Map Of Zunes

All the focus right now is on the Zune HD, and the hardware does indeed look sweet, but the Zune experience is about more than just the hardware. Case in point: my friend Matt sent me four songs by BLK JKS to check out, Zune to Zune. Rather than plugging in headphones, I docked my Zune so I could listen to it my desktop computer speakers. Much to my surprise, I saw that I was only able to listen to 30 second samples - presumably coming from the Zune Marketplace rather than my Zune itself.

It makes me wonder if the issue here is that the Zune software can’t play music directly off the Zune itself - and that’s why I get the 30 second samples. If so, that’s another limitation of the Zune and the Zune desktop software: more than once I’ve been travelling and had my Zune with me, full of music, and my laptop with no music. Sometimes you don’t want to, or can’t, put in headphones so listening to music on my laptop is my preferred method. Short of transferring the music from the Zune to the laptop, there’s no elegant way to do this. Will the new 4.0 software address this issue? Time will tell…