheel. In other words, you have to continually strafe your thumb up over and over to scroll, rather than a simple continuous movement. Secondly, and probably more importantly, if you are scrolling up or down, and you reach your destination, and then move your finger to the middle of the pad in order to click on the actual item, it is very common for me to accidentally scroll in the opposite direction when trying to center my finger on the pad to click. In other words if I was scrolling up to get to an item, and then move my finger down in to the center of the pad to click, I will accidentally scroll down just on my way to the center from the top of the pad.