What had set apart the dominant music player, the Apple iPod, from its numerous competitors was its ease-of-use and tight integration between the player and the software used to manage its content. Microsoft, upon its release of the Zune, not only followed Apple’s lead in making an easy-to-use media player, but also added something that no one else had – a social aspect.
When you first open a packaged Zune, you are greeted by the words, “Welcome to the Social.” It’s clear that this was a driving philosophy behind the Zune. When there are other Zunes nearby, you can wirelessly content and exchange songs, videos, pictures. If the file is protected, though, other Zune users will be able to play it a maximum of 3 times before they are locked out. This is presumably to let others sample music before deciding to buy it from the Marketplace.
Marketplace
The Marketplace is Microsoft's online music store. It can be accessed through the Zune software, providing a wide selection of songs, music, videos, and podcasts.
There are 2 ways of buying content. One way is through the purchase of Microsoft Points (the same points system used for the Xbox Live Marketplace) at $5 for 400 points. These points can then be applied towards the purchase of songs. DRM tracks (songs that have copy protection) cost 79 points, and DRM-free tracks can be bought at a higher price of 99 points. The second way is through a monthly subscription. This Zune Pass costs $14.99 a month, and allows members to download unlimited songs. Zunes come with a free 14 day trial of the Zune Pass.
There is a robust community behind Zune users. Music that you play often shows up on your personal profile as favorites, and your preferences can be shared with other Zune owners. You can easily find people who have the same musical tastes as you, and you’ll probably discover new favorite artists through them.
Overall, the social aspect of the Zune community is a success. But what about the rest of the device? Let’s take a look.
The first model, the Zune 30, was released on November 19th, 2006. Newer models, dubbed the Zune 4, Zune 8, and Zune 80 have since been released. Here’s a quick rundown of the different models.
- The Zune 30 has a 30 gigabyte hard drive. The new models have 4, 8, and 80 gigabyte hard drives, respectively.
- The Zune 4 and 8 are much lighter and thinner than the Zune 30. This is because they use flash memory. The drives take up less space but also have smaller storage capacities.
- The Zune 80 looks like the 30, but manages to be lighter and thinner than the 30.
- The Zune 30 costs $199.99, the 4 costs $129.99, the 8 costs $179.99, and the 80 costs $249.99.
- The new models come installed with newer firmware, giving them additional features. However, Microsoft offers a free firmware upgrade to those with Zune 30's, a move that has been applauded by the community.
Interface
There is a touchpad that is used to scroll through content, and two separate buttons to go back in the menu and pause playback. Scrolling is made especially easy for users: as content is arranged alphabetically, a letter will appear showing which part of the list is being viewed. For example, the letter 'E' will appear as the user is looking through 'Elton John'. Everything is displayed on the very bright and crisp screen - I’ve never had trouble reading song titles.
Audio Playback
The Zune supports file formats MP3, AAC, and WMA.
Songs can be accessed by song name, album, or artist. I've personally found the artist search to be the easiest and quickest way to drill down to what I want to listen to. Upon selecting a song, its album art will appear on the screen, along with a glowing bar on the bottom showing song playback. When a song is playing, you can quickly mark it with a heart (to show you like the song) or a broken heart (to show that you don't like it). You can also add songs to playlists through the same menu, without having to use a computer.
Video Playback
The Zune supports WMV, MPEG-4, and H.264 files.
With video playback, the Zune uses landscape mode. You'll bet urning your Zune sideways to watch videos. The advantage of this is there's a greater use of screen space, as the Zune screen is taller than it is wide. By turning it sideways, it better accommodates widescreen videos.
Radio and Podcasts
The Zune has an internal FM tuner. Radio reception is good, with crisp sound quality. You are able to save stations to a list that you can go back for quick access later.
With podcasts, the Zune generally saves the most recent three episodes. You can change this in the software settings. After listening to one episode, it'll get marked as old. This lets you know which files you haven't listened to yet. I found this a really useful feature.
Conclusion
The Zune is a media player designed with the end-user in mind. Many activities, like making playlists, have been streamlined so they are much easier to do. Content is managed through software provided with the Zune, and all it takes to get content to your Zune is to connect it to your computer.