Interface

I found the menus to be quite user friendly. The main menu list all the different functions of the Zune in vertical fashion; music, video, pictures, and radio. Additionally on the same screen you will also find community and settings menu items, the community is used for sharing songs with other Zune owners via WiFi. During my trial I didn’t find one single Zune user in my area, regardless of how much I approached people. So I wasn’t able to test out the WiFi music sharing aspect of the Zune, which is a real shame, since it’s been touted by Microsoft as one of the “major” features of the Zune.

The Wifi feature allows you to share songs with neighboring Zune users within a 10-15 meter range, the shared song will expire after 3 days or 3 plays, which ever comes first. The Zune user may flag the song in case they wish to purchase it at a later time.

Honestly, I don’t feel this feature really adds value to the Zune, the whole goal of this WiFi sharing is simply to get you to purchase more songs from the Zune Marketplace. The WiFi feature does have a lot of potential, especially since Microsoft could lift some restrictions on the WiFi in the near future and even give it some extra capabilities. For example, they could allow you to purchase songs directly on the Zune via WiFi, now that would be convenient.

The majority of the menus are organized in a horizontal/vertical fashion. The top part of the menu act as tabs, each tab has a list of menu items underneath. Check out the video for the menu navigation demo.

Typically digital player menus are very mundane only showing simple text and nothing more, but that’s not the case with the Zune. The best way to describe the Zune’s interface is lively, if Microsoft did anything right with the Zune, it’s definitely the interface. Navigating the menus you’ll notice the subtle animated effects like fading in / out, zooming in / out and menu items appearing to glide onto the screen. The combination of animated effects and album art are quite pleasing the eye.

Radio - The radio appears to support RDS (Radio Data System), used for station idenification and song info, such as title and artist. The reception quality is adequate, I was able to tune into all the location stations, a hint of static on a few stations though. I do have one gripe about the radio, it doesn’t have an auto save option found in other portable FM radios, instead you need to manually save each station one by one.

Zune Marketplace

As I’ve said in the intro, the key problem with today’s DAP (Digital Audio Player) manufacturers is they stop short at the physical product design and functionality, when they need to go one step further and provide a simple way for consumers to obtain the music. This is where the Zune gets it right. The Marketplace is an online store where Zune owners can purchase music at a fairly reasonable price. The software bundled with the Zune provides the Marketplace application, once installed you’ll need to fill out some basic information about yourself, before diving into the Marketplace.

Home Page - The home page of the Zune Marketplace shows featured artist and new releases. The new release album artwork is animated as you scroll your mouse over them. The layout of the homepage I found to be is easy to navigate, it didn’t take long for me to find an album of interest.

Album - I selected Gwen’s new album “The Sweet Escape” for demonstration. The page shows an enlarged album cover with some basic information about the album such as album title, artist, release date, genre and price of album. The bottom half of the page shows each individual track contained in the album. You can sample each track by double-clicking the track title, the sample last for 30 seconds. You may control the playback by using the Zune-like controls near the bottom of the Marketplace application. Purchasing a single track is also possible, on average, the price of a single track is 79 Microsoft Points, which equates to $0.99 USD.

Microsoft Points - Microsoft Points are the currency used in the Zune Marketplace to make purchases. Microsoft Points can be obtained by purchasing pre-paid cards at local stores such as Best Buy and Circuit City, or online using credit card. When purchasing Microsoft Points online via credit card keep in mind you’ll be purchasing the points in fixed amounts. At the time of this writing, 80 Microsoft Points is valued at $1 USD.

Are Microsoft Points really necessary? In my opinion, no. The whole point system works against the consumer. It’s easy to look at a musical track priced at 79 Microsoft Points and get the impression that it’s actually cheaper than a $0.99 song, when they are really the same price. Another aspect of the point system I dislike is buying points in fixed amounts. I can understand it’s needed for pre-paid cards, but online purchase of points shouldn’t be fixed. Lets say you purchased 400 Microsoft Points to buy 5 songs, at 79 points each song, your total would be 395 points. This leaves you with 5 points left over, regardless of which fixed amount of Microsoft Points you purchase, using them will result in having some points left unused. The unused points encourages consumers to purchase more Microsoft Points than they actually need. I would prefer it if the Zune Marketplace simply used real currency as iTunes does.

Charts - The charts made my life a lot easier, rather than trying to hunt down songs one by one. Thanks to the charts, I found new interesting songs I have never heard before in a matter of minutes. The list of charts available to the Zune user was quite impressive, it even breaks the charts down by genres.

Pros

• Interface animated and graphically pleasing.
• Solid construction
• Simple Controls
• Interface navigation user friendly.
• Purchasing music through Zune Marketplace was painless.
• Delivers a good audio experience as promised.
• FM radio functioned exceptionally well.

Cons

• The size of the unit is too large.
• Not compliant with Playforsure.
• Headphone wires too thin, not durable.
• Internal moving parts (spinning hard drive)
• Wi-Fi crippled, not as useful as it could be.

Conclusion

The Zune does play music just as well as any other DAP on the market, I have no problems with it in that regard. The physical size of the Zune was a big let down for me, “big” let down, get it? haha I crack myself up! (*reader cracks whip on Iron Cook’s back*, we didn’t ask for jokes, review!) Ok ok. So the size of the Zune is the main problem I see with the device. It does practically everything else in an acceptable manner. The interface was very pleasing, I enjoyed all the added graphical touches. Finally, the Zune Marketplace performed as well as I expected. The process of purchasing a song to loading it on the Zune was painless and quick. I’d only recommend the Zune to people that were comfortable with the size of this player. As everyone already knows, the Zune is no iPod killer, but it does have the right ingredients to become one. Perhaps Microsoft will get the Zune right in the next release.

Check out the shop for the latest Microsoft Zune prices.

Table of Contents:

Page 1: IntroductionPage 2: ConclusionPage 3: Specifications

Filed under: Microsoft, Zune