Definitely getting brown!

i'm telling you, the design is amazing, but you need color coordinated click pads. white/silver with the white black/silver with the black brown/silver with the brown. as you can see the obvious choice is to go with silver ( like the prototype zune from the fcc filing ) or go color coordinated, which would probably look cool too, but silver is still a better choice. please consider this... or else my only choice is black. ( only one that still looks good even with the black click pad.

I think the colors should be modular. I'd like to see custom colored body, trim and button kits that users can swap around to personalize. The black with blue will be the best selling unit. The white is to iPod. I'm buying a brown one cause it's not black or white.

If these blog entries are true, and existing plays-for-sure customers can't bring along the songs they've already purchased, the color of the device will be the least of people's concerns. http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/cmusings/2006/09/15#a2498

I'll tell you what, if Microsoft release the Zune in the UK in time for my birthday (January), I'll be a happy bugger. A Wii, Xbox 360 and Zune will make my collection complete. I like the black colour, but don't mind the brown.

I like the brown colour. It is different. I really like the design. Got my stickrs today they are great!

where are my faceplates? :P and I want my MCE playback bitte :)

I really like the brown. It's an offering not usually seen in portable media players, and it has a sort of 'vintage' look. I think most people will go for the brown, because of it's unique stylings. Having said that, I'd personally go for the white if and when I plan to purchase my Zune.

"Microsoft's Zune will not play protected Windows Media Audio and Video purchased or "rented" from Napster 2.0, Rhapsody, Yahoo! Unlimited, Movielink, Cinemanow, or any other online media service. That's right -- the media that Microsoft promised would Play For Sure doesn't even play on Microsoft's own device. Buried in footnote 4 of its press release, Microsoft clearly states that "Zune software can import audio files in unprotected WMA, MP3, AAC; photos in JPEG; and videos in WMV, MPEG-4, H.264" -- protected WMA and WMV (not to mention iTunes DRMed AAC) are conspicuously absent." What the hell are they thinking?

3 times in 3 days! Thank you for applying DRM to my indy label's music... Luckily Microsoft DRM is so terribly programmed that a programming 101 student could write a work-around. How is this feature justified?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Microsoft ZUNE isn't approved by "Play For Sure" which is run by Microsoft! The Zune punishes us legitimate customers by not letting us play songs we've already purchased! I can't wait to see this one die! LoL

so am I the only one that hates the black clickpad? nobody else has mentioned anything about how hideous it looks with the white ( and even the brown ) zune. It would look so much better with silver.

Brown? I'm not getting it. I'd be 50+ or a fake wood plating lover, OK. But... Brown?

Deciding to part with tradition, I'd like to stick with the topic. I love the color brown because it pisses off so many traditionalists who think white is the ultimate color and black is really daring. I also like the click pad because it reminds me of a speaker and suggests SOUND. Of course, I also like it because it upsets those hidebound poseurs of the the ever-safe & sterile "edge."

As for the fake click-wheel, I'd much prefer buttons being just that: buttons. Nintendo had it right something with their Game and Watch over 20 years ago: a directional 4-button directional pad that looked like 4 directions. Crafting a likeness of a click-wheel is misdirected and misguiding, the form is none of the function. Design is 90% function, 10% form. Zune design is 30% dubious form, 70% questionable function: flash over substance. I do like the large screen, though. I'll stick to an iPod shuffle: my own personal radio without ads, brainless commentary nor bulk. Comes cheap as well. FM is so dead, brown is so feces...

Crescentdave: "I love the color brown because it pisses off so many traditionalists who think white is the ultimate color and black is really daring." OK, topic then. If you wanna p-off the "traditionalists", what about a nice cuppa Uranic Yellow? That would crap'em out, right? In my own sense, I like a colour that pleases me, not a shade that bothers others. Beige or grey would be more fitting, don't you think? I'd prefer the classic silver, chrome or orange, for that matter.

The brown is the most unique color for a device right now. It's warmer than the black or white. And it goes well in any season! Color me brown this winter. P.S. Nigel has a great point: make the click pads more color coordinated.

P.S. I looked at the packaging on the Flickr set. EXTREMELY NICE PACKAGING!!!

