While sitting in the airport the other day I began to look around, noticing different oddities about the bustling travelers; other than the fact that most were in a rush or on their cell phones the one thing I saw time and time again was the prominence of iPods in peoples lives. Not just Apple fanatics, there were many portable media players in the pockets of those sitting behind the screens of Microsoft branded laptops. The fact that society wants to take its media (audio and video) outside of the house has been evident for some time. A couple years back Microsoft decided to get in the game with the introduction of the Zune, which had some early adoption but after a sluggish start (thanks in part to spotty software) the Zune made a decent sized dent in Apple’s market share; and to some people is the only choice when it comes to portable media. For this reason I decided to give the Microsoft branded piece of equipment a shot, to my ultimate surprise I came away very intrigued and excited for the future of the Zune.
The Zune audio player comes in all various sizes, colors, and with a number of different storage options. Our review unit was a 16GB black unit (although the one we really wanted was the Gears of War 2 or Halo branded Zune) that happens to be the smaller of the two sizes (physical appearance). This smaller size comes in 4GB, 8GB, and 16GB flash drive options while the larger, more bulkier one comes with either 80GB or 120GB. The Zune we played around with featured a small “clickable” multi-directional pad (much different than the classic iPod scroll wheel), used for controlling all aspects of the portable device and a decent sized 2.5” horizontal-screen. In between the screen and the click-pad are a back button and another one used to play or pause music/videos. The only other physical features of the smaller Zune are the lock/unlock switch, built in Wifi (used for Zune-to-Zune sync), connection port, and headphones (located on the bottom of the unit).
My favorite aspect when looking at the outside of the media-player is the coating/paint-job. Microsoft decided to go with a non-glossy matte finish that feels much better in the palm of your hand, especially when not in an aftermarket case (as mine always is). As I mentioned earlier the screen is not small for this (16GB) unit, which would be comparable to that of the iPod mini. Thankfully the Zune has a screen that when flipped horizontal can show most widescreen video programs in a somewhat viewable way. Personally I found it perfect for watching up to an hour of programming at one time, anything longer than that can become kind of rough on the eyes. Microsoft has made sure that PC and Xbox 360 owners alike can benefit from the compatibility of the Zune and it’s internal components.
