"Hopefully software updates will make the Zune a real contender to the iPod's crown."

Jason's Score:

7.5

It takes a lot of guts to enter a marketplace so heavily dominated by the iPod. But hey, Apple only owns that space after stealing it from Sony, who held it for years because of the Walkman and later, the Discman. Since Microsoft has had some success with wrestling away a good chunk of the console share from Sony, maybe Zune can make some inroads into iTune's turf.

For the record, I have an 80 GB iPod video. I use my iPod to listen to music on long subway rides and to do interviews (I have an attachable microphone). But I am by no means a hardcore audiophile, and I am about the furthest thing from a Mac fanatic. I totally want to smack that smug soul patch wearing &*#@ in the "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" commercials. Overall, I am the very definition of a casual listener/watcher. I just want to enjoy what I enjoy with minimal fuss.

The Zune made a good first impression on me. It's a reasonably slick-looking device. Held up next to my 80 gig iPod, they're about the same size, width and weight, with the Zune being just a smidgeon bigger. Not a bad trade-off at all, since that means a much bigger screen... almost double the size in fact.

There's a navigation pad at the bottom. The centre is pressed to select. There's also a dedicated play/pause button, and a back button. Perhaps it's my old iPod habits, but I generally avoided using them. I am used to the "right-forward, left-back" button scheme of the iPod, though since the Zune can be tilted on its side for watching videos, some adjustments to the controls had to be made. The Zune's buttons are more tactile than the iPod's controls, which makes it little more natural for games.

The Zune screen is beautiful. Menu options come in large and loud. Video resolution is not bad, though occasionally I found it blurry for stills. For example, one of the pieces of bonus content that was loaded on to my Zune was the Avril Lavigne comic Make 5 Wishes. You could read the comic while listening to an instrumental version of "Girlfriend." I had to squint to read some of the text. Even album art tends to be a touch fuzzy.

As to the music, no complaints there. The process of ripping an album from a disc to the device is very similar to the iTunes procedure, and most everything is taken care of for you. I popped in something else I needed to review: Video Games Live, Vol. #1. The music comes in crystal clear. I especially like the included headphones. They're comfortable, pretty durable, and the ends are slightly magnetized, so it's easy to wrap the headphones around the Zune and keep them in place without them getting tangled.

The Zune can do everything my iPod can do. It can view pictures, play video files, music and, with the 3.0 version of the Zune software, you can also get two games: Texas Hold 'Em and Hexic. It took awhile for me to get used to the controls (true in general of using the Zune, at least in my case), but in the end they turned out to be solid handheld games.

One thing that the Zune has that my iPod doesn't is a built-in radio tuner. This I enjoyed very much, because no matter how much music you've got loaded on to your device, there comes a time when you just get bored and wished you could listen to something new. The radio doesn't come in as clear as any music added from an album of course, but that seems a fair trade. With the Zune 3.0 software, you can actually tag songs you hear on the radio, so you can buy them later. I couldn't get this to work though, because the stations I listened to just didn't seem to support this function, and then I ran into trouble with the Zune Marketplace.

Which bring me to the downside of the Zune. While I find the hardware pretty respectable, the software is where the Zune loses me. I found it easy enough to install initially, although I had some trouble with installing the 3.0 update, which kept hanging at 99% installed. Leaving it on overnight took care of that. Once installed, I found the software... passable. Usually. It looks attractive, but it is very stubborn and occasionally, vague.

For example, the menu system is design to be kind of circular, and it's not always obvious where the top level is. I think most users would prefer a strong anchor to the top level of a menu, so if you get lost you can instantly head back to the start. I found it tricky to locate some of the more buried menu items under this system.

Strangely, the Zune website, Marketplace and device management software are not very well integrated. There are quite a lot of features to go through, but it seems like there's a rough border crossing between them. If you go off course when browsing around, the software and website don't do a very good job of putting you back on track. When I went to the Zune webpage and clicked on the albums listed under the "What's new in Zune Marketplace," it didn't help me create a Marketplace account, instead every single link took me to the MSN/Sympatico shopping page with the top result being "No results were found that match your search term." That doesn't inspire confidence on the user's part.

Also, when I tried to launch Marketplace from the Zune webpage, it told me that the Zune software was required. That was slightly annoying, since I had long installed the Zune software and I wondered why it couldn't be auto-detected, but oh well. I clicked on the "I Have It" option.This just opened up the Zune manager, but without giving me any guidance to the store. What you must do in order to get access to the Marketplace is go into your device and activate a "Zune Pass," and then you can buy some songs. This is not very obvious and the documentation that comes with Zune is minimal, probably because it's supposed to be plug-and-play user-friendly. You also have to buy credit right away as far as I can see, which I also did not like. What if I just want to browse first?

The software has lots of potential though. You can create a Zune Social account, which will create a kind of MySpace page that lists your favourite songs, personal messages, etc. This is a cool way to encourage sharing, which music lovers love to do. Witness for example the cult of the mix tape. The Zune has some awesome sharing abilities too thanks to its wireless. You can swap photos and even music (at least, temporarily, you get three plays). That means you can also wirelessly sync with your PC, which is very cool and easy to do. Battery life is also reasonably strong. The device will last for 30 hours worth of audio. Video and Wi-Fi will reduce this considerably, but I found it good for my entertainment habits at least.

Again, it's the software I have issues with, not so much the hardware. Fortunately, software is much easier to fix than hardware. Many of these issues with the Zune could potentially be solved in future updates.

With iPod owning the market and still being the hip gadget to buy, the Zune really has an uphill battle. But it does bring quite a bit to the table. Even if it doesn't end up making it over the long haul, a lot of its features are going to be stolen by the portable music devices that do.

Pros

Cons

Bottom Line

Jason's Score:

7.5