WANTED: Zunepad Feedback <stickied>

I guess its easier for notebook users to pick up the zune and touch without a glich..  I have found that my wfies zune Red 8 touch pad feels rougher and more responsive then my Black 8.  The Black feels alot smoother like my notebook touchpad.  Whoelse has touched the colors compaired to the blacks?  These are both about a week old, so Wear on the pads are both min.

The numbers on the bottom of the box - The lot number matches even tho they were bought at two different stores, I believe they were made in the same time frame within that lot number with the same touch pad.

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Tips and Help http://forums.zune.net/114450/ShowPost.aspx Sync http://forums.zune.net/116330/ShowPost.aspx AIM Buzz2go

My Feedback can be viewed here: http://forums.zune.net/80267/ShowPost.aspx

Here it is quoted...

"ACE844 on December 27, 2007"

Hello Everyone,

 

   This is going to be my first post on this forum. So I would first like to take a second and say Hello, and happy holiday's. I have had a Creative Zen Jukebox 10Gig MP3 player for the last 7 years and a few months ago it finally 'died'. I thought it was acceptable, I mean after all was said and done I got 7 years of heavy use and abuse out of it,and I never even remotely had any issues. Now this year, I got a 80 gig Zune for Xmas and I installed the software from the site, followed the directions and 'synched it'. Even though this is my first post here on this forum, I did take the time to peruse the stickies, do a search, and try the previously posted 'fixes'(? they didn't work), listed on this forum. Additionally I have some experience converting, AV files for use on mobile devices and I have infinately customized my cell phone this way, etc..I was wondering if anyone here could help?

 

   Here is my set up. I have an HP laptop duo-core 2ghz processor with 2 gigs of ram, running the 32 bit version of vista ultimate Even thought the system is capable of running the 64 bit version HP in all it's wisdom put the 32 on it at the factory), I have a dvd-cd flex drive and a 1 TB external HDD where my music and vids are stored. I downloaded and installed the latest version of the software from the site (2.3) and installed it, supposedly with the latest updates and fixes. I synched my music, etc, to the device and have run into the problems mentioned in some of the stickies and I will list them below.

Issues:

1.) The FM tuner recieves a grand total of 4 stations ( essentially useless), and it has no way to 'manually' tune to the desired station. It merely performs a 'seek' function and tunes to about a grand total of 4 radio stations in the entire FM spectrum. Sadly, they aren't even remotely close to the genre of stations I would want to listen to. Is there a way to 'manually' tune or 'dial into' the desired radio station frequency? Any ideas on how to fix this? Have any of the zune people given any thought to allowing 'presets' as well? Now interestingly enough;I have a hand held circa 1980's FM tuner with a broken antenna which gets more 'stations-reception' than this thing sitting side by side .

2.) I have a large number of audio books, and a 'Pimsleur' complete language program. In MP3 format. The problem is that after the sync, it miscellaneously and apparently randomly chose which files and which chapters it would load and place in the device. This is further complicated that it 'lists' some tracks under a completely different 'album-artist' despite the 'meta-data' being accurately and correctly entered. I went back through the entire contents of these files and double checked that they were correct. I then played the files in WMP and checked the properties and 'meta-data' that way as well. It was correct. Also curiously, it just decided not to add one of the 'audio books' at all which was contained in the same 'folder' as the others.I tried to re-sync and nothing changed, how do I fix this? I'm not sure if this will help troubleshoot the problem but when I synced and set up the 'watch folders' in the 'settings' menu, I clicked the overall 'macro' folder which contained 'everything' i.e.: as in the one which contains all of the different 'sub folders'. FWIW, I went back and deleted all of the data from my device after trying the advice in the stickies and tried to 'add' the individual folders to the 'watch-synch list' and the same issues recurred. Any ideas? I had the same issue with music files as well.

3.) As mentioned above and in some of the 'stickies' the album art, and info is wrong and mislabeled, and in some cases the device changed some of the info to that which is 'not correct' even when it 'started' with the correct data. Despite fixing it in both 'my collection', the device' it reverts back to where it was before. WTF? Additionally, some of the music and meta-tags are correct and the 'player' will display the following "<Unknown> then after that the correct Artist name, Album, and Song title...," despite my attempts as previously noted to 'edit this' it reverts back to the aforementioned 'title', AGAIN WTF? Is this fixable? Yes, I did unhide the sys folders, delete and rename the 'store and batabase files' as mentioned in the sticky and fixes. I also downloaded the 'fix tool' form MS Update. No dice it didn't work, please help!

4.) Video's. I went and converted my music videos to the proper format, screen size, etc.. and I when I synced it randomly decided what 'metadata' it would read and lable correctly. I also did the confirm that the correct 'meta-data' was part of the file and checked them with both Quicktime, and WMP as mentioned above in #2. Additionally I had another problem, after the device synched the first time, and when I tried to r-esync again due to adding new content, it duplicated videos which were already in the device, any idea how to stop this? Also for the 'video' side of things, I was wondering if anyone could tell me what the native resolution, A-V bit-rate, and FPS capabilities of the device are?  

