SquareTrade

Best Buy offering a $25 gift card with any Zune.

Clearly, someone feels bad that the Microsoft Zune got shut out of the gift card giveaways during the Christmas iPod price wars, and is now looking to make up for it.  Specifically, Best Buy, and specifically, you'll get a $25 gift card with any Zune.  None of that graduated amount nonsense they pulled on us when it was the iPod on the table.  It's a flat number whether you get the 4GB Zune or the 80GB Zune.  Oh, and free shipping if you buy it online, too.

Given how well the gift card discounts worked, we'd expect to see more deals like this show up in future, especially as it keeps all the money in the store.  It's not like we weren't going to spend $25 on "stuff" there anyway.  But if you want to save even more cash, then you'll want to bypass their warranty and get ours for literally half the price.  You can even add Accidental Damage coverage if you want.

And while we're on the subject, the Zune's new tag line is "You make it You."  No, Microsoft.  No.  You're not Apple.  Trying to act all cool when you're not cool is so uncool. 

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Free Gift Cards with iPod or Zune Purchase.

IPOD PRICE WAR!  It's ON!

Last Friday, we were wondering how long it would take Best Buy to counter Circuit City's two-buck undercutting of their Apple iPod sale.  Answer: not long, but they've gone a different direction on it. 

Instead of further iPod price drops or discounts, Best Buy is selling them at regular price and giving you a graduating scale of Best Buy gift cards along with purchase.  It's $10 for the 1GB Shuffle, $15 for the 4GB Nano, $20 for the 8GB Nano, $25 for the 80GB Classic, and $30 for the 160GB Classic.  They're offering $10 off the 4GB Microsoft Zune, and $20 off the 8GB or 30GB Zunes.

Circuit City's counter-counter offer is "a free $10 eGift Card" flat rate on iPods only (no Zune sale, no Zune gift card), with their sale prices all still intact from what we reported last Friday.

Well played, big box stores.  Their free gift card strategy essentially keep your money coming into their stores instead of being spent elsewhere, but the current result is that, iPod price-wise, they're both now in a statistical dead heat, plus or minus a few quarters.  How long can this detente last?  Not long, we hope.  We're waiting for someone to drop the Big One. 

War is truly hell.

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Special MP3 Player Warranty Sale for your iPod and Zune!

If there's an MP3 Player on your list to give (or to receive) his holiday season, whether it's an Apple iPod, a Microsoft Zune, or any other MP3 Player on the market, now you can protect it with the best warranty around (according to our reviews, anyway).  And you can do it for a lot less if you use our special 3-Day discount.

You can get an instant warranty quote using our widget in the sidebar, but then use coupon code: MP3MADNESS on our checkout page and you'll get 33% off your MP3 Player's warranty.  This offer is only good from today through Sunday, 12/16/07.

Keep in mind, this is on a warranty that's already 40% less than retail warranties, and it comes with a 5-Day Service Guarantee most retailers wouldn't offer to save their lives.  We fix it or pay you’re the item's purchase price in five business days, or your warranty and the service are free.

If you bought an MP3 Player for yourself or a friend in the last month, you can still put a SquareTrade warranty on it at 2/3rds the normal price, even if you add Accidental Damage coverage.  And if you still need to buy an iPod, by purest chance, Best Buy and Circuit City both have sales going on.

It's never too late to Christmas shop.  There's almost ten days left!  Plenty of time!

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Second Generation Zune 80 GB Tunes Up, Turns On, Drops Out.

Yes, it’s true that we were a part of the collective yawn last year when the Microsoft Zune tried to muscle in on the Apple iPod.  But now they’re back with a new iteration, the second generation Zune 80 GB, and while Steve Jobs still doesn’t have TOO much to worry about, at least now there’s some actual competition in the marketplace.

What’s good?  Well, they’ve cleaned up the controls significantly.  The new Zune Pad is a good one-touch control, and the interface is much smoother than before.  The two big advantages the Zune has over the iPod are Bluetooth synching and FM Radio.  If you still like listening to five minutes of music separated by two minutes of brainless DJ and fifteen minutes of commercials, the Zune’s still got you covered... not a lot of new here.  The updated synching feature, however, is pretty damn cool.  Zune to Zune wireless file sharing (take that, RIAA) returns, but now your playlist automatically updates when you get in range of your library-holding, WiFi-enabled desktop without any need to dock.  You can even narrow it down to specific artists you want to update, and leave the rest out.  It’s a slick little one-up on the Zune vs. iPod battle royale, and we'll be very surprised if it goes unanswered for long.

There’s a bigger color selection in Zunes, too, if that’s as important to you as it should be.  It tickles us how the brown Zune 30 GB is outselling the more spiffy 16GB iPod Touch at the moment (the $266 differnce might have something to do with it).  The prices are comparable to their corresponding iPods, and on our side, that means the SquareTrade Zune warranty is on par with the SquareTrade iPod warranty, right down to the optional Accidental Damage Protection for new-condition players.

It has to be said that Apple iTunes still beats the tar out of Zune Marketplace from the selection (no TV for the Z) to interface (no bookmarking) to the name (“marketplace” is so 90’s).  That won’t stop anybody who goes mainly from their own catalog of ripped CDs, but it might if you’re looking forward to surfing the internets and downloading songs direct to your mp3 player.  Which is coming soon.

Honestly, if this was the Zune that came out last year, it would’ve been on equal footing with the iPod.  As-is it does what an mp3 player should, but not what an iPod can.  Sorry, Mr. Bill, but you’ll just have to settle for owning the home computer market

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