Zune review
Hit or Miss
It was an incredibly deal on Zune player at last holiday season, so I decided to give it a try, so clicked to order. I was very interested in what software giant can offer in own player collecting all the best from players offered by already established companies on this market as Creative Lab, and Apple. My Zune 30 was delivered prior Christmas and was waiting under the tree until the clock chimed 12.
As a theater begins from a coat check as DAP begins from a packaging. Every company considers packaging really seriously and tries making it most attractive and innovating. I remember packaging of my first 3g iPod when I really had no clue how to open it.
After removing two sticky clips I slid top of box very easily and got an access to the content of packaging.
Zune took center part, headphones took left part
and an interface cable was in right section of the inner box.
Another section accessible from top contained a pouch, manuals, and software.
Comparing packaging of Zune, Zen , and iPod I’d give 1st place to Zune and the last to Zen.
Although Zen has most technical information printed on the box, not so many retailers have an actual device in stock reachable by consumers, so the information doesn’t reach a consumer until he/she really purchased it. First what I did was comparing sizes of iPod and Zune.
Obviously Zune is slightly bigger, however it lays comfortable in hands and pockets. A plastic case seems fingerprints free and probably scratch resistant as well. Screen is huge. Controls look Ok. Play and back buttons are a bit small, but easy to press anyway. You can notice that navigation dial of Zune is also smaller. General problem is that you can miss actual button, for example press center button instead of arrows.
I tried a pouch, it fitted very perfectly. I remember a very loose pouch of Zen, when I could fit two Zens in it, and as result my Zen slid down and has been fallen on a granite floor. Part of its case was broken, luckily it continued working well.
However Zune’s pouch isn’t suede one, as iPod has.
Now I was ready to charge and try it. I connected it to USB port, however it didn’t start charging until I turned on computer, although USB was powered all time. An interface cable has protective caps on both ends, similar to iPod’s interface cable, however it wasn't fitted so perfectly, I had problems to disconnect it from Zune’s end. I hoped to see Zune in Explorer as a standard MTP device after connection, however Vista didn’t show Zune anywhere. I remember I could copy music to Zen instantly after a connection ( Zen is MTP device as well). Ok, I decided to play with Zune interface a bit. It came pre-filled with some music, videos and pictures. User interface appeared quite intuitive, screen is big and I was impressed. I tried FM tuner, reception was clear and easy to tune on different stations. I was only wondering when DAP will start incorporate HD tuners? I tried to figure if I can records radio, however it seems not possible. So now it was time to fill it with my own music now. Since it didn’t work out of the box, I pulled CD with software and started installation. First step of the installation was obtaining an update. So if you start using Zune in fields, then no way to make it working without an Internet connection. The actual update installed first Zune management program and then begun updating Zune firmware. I heard that Microsoft issued 2nd generation of Zune, which is generally just a firmware update for 30gb version of the device. An updating firmware took some time, it seems similar to iPod procedure, a new firmware image gets first loaded on a hard drive of a device, and then it gets flashed. UI of Zune looked quite different after the updating firmware. Text of menu items became even bigger; color palette was changed from brownish colors to dark grayish ones. New items appeared in Settings menu, and total music navigation got a change offering multiple choices switching from artists to albums view and versa. I’ll tell about navigation ability of Zune later.
Zune management desktop software
As I already mentioned, you can’t use WMP or just Explorer for Zune management. It is certainly drawback, which is dictated by a simple monopoly rule – “We’re confident and do know how to do better, if you do not like something, then tell us and we will correct it, do not correct it on your own”. Anyway, Zune software is quite innovative. It inherits some principles from iTunes providing 3 panes Artist-Album-Song view.
The UI is completely custom, and it mimics a tabbed access to different functionality of the program. You need some time to get used before taking all advantages of new UI. I’m still learning it. Some things are quite not intuitive, or require too much extra clicking, for example you can’t correct artist/album/song/year in one place. I haven’t found how to change genre and year at all. Zune software uses concept of synchronization a local library with a device. You can beef content library without a device and mark items for future synchronization. A special place is reserved for library, however items being already on a disk can remind in an original location. Zune software recognizes three communication areas as Zune, CD/DVD drive and community input box.