5.) Podcats, I have tried adding podcasts which aren't offered in your sparse 'marketplace' in the sync program to the 'add podcast' link you provide, using the correct link, and I get a message 'podcast file is to large' can't add. This occurs even after I have added very large video files to the device and I have lots of space to spare. I double checked that I am using the correct links, and it still won't let me add it. I get an error message as well which is a CD0005Y*(*)whatever. Now interestingly enough, I can download the stupid podcast in question and add it manually as part of my 'music' or other files and it works. The trouble is that it is a PAIN IN THE PROVERBIAL A$$, and defeates the 'subscription/automatic add' feature your trying to add and reduces it's convience factor to NONE! Additionally the podcatst listed in your market place, some are outdated, haven't been updated in sometime, and don't appear to be updated as they should be. An example might be NBC nightly news, the last one posted was 12/21/2007...6 Days ago! For those of us who are busy and might use this to keep up with things going on in the world; but we lead busy lives, news 6 days old is useless! It makes me wonder 'why bother?' Do you have any fixes, responses or ideas how to fix this? 

  6.) Also I noticed that the 'Zune' software uses a HUGE amount of system and RAM resources. There consistently have been instances where it took up 100% of the available RAM for sustained periods of time. Anyone know how to tone this down and or fix it?  

In closing, I would appreciate it if someone-anyone could please help me solve these issues. Frankly, after this short term, especially poor user experience. I am strongly considering returning the player for another brand. I am very surprised that my circa 1999-2000 'dinosaur' 1st gen MP3 player didn't even remotely have these problems, and it had in player search, edit, etc.. capabilities. No it didn't do video, but I'm starting to wonder why a multi-billion dollar worldwide corporation is having these issues like this in it's latest gen product; when a much smaller companies device made 8 years ago didn't even have it. The person gave me the zune and it was 'touted' to be 'the best' I'm finding it's starting to fall far short of that mark in day to day useage thus far and I'm going to try to solve these issues quickly. If they can't be solved, it's getting returned for an obviously better, quality product produced by a competitor, and I will take the time to post this elsewhere so others are aware of the issues before they buy!

Thanks for your time and consideration in this matter,

ACE844

I'll answer your other questions here.

Some things I’d like to hear about:

·         What was your initial experience with the Zunepad?

One of the things I thought would initially be very positive was the fact that I had to 'directly download' the latest software from your website as oppossed to dealing with an out of date CD or DVD and then update it. The problem with this may come if a user has 'low speed' internet. I don't so no issue.. The software issues are mentioned above in my quote from my first post.

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

Trial and error. it is quite sensitive, and I liked that. The issue came in when I put it into my jacket pocket and I tried to use it. I quickly learned what happens when I make the error of not remembering to turning off the touch pad in this instance. 

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

The navigation is not necessarily intuitive, and there is no internal 'search' function. This makes it a Pain In The A$$ to try to find songs, compund this with the native softaware issues and it's problematic to the point of my considering getting rid of it...

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

A minute or so.

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

See my above responses.

 

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

·         Do you experience any incorrect clicks or dropped clicks?

  I have experienced this. Another thing which I dislike is the menu 'lay out'. Navigating to find a song or album is ungainly, combersome and annoying especially in the absence of a 'search' feature. This is also made more difficult by mis-labeled songs, poor meta data reading-syncing' (as noted above).

·         Does the touch navigation respond well?

Yes

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

Yes, but I think this is more an issue of getting used to using it as opposed to a problem.

·         Does the Zunepad behave consistently?

yes

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

I try to use one while doing other activities, but this is more difficult because of the ungainly and poorly constructed 'layout-menu functionality'. because of the aformentioned issues I am forced to use 2 hands.

·   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.)

I use my thumb or 'pointer' finger.

·         Etc…

Here is the "etc.."

I have also found that the when I press the 'repeat' feature in a song, album, or artist' menu it doesn't work. meaning it doesnt reapeat the album, song, etc... I have no idea why!?!

The glass face is nice, but smudges and these obsure and distort the display easily. The oval touch pad although sentitive when the 'touch' feature is off, it is quite sensitive to 'directional' input and often when I press up on the pad it goes L or R instead. It's annoying.. I guess that's enough for now, but really it's alot for just under 36 hrs of usage...!

Hope this helps,

ACE844

Hi all,

My first experience with the Squircle(!) was good.  I liked the button push and slide options.  I learned how to use it by playing with it.  Basic use is about as simple as i could have imagined.  It took all of about five seconds to learn the use of the pad.  Navigating the simple menu only took a few minutes more.  I was intially comfortable with the navigation, although I agre that left to right or vice versa is difficult.  Kind of like teaching a lefty, which I am, to write Chinese.  Chinese is written top to bottom and left to right.  Iti s difficult for lefties to naturally swipe from the left to right in a straight line I've come to find. (19 trips to China and I still write like crap)  I would assume the same is true in the reverse for righties, so I don't think it's a defect in the squircle, but a natural hand motion that is difficult.  Call it an ergonomics thing.  I tend to swipe left to upper right or the reverse, so maybe that's why it doesn't always read.  Could need more than a week to do get used to it. 

