Zune Has The Basics Covered
In fact, once you shift focus from the hardware to the software, the Zune stops looking like a complete iPod knock-off. It does some things the iPod doesn't do -- yet. Like the FM radio: I was pleasantly surprised to realize just how nice that is to have. And the ability to beam songs and images between Zunes: That might be nice someday, when a sufficient number of other people have a Zune, too. If they ever do.
The Zune definitely has the basics covered. It plays music. It plays a lot of music. I haven't used it long enough to run down the battery, and I'm dubious of the 14 hours of play time Microsoft claims in the specs -- it might be more like eight or 10. But that's a lot.
It holds a lot of music, too. The specs don't mention exactly how big the hard drive is, but it had 27.7 GB available when I took it out of the box (it comes with some sample music, pictures, and videos already installed). I loaded it up with more than 1,600 MP3 files ripped from 130 albums, almost 8 GB worth, according to the Properties inspector on my PC. All that content filled an additional 6.09 GB of disk space on the Zune, so there must be some serious compression going on in the Zune application that loads the portable device.
The music it plays sounds good. Sound quality in a portable player is pretty subjective, and very dependent on external factors like the quality of the headphones or earbuds you're using, but at least the Zune delivers quality to the output jack. The FM is clean and static-free. Zune video looks good, too -- it's bright and detailed, even given that you're looking at a screen that's 2.5 inches by 1.75 inches. Photos look good, as well. (Album covers, on the other hand, look terrible, probably because they're very small, heavily compressed files.) Both audio and video play smoothly, without stutters or frozen moments. It's possible to force the audio to skip by turning the wireless on and off while you're playing music, but you have to force it: if you behave, the playback will.
Zune -- The Software
A lot of thought obviously went into the player's software. The horizontal scrolling menus are very reminiscent of the menus in another brand-new Microsoft product: the Media Center application in Windows Vista. And with the Zune's bigger screen, and the color of album art everywhere, it makes the iPod's simple black-on-white screens look old-fashioned -- even though they're generally more readable in extreme lighting conditions.
(Speaking of Vista -- there is surprisingly little integration between Zune and Vista. There's no "Transfer to Zune" button in Vista's new Media Center and Photo Gallery applications. And while the Zune will stream music to the Xbox360, it won't stream to Vista.)
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