We all know that Apple’s iPod is the most popular digital music player on the planet. Yet, there are many competitors. The Microsoft Zune is one of them. We took a look to see how the Zune compared to the iPod and also to see if the Zune was worthy enough to attract its own audience. We found that while the iPod and other MP3 players are for people who like to listen to music, the Zune is the digital music player for music lovers. Our review will explain.
The Zune comes in two sizes with differing storage capacities. The smaller Zune which is roughly the equivalent of the iPod Nano comes in 4 GB, 8 GB, and 16 GB sizes. These are known as the Zune 4, Zune 8, and Zune 16, respectively. The other Zune, which is physically larger and has a hard drive, is roughly the equivalent of the iPod Classic and comes in 80 GB and 120 GB storage sizes. These are known as the Zune 80 and the Zune 120. These devices are all a part of the second generation of Zune players which are thinner and much better than the first generation Zune players. The Zune 4 comes in black, red, pink, and green. The Zune 8 is available in black, red, pink, green, and blue. The Zune 16 comes in black only and the Zune 80 and Zune 120 come in red and black.
According to Microsoft, the 4 GB models holds up to 1,000 songs, or 25,000 pictures, or 12 hours of video. Like the current iPods, there is no slot for additional memory, so you will want to purchase the size you need to hold your music, picture, and video collection.
The Zune has only three controls on the front, as shown in Figure 4.The small button on the left returns you to the previous screen. The small button on the right acts as a play/pause button. It also turns the player on if held down for more than a few seconds will turn the player off. This is vastly superior to the iPod’s on/off methodology which requires your finger to be in the correct place on the scroll wheel.
Under these two small buttons, you will find the Zune’s squared-off touch pad. Pressing the top and/or the bottom will let you scroll through menu items and they also control the volume. The left and right sides let you scroll through songs and selections. At certain times the side buttons also control a menu the shows up horizontally on the top of the screen. While you can click on each of the four sides, you can also flick your finger across the surface up and down or left and right to go though the choices. We found that we used both methods depending of what we were doing. We thought having the choice was great, but if you don’t like the touch scrolling, you can turn it off.
Although the screen is only 1.8 inches with a resolution of 320 pixels x 240 pixels, video looks great on the Zune 4. Music covers and menu choices are shown in the vertical orientation while pictures and video appear horizontally. Again, this is intuitive and very easy to get used to. The Zune is also smarter than many other players that can be viewed either vertically or horizontally. For instance, when viewing a picture slideshow. The left and right sides of the touchpad scroll through the pictures and the top and bottom control the volume. This is just the same way it works when in the vertical position. On many other players when in the horizontal position, the controls still work as they do in the vertical position, making it more difficult to manage.
Both the Zune hardware and the software are excellent. We loved the scratch-resistant glass-covered LCD, the Wi-Fi capabilities, the easy navigation and the friendly interface. All in all, the Zune is a fully capable music player with a wealth of unique and useful features.
