FUNKOMETER RATING: 2

If that's the question you've been asking yourself, I have the answer!  Do eeet.  Now before I get a ton of brainwashed Mac fanatics beating down my door telling me how much better iPods are, shut up, because I have one!  Well, only a first generation nano, but it's still an iPod. 

So the Zune (note that Microsoft uses Zune as a product name for several devices, but I'm going to say Zune to refer to the media player) can play several different types of audio files and some video files (doesn't do DIVX natively, but who cares). With the help of some other software you can rip and play your DVD's on the Zune (you can do the same thing with the iPod).  The sound and video quality is pretty good.  The 3 inch screen is hardly eye-straining at all.  Depending on how much you're willing to compress your videos, you can fit several movies on the 30GB hard drive (rumors abound an 80GB version will be available soon).   You can organize the videos by type (Movie, Music Video, TV Show), however the Zune software doesn't let organize the videos yet, so you have to edit the video data in order to organize it.  There's tons of free software out there to do this, zunescene has a pretty good list of them in their forums.  Video watching really kills the battery on the Zune, you can expect about 3 to 4 hours of watching video.  I've never made it through a whole battery charge just listening to music, or letting it sit there playing music for x number of hours, so I'm not sure how well it does on battery life just playing music.

Another thing I like about the Zune is how it feels.  Overall it's a bit bigger than the iPod video, but not cumbersome.  When I handle the Zune it doesn't feel like if I drop it, it's going to shatter into a million pieces.  Also, the surface isn't glossy, so you don't leave finger prints all over the player (I think the newer iPods aren't as glossy), one of my personal "pet peeves".  Oh, and who can forget the great choice of colors.  There's the classic black, the nice white, and poop brown.  I don't know what they were thinking with the brown, but it's hypnotic, the green accent is just odd against the brown.  When I saw the brown Zune it was like seeing a wreck, I just couldn't turn away.  So, yes, I have a brown Zune.   

"Hey, what about the Wi-Fi stuff Microsoft is so proud of?" you ask.  Well, it's not so great.  thus far it's only served as a battery drain.  I don't know if people just turn it off all the time, or there's just no other Zunes around me.  I have tried it out with another Zune, and it's a neat idea, but it needs some tweaking to really be a break out feature.  Maybe Microsoft will do some wireless "hotspots" for music, or let you browse the internet (that would be kind of hard without a keyboard and mouse though) or maybe just the Zune Marketplace.  There's a world of possibilities, but I don't see anything coming in the near future.

You have to use the Zune software to transfer media from your computer to your player.  Getting music and other media files is pretty easy.  The software scans your computer for media, using the "My Documents" folder as the default folders for your library.  All you have to do is hook up the Zune, find the media you want to transfer in the library, add it to the sync list, and press "start sync".  One problem with the software is that it tries to sync all your music to the device automatically, which can be a pain in the ass and really time consuming if you have a large music collection.  You can stop the sync though, so it's not that big of a deal.  If the media you want to transfer isn't compatible with the Zune, the software tries to convert it a format it can handle, if it can't convert it, it gives you an error letting you know.  The Zune marketplace has a pretty good selection of music, though it is missing a few artist here and there (typical of most online music stores).  The subscription service is pretty nice, $15/month gets you all the music you can download, however you can't burn any of it to a CD, and you can only have it on 3 computers, and it can only be put on 2 Zune devices. That's a lot of restriction, but for $15/month for all the music I want, it's hard to complain.  If you'd rather go the "traditional route" and buy the music out right (so you can burn it to CD and play it on every thing you own) you can buy songs for about 99 cents. 

Oh, one last thing, IT'S NOT A FREAKING CLICK WHEEL, GET OVER IT!!!

The end result: Nice player, feels solid, good video and sound quality, average battery life for this type of player, good controls and interface, Zune software is easy to use.  

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