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Keep on reading for click-through-photos, or click here for an album
or look at this for a short version, or read on for the long version!
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Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, I present to you:
*cue the inspirational cheesy music* My Brownie! *clapclap*
So it finally arrived, and as you can see, the box is rather small. I don't know how big I expected it to be, but to me it just seemed smaller than it looked on all those press pictures.
That made me a little worried (did he even send a Zune? what if all I got were his old socks or something?).
But I unpacked it, and there it was, the box!!!
It looks a bit 'used', but hey, that was to be expected.
I opened the package, and oh my... there it was, in all it's brown beauty... The Zune.
I really liked the ribbon underneath it to pull it up, made me feel like I was unpacking an expensive piece of jewellery or something.
So I pulled out the Zune, put it on an old iPod-sock (don't ask) for protection, and continued my exploration of the box.
As you can see, the earbuds that came with my Zune are not the original ones.
'The guy' told me that his earphones 'kinda broke down', so instead he gave me his raggedy old PSP-earbuds. Thanks! Good think I already bought the Sennheiser HD 202 Headphones
On with the quest.
At the back of the box was a booklet, filled with:
the software cdrom, some mandatory warranty book-thingies, and an empty 'this is where your case should be' thing. Damnit, he forgot to send me the protective case! I've emailed 'the guy' about it, but so far, no luck yet.
So now that the box is empty (good packaging by the way, it really looks original and that makes it fun to explore), back to the Zune.
I gotta say, reading all about those people with brownies, I kinda expected it to not look so good as they all said. Boy was I wrong.
The brown combined with that green edge really gives it that little something, and everyone I showed it to went 'Wow...' (maybe Microsoft should've used the Vista marketing-campaign for the Zune?)
After finding out the Zune is as good as perfect, I went on with my new headphones. Remember how I told you I ordered them? Well, I got an email saying that they were out of stock, and that the phones needed to be ordered. Delay: 2 weeks. Okay, that's not acceptable!
I cancelled my order, went to this big multimedia-store, and bought the headphones there :p They were even cheaper there, too, so it's a win-win situation for me
First impression; boy, those are some huge headphones. I wonder how much energy this thing is gonna cost my Zune...
After putting them on, I noticed how comfortable they are. You can adjust the headphones to match your ears, so it's a guaranteed fit for everyone.
And then - the sound-check. I've got some Incubus-albums on my pc which are converted at a really high bitrate, perfect for testing.
So, how does it sound? Well, I have to admit, it takes some getting used to. Ofcourse I was used to using small crappy headphones, so this burst of music came as a suprise to me.
The high tones are done very well, but the high bass volume kinda screws the high tones up. Nonetheless, if you're on your bike or behind your computer, youre assured that you don't hear any background noises. At all.
For a safety issue it might be better not to use these phones while youre cycling to work, because you really can't hear ANYTHING but the music. But, from a music-lover's perspective, these headphones are perfect!
So stay Zuned for part II - the software issue, where I go in detail about how to install the Zune software on a European version of Windows XP SP2, and an attempt to install it on a European version of Windows XP 64bit SP2.