I’ve had the zune for about a day now, and overall I am pretty impressed.  although it is a first generation product, the zune is pretty slick and, for my purposes, it compares favorably to the ipod.  it is not, however, an ipod killer.  like the ipod, the zune is mainly closed and limited by DRM.  more importantly, the innovations introduced by microsoft are not cohesive, and fail to capitalize on apple’s failings in this market.  i would suggest that anyone considering a zune try out the device thoroughly, since there are some quirks with the device that may be deal-breaker-ish.

I got the black zune.  it is coated with a clear matte finish that has a blue hue, giving the device a blueish halo effect.  the zune  is slightly h eavier than the ipod video 30gb, but lighter than the 80gb.  You can definitely tell that the zune is bigg er than the ipod, but it is not obtrusive or unwieldy - and the size was definitely a compromise i was willing to make in favor of screen size.

the zune lacks the ipod’s slick finish and solid construction.  it actually feels more plasticy - coming close to the cheap feeling line, without actually crossing over; the device has enough refinements to keep it on the classy end of the design scale.  I can’t tell in my 1 day of testing, but i  suspect that the zune’s matte finish will be less susceptible to scratches than the ipod.  I think this is an important note, because the fragile ipod body creates the need for a separate protector, which increases the size of the device.

The interface of the zune is surprisingly refined, and in my opinion this is where the zune wins most handily over the ipod.  the interface just looks great - smo oth and crisp with a minimum of clutter.  there are also neat effects for entering menus that are a big improvement over the ipod.  one big advantage of the zune is the customized background wallpaper.  This may seem trivial, but it’s very satisfying to see your photos as wallpaper.  One problem with the wall paper however, is  that the zune kind of crops the picture to fit the background, so you may need to do some cropping of your own to make the desired part of the photo fit in the frame.

i also like zune’s navigation pad.  with three buttons, it is slightly more complex that ipod’s single click wheel, but the separate back and play/pause buttons are a welcome refinement.  the wheel on the zune is actually a four way directional pad with a center button.  i am kind of in the habit of spinning it, ala ipod, but I think the four way pad works as well as the ipod, if not better.  it is actually kind of refreshing to just push and hold the button, rather than repeatedly spinning your thumb round and round.  I actually think the buttons are not as important as the device’s responsiveness to the buttons, and the zune does a good job here.  you can scroll quickly through menus, and when the list is long large letters appear to show you where in the alphabet you are currently scrolling at.

really, the interface is a big win for microsoft because i’ve seen a lot of competiting mp3 players that have a horribly cluttered, unnavigatable interface.  but the zune’s controls are slick and efficient.

the zune software is soso.  I have been using windows media player (WMP) 11 for a while now, and the zune player is mostly similar.  although some of the zune reviews i read reported system crashes, the installation of zune software for me was seamless.  during the install, which took about 15 minutes, my zune firmware was also updated.  this is an important update that enables wifi capabilities - so don’t forget to do that.

You can pick where the zune software will look for songs, videos and pictures.  I already had this defined with WMP11, so much of this process was already taken care of for me.  One note, you should put your porno videos in a separate file than the my videos folder, because zune software will find it by default.  then you’ll have these big thumbnails of your pornos in your zune video screen - potentially very embarassing. 

Loading songs to the library takes place in the background, and was mostly a smooth process.  Again, I don’t know how much of this benefited from my previous work with WMP11, but i didn’t experience any of the problems that other reviewers did.

The zune software interface is pretty slick.  by default it shows you thumbnails of album covers, which is a cool effect, but is also pretty useless unless you have these covers loaded.  the main interface also shows you virtual album stacks, based on how many albums from a particular artist you have.  these graphical features are pretty cool, and give the software a much more interactive feeling.

One big problem i had with the zune software, and actually this is true of WMP and itunes as well, is that my songs often get organized poorly.  for example, i get one folder for dr. dre, and dre, dr.  his whole name is dr. dre, fyi, it’s not officially a title.  there are even more subtle differences that cause the creation of new folders, like a capital vs. lowercase ‘b’ for blink 182.  This is a frustrating part of the library building process, and i’ve already gone through itunes and cleaned it up.  this was a pain to do again.

One tip for others that have this problem - it helps to use a third party tagging solution on your mp3s before building your library.  this is especially true if you bittorrent a lot of music since those songs are usually always tagged with a bunch of crap. 

using a third party tagging solution will help to standardize tags and reduce (but not eliminate) annoying library building quirks.  I used the magic mp3 tagger, which is an awesome program.  it relies on the musicbrainz tagging database that actually looks at the data in your songs to identify them.  it is the most accurate tagging solution i have used.  you can do this manually with the classic tagger, but since i have like 30 gb of songs i bought the magic mp3 tagger which automates the process.

Anyway, so i built my library and cleaned up some of the more glaring errors.  the zune software also downloads album art, but for me art was found for only 30% of the albums.  once you’re done with this, you sync with the zune - an initial sync will take a good 30 mins to an hour depending on how much music you have.

I don’t buy music online, i’m an old fashioned pirate, so i can’t really comment on the zune marketplace.  I know this is a big thing for some people, so you’re going to have to research this on your own.  also, the zune marketplace doesn’t offer video, if that’s a big deal for you.

