Why non-US/CA Geeks should get a Zune…

I had a Zune (30Gb) for almost 2 years and it was a version 1.0 hardware and brown. Pretty chunky by today’s standard (a whopping 120Gb!).

But what is impressive :

1. Hardware – It was robust (it survived my daily 2 hours commute and APAC travels), including the earphones which I can stick together via tiny magnets (a great thing when you want to listen to the Zune while making a phone call on the other ear). The music, video, radio and picture quality easily beat the Apple iPod IMHO.
2. Firmware – My Zune may be old but the brain is the latest possible. Version 3.0 (225) Version 3.1 (50)!!! with Bootloader 435 Grab it here ! Read more about the update here. More Games !
3. Software – It took me 10 minutes to get used to the UI but what I like about it… is the marketplace.

See Wikipedia for Software/Firmware changes.

Here’s the review by CNet back in 14 Nov 2006 !

So what’s so good about it for non-US Geeks like me since it is only available for USA/Canada?

Psst. You can dump your own MP3, AAC, WMA, WMVs, MPEG4, H.264, ASF, JPEG, etc… into the Zune. You just cannot buy stuff from the marketplace outside of USA/Canada.

Ok, if you cannot buy stuff, what’s so good about it for non-US/CA geeks ?

Well that’s #4. Podcasts. I love the podcast feature which I can add free Audio and Video podcasts, including your very own RSS feeds which is not in the Marketplace (like The Guardian, Mr. Brown, Scientific American…) yet!.

Now I can listen or view the very latest on CNN, Discovery, HBO, Boing Boing, Anderson Cooper, Cringely and more while commuting or waiting for others !

With the Zune Firmware and Software updates, it just gets better and better!

What’s even nicer ? Price Cuts !

Yeah !