Once i got the Zune 80 in a case (Belkin kickstand) I changed my grip a little, and don't have any problems.

I echo the comments on a tap click or maybe two for OK.  Also want to know why do AI have to hard click once I reach the end of a menu to circle back to the top or bottom instead of a continuous slide wrap around?  Must be a software rule, but would love to not have to click to scroll down and have it rollover back to the top.  I guess that's my current feature request. 

Otherwise, I use my right thumb, pad part of it, and both my left and right index fingers depending on how i hold it. 

Hope that's some worthwhile feedback, although it probably isn't. 

-Sean

i don't really have any complaints with the zune pad. it works great and is a nice sensitivity.

that said, i barely use it. i prefer to just click it.

my only complaint is.... when i am wearing my leather gloves, even as tight as they are, the pad is very non-responsive to my pressing it.

i work in san francisco and on those really cold days, like lately, it's been hard to use my zune even with very tactile gloves. i have to take off my glove to use it usually. i leave it in my coat pocket and i am clearly pressing on the right part of the pad to move to the next song, but it just doesnt respond. i can even hear it clicking. it's so weird.

maybe i'm missing something.

on a side note, i love the zune. i ride BART every day and people are always asking me about it cuz no one has one cuz they're all ipod trendwhores.

i would have to say its not bad

just opened up my 80 gig zone today.it took awhile to get a hand of it but i like the way its works.
wonce u master useing it then u'll be fine with it

Zunepad is great... no problems at all.

 

I actually find it more intuitive the the iPants scrolly click-wheel, especially when you have a large number of artists/albums in the list (I've filled up my new Zune 80!)

you know what i think would be cool, if when you had the touch pad on, it disabled the directional buttons and the entire thing acted like a button when you pushed it in. cause it is a little hard to get that enter button once and a while.

My feedback is very similar to others and I don't want to be lost in the noise. So instead Daklu, I'm going to say what I think would be most beneficial in the next firmware update pertaining to the Zunepad. It echoes comments left in this thread:

• A Double-tap to select items (acting as an 'enter') would be excellent. Some people don't like the loud click of the center press and one tap would lead to lots of incorrect actions!
• A sensitivity gauge between low, medium and high would be appreciated. Having the freedom to customize the sensitivity to our liking would be worthwhile so instead of ppl complaining how sensitive it is... they can alter it themselves. Using numbers (1-10) for sensitivity would be rather tedious. A 3-level system seems more appropriate
• If the zunepad worked as a regular mousepad when viewing pictures.... that'd be soooo cooool (if possible)
• I believe the fast-forwarding of videos should be switched between pushing right and sliding right. Currently pushing right fast-forwards 25 or so seconds while sliding skips like 25 minutes. It would be more natural if sliding right did the fastforwarding while pressing right did the skipping

Other than these 4-main requested features mentioned in this thread, I think the zunepad is a very intuitive feature. I enjoy it very much and like another poster I love just watching the thing scroll through a long list. You can keep sliding your finger down a list and it kicks up in acceleration as you do so as if kicking off to ride a skateboard faster and faster. Great addition to the zune!

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Jf Vigor

I am new to Zune. I had seen some ads in my local stores and the Zune would be my second media player/ mp3 player. my first, was the creative labs nomad zen xtra (30g) I literally wore it out - lasted about 2 years - no color and no video so the zune really got me excited. I havn't noticed any issues since the update, except the battery on my 80g is lasting a bit longer (still don't know if using the wall charger v. the usb port makes a difference) --

 I would like to see a clock, some games and gapless playback. how often do the firmware updates come out?
Also I am having sync issues -- my zune keeps syncing the same 200 or so songs over and over -- checked the tags and I still don' kno whats up -- and can we please have some divx/xvid/avi support !?

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><>

I like the Zune pad.  Like others have said though I would like the ability to change the sensitivity.  For instance, it's hard for me to stop on certain pictures because it continues to scroll.  Other than that, I have no other complaints about the pad.

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Product:     Zune Originals HD 32GB Platinum
Gamertag:  Nisshoku1981 

Xbox  さん ろく まる

My Zune Pad won't work.  I just got back from a friend's house, and found that my Zune Pad doesn't work.  I tried brushing and clicking, but it doesn't work.  I have a Zune 80, if that helps any.  And I just got it for Christmas, too =(.   Has anyone else had this problem?

Hello, I have an 80gb and my Zune is great. I do have some complaints with the D-PAD though.

First off when you try to make your selection it does not respond. I click down on the dpad and it will move over to the left or right.

When scrolling either left or right, the DPAD is great. I hold the zune using my right hand and use my thumb to scroll up down and make selections.

As I said before its great but, the "enter" is very annoying because it is not responsive.

Thanks.