A killing feature of Zune was an introduction of a socializing feature in opinion of Microsoft. You can see a clear notice of it on Zune’s box. I really do not see much benefits of that, it is probably because of age, tastes and so on. At least social feature should look something different, can be much more clear how to use and how to get benefits from it. As I mentioned, Zune management software has context sensitive UI, so when you are in device mode, you can configure Zune wireless network making it connected to your home WiFi. WEP is supported and the program is able to discover available networks and generally easy to use. However finally the Zune wireless capabilities are completely useless. I tell below why. Ripping ability of Zune software quite good, you can choose several format of ripping, including Microsoft lossless, and MP3. MP3 ripping is quite fast, mostly real time of speed of CD copying, Ripping quality supported up to 320Kbps. However Zune uses less comprehensive DB than CDDB, so many my CDs especially European made weren’t recognized.
So let’s conclude on Zune management software:
Pros
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Innovative UI
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Easy navigate and find
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Most of available compressed and lossless audio formats are supported WMV, AAC, MP3
Cons
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No software alternatives
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Not flexible in change or retrieve all song information
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Connected to not so comprehensive variant of CD DB
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Limited support of video formats (WMV only)
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No support open format as FLAC or OGG
Zune firmware
General UI
As I mentioned, Zune UI looked differently after firmware update. Again, UI is completely custom and innovative. Menu items are just oversized text with wide using sparkling video effects for highlighting and selection. Microsoft chosen an opposite color schema to Apple's one, so all texts are white on dark or black background. However everything is readable quite well. Navigation is very intuitive. Microsoft was in a difficult situation since a touch dial ring, and a slide bar were taken by other vendors. However a classic arrow managed scrolling and navigation work quite well. I was even impressed that Zune supports national alphabets in the scrolling directory. Generally arrow controls provide a very revolutionary two-dimensional navigation, so I can easily manage album or artist selection from the same view.
Actually selection a category as artist, song, or genre converts items of it in a scroll vertically list and selection any item from the list converts previous navigation to horizontal with a vertical scrolling of a new selection.
Play now screen shows oversized album art, play progress and song, artist, album info. For some reason the screen doesn't have track/song number in the list. Long song, album, or artist name isn't scrolled and just fades out. However it is auto scrolled when selected in a list. White color of play progress doesn't look good when album art has white background.
Another problem is that screen is readable when backlit is on. It is very annoying, since you need to press the center button to read the screen. Zune falls asleep approximately after 12 hours not use. Boot time is 11 seconds. It is a little longer than 8 seconds required by iPod, but acceptable.
Sound and video quality
Sound quality is really good. It is a bit different than iPod. I'd say that Zune has a little dip in mid range. Zune is also less loud. My major claims were that Zune doesn't support volume or equalization control per song or album bases. regarding video, I can't tell much, because I do not have videos in WMV format. Certainly big, and bright screen is good for viewing videos, but lacking in supporting different formats limits using Zune for this purpose. Zune has NTSC video out, that can prevent using it for projecting video in some countries.
Wireless
I still do not understand why this feature is in Zune. I didn't try it for Zune to Zune communication, however it is useless for sync purpose. It is easy to setup wireless to be connected to home WiFi, however Zune drops connection unless synchronized data size below 2MB. I did all recommendations from Microsoft support site, but nothing helped. Actually one of the recommendations was having Zune powered. It means you need some wire anyway. What really would be nice, if Zune provided a kind of a simplistic browser allowing to look for files in music directories when some specific service is setup. I'd develop such feature gladly, I hope Microsoft listens me. Another disadvantage is if you have radio on, then it shorts battery life substantially.
Conclusion
Pros
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Big screen, easy readable, good contrast and colors
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Nice UI
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FM Tuner
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Two-dimensional navigation
Cons
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No clock
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No smart lists
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No statistics
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Short battery life
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Lousy wireless
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No recording
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No gapless playback
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No disk mode
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No song position in a list and list size
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No scroll names in play now
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Progress bar invisible on certain album arts
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No volume normalization
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No per son/album equalizer
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Screen invisible without backlit
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Doesn't persist volume and playback position between reboots
Recommendation
I’d recommend Zune to people who listen to music occasionally and own a relatively small song collection. Zune is also perfect for children, because of the big screen and easy navigation. However Zune is useless for serious music enthusiasts. All my recommendation are based on price under $100.