Microsoft Zune™ Brown (30 GB) Digital Media Player (js800003)

In my opinion, the Zune is quite a lot better than the iPod, which makes me wonder why it's not selling as well, if not better.

The bonus points of the Zune are:

1. Much bigger screen than ipod - helps with video playback and also makes it a lot more fun to use.

2. The interface is really great. Instead of the iPod's back and forth and 'up' interface design, the Zune puts each level in a rotational list so that you could move from say 'The Beatles' to 'Barry Manilow' by just pushing the left button. Once you get used to it, it's so much quicker to move around with than the iPod.

3. I found that the button function of the Zune far outdid the annoying scrolling of the iPod, as 'fun' as scrolling is, or whatever. I found that when trying to focus on a particular song on the iPod, I had to try two or three times to get on it, as the Zune has a very simple one click per song, and if you hold it down it goes very fast.

4. Colours. I chose mine in brown, which I regret now after seeing how cool the black one looks, but I'm still happy with it. At some point I may buy some black cover replacements and do a change, it's quite easy to do.

5. The cover that came with my Zune is extremely useful, and matches the colour of the Zune. It's pretty much the same as the small case that the iPod comes in, but it has a nice little tag on it for attaching to things...or whatever. The case also serves to clean the screen of any dust while it's in your pocket, which is useful.

6. The hard case of the Zune has ensured that if I drop it, then it isn't going to fall into a million pieces like the iPod (figuratively speaking). I've seen so many iPod's just sitting on people's desks, and when asked why they don't use it they reply that they dropped it and it broke.

7. This is a small one, but I love the customizable background. It really makes your Zune personalisable, and makes me happy whenever I turn it on.

8. Although the Zune doesn't work with WMP11, the software it comes with is pretty much the same as WMP11, and does a good job of managing a large amount of content (over 25,000 songs).

Negative:

1. The battery life of the Zune is claimed to be 14 hours on audio, however five minutes after unplugging it from my computer after a night of charging, it was half way empty. I shrugged this off at first, as it's common with Li-ion batteries for this to occur, as the battery meter needs to adjust to the actual charge, but it did give me quite a shock at first. I havn't yet emptied the battery to test it's life, but I should get a chance later this year.

2. Although the weight is seen as a negative, I like the fact that when holding my Zune I feel like I got what i paid for. It fits fine in my hand, and doesn't get uncomfortable. I much prefer the plastic exterior to the iPod's metal, as it can get sweaty in the heat.

3. The wireless is pretty much useless at the moment and I havn't yet used it, but I'm hoping they'll open this up with a future firmware update.

4. The media software that comes with the Zune, while fulfilling all of its required tasks and is a great player (better than iTunes), it still falls short of my 'ideal' library management application, which I still havn't found.

5. I regret buying the brown colour, as it's not as 'cool' as I'd initially thought, but oh well.


In summary, I think that the Zune's bonus features far outweigh the bad, and i'd strongly recommend it to anyone looking for a great new media player.

Comparable with similar iPod model.
Beautiful screen, large capacity for storage. Easily upgradeable.
Software is similar to iTunes, somewhat of a larger learning curve than iTunes.
Transfers are acceptable if using USB 2.0 ports and faster than iTunes with an iPod.
Again, the screen is beautiful! I can now watch movies where I couldn't with my iPod. The click wheel is more accurate for older folks, and myself (I am 30+ yrs old). Makes it much easier to select the correct song/picture/video without passing it up like you would when using a touch wheel like the iPod utilizes.
Definitely worth the cost!

ive had both ipod and zune players infact i still do . first of all the reason im wrighting this reveiw is because i just got done reading one were the fellow said .Itunes music sight is better well this is far from the truth i tunes is from the stne age compared to zune , when you buy a new zune you get a 14 day pass for unlimted downloads , in four days ive downloaded 4000+ songs do the math itunes would cost allmost 4000 dollars for the same LOL plus the player is ecelent

I purchased my Zune after corrupting my Creative Zen MP3 player with a firmware update (which I've since resolved). I'll admit, up front, that I'm NOT an Apple/Mac fan, so my decision to purchase the Zune to replace the Creative device was an easy one. I didn't purchase a Zen because they remain a tad on the large side.

The Zune is much more compact than the Zen. Its relatively large color screen beautifully displays videos and CD cover art. The Zune MP3 library software is intuitive and automatically downloads firmware updates for the player as they're available. It'll also synchronize your entire MP3 library when the device is first connected to our PC, so be sure to turn this off - especially if your library is larger than the player's capacity (like mine).

Downloading media to the device is also intuitive. The software automatically down-samples all music files to 192kbps to make efficient use of its 30GB available storage.

I high recommend the Microsoft Zune!