Microsoft - Zune (80GB) Media Player Review

Microsoft's been down the music player road before but took a hideous wrong turn. People who followed Microsoft met BadResults(tm) when their online web site went belly up and they couldn't buy new media. Stale content was the tip of the iceberg since Microsoft's poorly thought out rights scheme requires an online site server to periodically recertify content.

The Zune is a new take with a new online content portal, but similar badly thought out schemes. DRM content is the first humongous GOTCHA when dealing with Microsoft's online presence. Bad usability is the next --- the thing is meant to LOOK like a rip-off of iPod's usable interface, but that wheel doesn't work like Apple's well-implemented control and the Zun is quite a bit harder to actually USE on a day-to-day basis. Zune also implements a poorly implemented, badly secured broadcast feature that's virtually useless for any practical purpose --- it is essentially a wide-open backdoor for the knowledgable hacker. Maybe "wide-open doggie door" would be more accurate since the doorway isn't actually used by humans.

Microsoft's Zune does nothing that an iPod doesn't do better. It's online store is expensive, unlikely to be supported for the life of the player, and not as good as existing providers. Zune has Mickey Mouse features that are tech-driven rather than user-demand driven, and it's ugly with bad usability.

Smart music listeners will continue to gravitate towards pure MP3 players that work well with EVERY online music store and that are more flexible and user friendly. SANSA has some good players as do major brands like Sony. Because these work so well with DRM-free music and DRM-free online stores, I recommend them over either Zune or iPod.

Be smart. Stay away from proprietary technology using non-industry standards. Stay away from Zune. It sucks.