To answer your question flyermoney: nope. I like it that MS isn't being such a wuss about design. The circle doesn't bother me either ... it's what Jung called an archetype ... probably thought of just a "wee" bit earlier than the iPodians. Uranic Yellow? I'll chose # 4 from this chart: http://www.geocities.com/jessieshanks/hydscale.jpg And orange, of course, would be a welcome addition. Beige and grey remind me of conformity and death ... so they're not on any of my top 10 lists.

ok Cesar you have to promise me one of two things. either show that bird as a tv commercial, or make that a preloaded video on the zune. too many people will never experience that silly yet hilariously funny/rockin video if you don't. and that would be a crime.... =P p.s. Toosday, thank you for agreeing with me, the black clickpad has to go.

That is the video for Over and Over by Hot Chip. Definately one of the best vids i've seen. Youtube it!

i seriously dont think zune will ever be able to take over the well established leader in the music player business. Ipod is the king and it will remain there.

"i seriously dont think zune will ever be able to take over the well established leader in the music player business. Ipod is the king and it will remain there." ^^Just like atari was once king, nintendo was once king, playstation was once king. ( looks like microsoft is taking over this generation.) Walkman was once king, Ford was once king, polaroid was once king... I can keep going on but I think you get the analogy now. I am not saying they can do it, but just because they are on top doesn't mean they will stay that way forever. ( English empire was once king of the world )<-- last one I swear. =P

Brown is very.... creative 0_o I think I will be getting black.... get myself a nice zune for christmas! Teh double shot look nice, but my only concern is that is is hard to see those buttons on the black zune. You need to add a different colored control, weheel, button, thing.

I like the black with the blue double shot, I dont mind the brown but I don't think I am gonna get that one

yeah, I don't know if it is the fact that I know I can't change it, or maybe I have just seen it too many times, but the black isn't looking like an eyesore now. Still think a silver clickpad would have been better, but black is slowly growing on me. ( cause of the speaker look )

At what point will somebody on this site actually acknowledge the fact that this product looks like iPod Gen 3's big brother with some kind of genetic defect? Cesar, your company needs to stop trying to pretend that the design language of this product is unique. The brown is probably the ballsiest thing this product has done.

I adore the brown with green trim; however, I hated it when I first saw it. I guess it’s one of those things that just has to grow on a person but if that’s true it has grown on me and now I must have one. Hahaha.

@ it: can you elaborate on how the zune looks like a 3g ipod. It doesn't have a scroll wheel, has a different shape/screen size, is taller than a ipod, thinner than an ipod, and isn't even the same shade of white or black as an ipod. The only thing the ipod and zune have in common is they both have non-replacable batteries, a screen, and a button.

How come the press kit on Flicker shows a Zune screen approximatively 1k pixels vertically, with perfect rendering? Is it the intention of MS to just grudge people of the real looks of its screen? Thanks for a true answer from the inside. Cheers.

it- you need glasses. Or a spotter. Or another employer. Here's the 3rd generation ipod: http://tinyurl.com/hm67j Here's the Zune (I even picked white to help you out): http://tinyurl.com/s6bwq There might be a defect, but I doubt that it's genetic and I really doubt it's referencing the zune.

crescentdave, I have plenty of references for the iPod and I have looked at this more times than I care to admit. For all of the "arm-chair design critics" on this site, the term is design language. Yes, its a snobbish term used by designers to discuss what a product is going to look like. The "design language" of the Zune is speaking iPod. The proportions, material finishes, round buttons, large round nav button dead center under the screen. They speak the iPod's design language. Its design could very easily been discarded in the dozens/hundreds of iterations done by the Apple team when coming up with the proportions of the iPod. Even the nav button's visual reference to being a "speaker" is right out of the iPod book. The difference is that iPod's version is a subtle design cue, while the Zune's is very literal. What I see, is a marketing run design process. One that is focussed on cramming more features into the product with a mantra of being the "iPod Killer". One that sees a large screen and a black nav button as making the design "not look, smell, or taste" like an iPod. They are wrong. The Zune Marketing team has made a huge mistake with this. And what irritates me most about it, is because I wanted to see them knock this one out of the park. But they are already screwing it up and it hasn't even been released.

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Not sure about silver click pad but it would be cool if you could completely personalize it with skins and different click pad colors.

Brown with green double shot

or

Black with blue double shot...

hm