Subaru: Microsoft’s Zune Ad Girl
Well, not really. In reality, I finally got my Zune 30GIG MP3 Player from woot that I mentioned about a few weeks ago and decided to name it “Subaru” from Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS. Mostly because I like naming my random tech crap after anime characters, I chose Subaru since I wanted to name something from the series plus the white version of Zune I got vaguely reminded me of the white-black battle gear the girls wear. I was initially going to go with “Nanoha” for the obvious iPod nano joke but dropped that idea after I realized I already have one of my laptops named as such; “Fate” was an idea but kind of boring for me (although the character herself frickin’ rocks).
First generation Zune 30GIG player with the protective case I bought. Normally I wouldn’t buy any accessories but in the case of Subaru, went on ebay and picked up some standard ones since I’ll be taking the player back and forth daily. Although mostly for use in my car for the drives to work, I knew if I didn’t get some type of case I’ll be crying one day over a stupid scratch or something that could have easily been avoided with one. Plus I don’t want to get the actual player too dirty either 
Beside the case, also got an extra USB cable, AC adapter, car adapter, cable output for the TV, and some screen protectors including a screen wipe. Not bad considering everything came under 20USD although I know I won’t be using the cable connectors nor the screen protectors much.
I won’t go into details how the software sucks (basically a modded version of WMP 11) or how long it took me to get all the album art on (4+ hours after messing up the first time), but after I got the hang of everything Subaru works like a charm. One of the cooler features Subaru has that my old iRiver H10 never did is the ability to have your own custom wallpaper, which is something a visual whore like me always enjoys. After much soul searching, settled on a nice image of Minorin (Chihara Minori) that the guys over at seiyuu3 would hopefully approve of. I only wish there were more images of her out but considering Minorin is rather “new” and I know jacksh*t about searching for seiyuu images, I took whatever I could find.
Ah album art, yet another feature my old iRiver never did although it could display images if you search for them. Weird but true.
The controls on Subaru are pretty straight forward although a lot of people may think the main “wheel” is scrollable like an iPod’s; it’s not but actually is a five point clicker (up, down, left, right, center) which works fine for me. If I had one complaint about the controls, it would be the need to press (and hold) two buttons to completely shut down the player to save battery life as the default method only puts it in hibernate mode that still uses some power (but not much).
A shot of one of the menus while playing a song. I figure wildarmsheero would enjoy this
Anyway, beside some initial hiccups due to being impatient and having to learn a new interface, Subaru has done its job wonderfully in the week or so I have had it. My only problem now is trying to figure out how I’m going to fill the 20GIG left with music ^^;;
… oh as an extra, here is the original image I wanted to use for this post but didn’t want to crop. Probably one of my favorite Subaru images currently floating the ‘net I only wish there were more by the artist(s) around! Also, as I keep promising and failing to do, I’ll hopefully have some more posts in the coming days once I find some actual free time and motivation. Besides a few figures I need to review, also have a growing pile of DVDs as well :aorz:
I approve of the Minorin picture. :3
There are several Japanese image boards dedicated to uploading scans of seiyuu magazines. One is s-z-s and another is seiup (google for the url :p). There’s not much there though but it’s probably better than nothing. Minorin pictures are still on the scares side because she hasn’t been a main feature yet in seiyuu mags, with the new album etc that should change as she gets interviewed.
I name my gadgets too, I think that’s a pretty common “geek thing”, though I name them by seiyuu names. XD
It never ceases to amaze me the amount of DVDs and tech gadgets you buy. With naming gagdets, I don’t usually do that kind of thing. Except for my current development server I named ARIA Company, lol.
Nice images, as always. Having a different image for everything is kinda cool, but with me never being able to choose well let´s just stop there.
Haruhism is taking over here as well, hopefully my limited edition vol 1 arrives this week, I really hope it arrives tomorrow.
Whoa, the Zune can do unicode now? Is this with the newest firmware? I’m gonna have to upgrade mine now!
houkoholic, glad I got your seal of approval! Also thanks for the heads for the sites; I’ll have to check them later.
… so what seiyuu names are you using for your stuff? XD
Adun, it amazes me as well ^^;; And cool about the server name. I had a quick laugh at that as well.
manga, hahaha gotcha bout the image bit. And congrats on ordering Haruhi v1 LE R1! It really is one of the better anime releases out there. Are you going to get the other 3 LE DVDs as well? *evil laughter*
air, yea it can but to my knowledge it is not with the latest firmware. There’s a rather simple hack you need to do to your Zune, which basically downgrades it to 1.2 and uploads the necessary unicode fonts. If you do a google search or check zuneboards.com you’ll find how to do it. Really pretty painless IMHO.
Also glad there are other readers out there with Zunes as well! “Welcome to the Social” I guess… LOL
Yeah, I´ll try to order the three remaining Haruhi boxes as I get money each month. Or just fall under the preasure and order them all at once… I want to see how it´s shipped first.
From all the extras I know I´m going to love the box
And for a mp3 player, I´m going back and forth, have a iPod Nano 2gig which I´m rarely using since my mobile phone does a stand in as a mp3 player, but playing Persona 3 made me want to get one again… or rather the earphones the hero is using.
I too got sucked in because of Woot. $100 bucks for a 30 gig Zune seemed like a sweet deal to me. I didn’t pay much attention to the Zune until recently, but if they keep at it, they’ll have a very formidable opponent for Apple’s iPod.
And the new 80 gig Zune has DVD-quality video-out, that’d be handy to bring to school to show some fansubs for the anime club…
Woo, I’m in the social~
MMM Minorin, Simon and Kaede, damn moy, you’re making me want one too.
> so what seiyuu names are you using for your stuff? XD
Desktop is Yukarin-TT (Twin Tail, since it’s a dual core system), tablet notebook is Minorin (previous notebook was Saeko), smartphone is Nana, some misc servers/equipment which are named Mai, Rie, Yui. I’ll leave it up to you to figure out which seiyuu I named them after. :p
I got a Zune as well but i went for the red one instead. Named her Rosie. lol I couldn’t think of anything clever enough.
I found some alright wallpapers at this site: http://themezune.com/
the anime ones are pretty mediocre at best. Do you make your own?
I named my PSP “Miu” in honor of that brat of Ichigo Mashimaro fame. I used to name my hard drives non-anime characters, but with the last one I bought a year ago, I finally bucked that trend by calling it “Nanaka”. I usually don’t name my iPods for some reason.
Eh? A Zune?
Zune sounds like an anime character’s name already… (kinda sounds gundam-ish)…
“A shot of one of the menus while playing a song. I figure wildarmsheero would enjoy this”
You figured correctly. Incidentally, my Kaede dakimakura cover came in today.
Sorry for the late comment, I only just found this entry poking around in my referral log…