In addition to music, I also added a few videos to the zune.  i record tv shows with beyondtv, so i transferred some of these files over.  the zune software wanted to convert them first, which was a pretty slow process.  but it seems that the zune software compressed these files pretty heavily for the zune screen, which is a big plus since i was short on storage.

one thing about the zune software is that it does a good job of putting options in convenient places.  if you want to adjust the sync options, then you can easily go to the options screen from the sync menu.  not a big deal, but a nice refinement.

overall, syncing was pretty streamlined.  like the ipod, bigger files do take a longer time.  but i always have these problems with the ipod where it takes a long time to drag and drop onto my ipod.  this doesn’t happen with zune software.

Listening to music on the zune was fine.  I mean, the sound was good, i’m no audiophile, but i didn’t have any complaints.  one thing is that album art looks great on the big zune screen, albeit a bit grainy.  if you don’t have album art, you get a stock cloudy background instead.

Video on the zune was awesome.  this is another big improvement over the ipod.  i loaded episodes of heroes, family guy and dirty jobs on the zune and all of them looked great.  I actually recorded these shows in only mediocre quality, but when they are converted for the zune they look great.  the horizontal viewing is a big plus, that makes it much more bearable to watch longer videos on the device.  For all the ipod vs. zune reviews out there, if you watch lots of video, you will want a zune - no question.  the only problem is that storage is limited, so if you have a lot of music you will only be able to put on a handful of videos.

zune has a photo viewing option also.  this worked ok, although I am not a big photo buff or anything.  i mean, you can create slideshows or go through manually, pretty straightforward.  you can also create albums and zoom in which is a neat feature.  some reviewers complained about the orientation of the pictures, but i mean, all you do is turn the device around.  it’s not hard.

the zune radio worked well.  the device actually uses the headphones as an antenna, so it gets pretty good reception.  I get good reception in my office, but in whole foods it got cut off as i walked deeper into the store.  one annoying thing is that you can’t save radio station presets.  this isn’t a big deal for me since i only listed to a couple of stations, but it’s a glaring oversight nonetheless.  the zune is able to read info tags that some radio stations use, so in some cases the zune shows what radio station you’re listening to and what song is playing.  that was a pretty cool feature.

I guess wifi is the big differentiator for the zune, but i didn’t really have the chance to use it, since i only have 1 zune.  i walked around with the wifi on, but of course didn’t see any other zunes.  that was kind of disappointing, because it’s really one of the more prominent features on the device, but oh well.

Overall, i think there is no question that the zune is superior to the ipod.  however, this may be specific to my usage scenarios:  i don’t purchase songs, i do listen to the radio, i have recorded tv on my pc, etc.  I can see how the limited selection of the zune marketplace would be a dealbreaker for some users though.

for me, I would say the interface, the screen, the radio and some parts of the software are the biggest plusses for the zune.  and these are areas where the current ipod can’t really compete.

One thing about the zune though, is that although the device is pretty sweet, it is also very disappointing due to its vast, yet untapped potential.  wifi is a great example:  the device has wifi, a big plus, but you can’t sync via wifi, purchase songs via wifi, and when you share songs you are bound by strict limitations (3 plays).  that is lame.

Another big disappointment is that the zune won’t play videos recorded with windows media center.  I am pretty sure this is some copyright thing, but if you record tv with windows media center it just won’t play.  this is a big reason why i got the zune, and luckily i use beyondtv, not media center, but i think microsoft missed the boat big time with this.

I mean, this is the core problem with the ipod:  like all mac products the device is really tightly closed and mainly proprietary.  apple always does this and it drove them to the point of bankruptcy, but they never learn.  anyway, the video limitations of the ipod are insurmountable.  you need mov or mpeg4 videos, and the software doesn’t convert videos for you - you actually have to get third party software.  also, apple is big on this tv show buying store, but i don’t really think this is going to catch on.  $2 for a tv show that is available for free during prime time, or on youtube, is not going to work.  Ok, the RIAA made song purchasing work, but the same model can’t be used for tv because TV really is free. 

So, I thought the zune would be a great place for microsoft to make a big stand in the digital entertainment space, converging recorded tv and portable devices, but no.  just a huge disappointment there.

and the whole DRM thing is really a pain too.  actually, i don’t think this is all microsoft’s fault - I think their hands are tied between building the zune marketplace library and satisfying consumers.  but at the same time, they clearly do push you towards their own store.

i mean, wifi - it’s so simple.  this could have been a killer feature:  share songs with others, sync while your zune is in your pocket, etc, download songs from starbucks, etc.  but all the restrictions microsoft places on wifi is just so overwhelming lame it really takes away from the benefits of the device itself.

so, although I am pretty satisfied with the zune, and will definitely use it over my ipod, the device still has a lot of room for improvement.  it’s microsoft’s style to come late into a market, and then take several versions to get it right.  if zune is version 1.0, then they have done a very impressive job of getting a solid product out there.  my main worry however, is that microsoft will be so tightly bound by DRM and copyrights, as well as its own itunes aspirations, that the zune will always be an ipod imitator, rather than a more open, flexible platform that would make it a true ipod killer.

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