Design and Features 

The MP3 player market easily has more than 5 years under its belt. So you would think by now most manufacturers have the recipe for success down by now; copy the Apple iPod or create something innovative and new. Microsoft must have missed the company memo, because the Zune is nightmare wrapped in pretty packaging.

The box that the Zune comes in is pretty clever. The cover slides off the top to reveal two compartments. One side of the box has a flip up cover that reads “Welcome to the Social”. Under this cover is the Zune unit itself. The other compartment holds the carrying case, headphones, USB cable, software, quick start guide and product guide.

Available in three colors: white, black, and brown (shoot whoever decided brown was cool); the Zune has a very minimalist look to it. This is normally a good thing, but the Zune is minimalistic in a generic way, lacking any sort of sex appeal. There are only a few buttons on the entire device: a back button, play/pause button, a lock button on the top of the unit, and the wheel button which serves as a means to navigate the menu system. The ear buds look attractive at first, but feel very light, and that worries us. We will test these in the next section.

The Zune Package and Contents

Physically, the 5.6 ounce Zune is thicker (.6 in) and taller (4.4 in) than the Apple iPod, thanks in part to its large 3-inch screen. The Apple iPod has a smaller screen at 2.5 inches, but both the Zune and iPod display videos at the same 320 by 240 pixel resolution. This means the picture does not look as sharp on the Zune.

The Zune is considerably thicker than the iPod

On the audio front, the Zune supports music recorded in the Windows Media Audio Standard (WMA), MP3 (up to 320 Kbps) and AAC (up to 320 Kbps). We were surprised to see support for AAC since it’s the default Apple iTunes codec (something going on here that we do not know about?). For video, the Zune supports Windows Media Video (WMV) up to 1.5 Mbps peak bit rate at 320x240 pixel resolution at 30 frames per second. There is no support for MPEG-4, DivX, or AVI. Other features include an integrated FM tuner, 802.11 b/g WiFi and JPEG picture viewing capabilities.

The Zune supports audio and video purchased from the Zune marketplace as well as non-DRM protected media that you might have on your PC. If you have music downloaded from a PlaysForSure partner like Napster, AOL Music or MTV’s Urge services, it will not work on the Zune. You would be better off buying a different media player. Here is a link to PlaysForSure compatible devices.

The $250 dollar Zune carries a 1 year limited warranty and is currently only available in a 30 GB size.