Zune 80 GB Digital Media Player (Black)

The Zune 80 is my first PMP (Personal Media Player) ever, and I must say that I think that it is AMAZING. All of my friends have mp3 players (mostly Ipods), but I never really liked them. I just thought that the screens were too small, and I really wanted something that would have great video playback. All of the Ipods (except for the Apple iPod touch 32 GB with Software Upgrade) have small screens in my opinion, especially the Apple iPod classic 80 GB Silver (6th Generation), with it's huge amount of memory. I really didn't warm up to the idea of watching a two hour movie on the Ipod Classic's small 2.5 inch display. So I waited until I found something better than an Ipod. And I did.A friend of mine bought the 1st gen Zune (Zune 30 GB Digital Media Player (Black)), and I loved the sceen size and the user interface, but I wanted more memory. Then the Zune 80 was released last November, and I fell in love.Here's why:- The Zune 80's GLASS (!!!) screen is 3.2 inches. That's almost twice the size of the Ipod Classic's!- The Zune 80 has a nice, matte metal finished case back, instead of the Ipod's freaking, scratch-prone chrome.- The Zune 80 has a really cool, wi-fi sharing feature that allows you to send songs, photos, videos, and podcasts to other, nearby Zunesters.- The Zune 80 can hold up to 20,000 songs, 25,000 photos, and 250 HOURS OF VIDEO!!!!- The Zune 80 has the new Zune Pad, which is similar to the Ipod's Cick Wheel, but alot easier to use (in my opinion, anyway).- The Zune 80's big sceen is glass instead of plastic, making it really scratch resistant.- The Zune 80 is able to sync wirelessly with your PC.- The Zune 80 can play videos, photos, and music through your XBox 360 using your home wi-fi network.- The Zune 80 has an FM radio (unlike any of the ipods), that, with select channels, will display the call numbers, name of the channel, name of the artist, and the name of the song!- The Zune 80 has an awesome user interface that is very attractive and easy to use and understand.- The Zune 80's design is elegant, sexy, and feels great in the hand.- The Zune 80 comes with the Zune Premium Headphones v2, which are freaking AWESOME, with fantastic sound quality and great fit in your ears.- The Zune 80 sells for the same price as the Ipod Classic ($149), so if you have saved up to buy an Ipod Classic, but decided you wanted the Zune 80 instead, then it's no extra money out of you pocket!So, I bought my Zune about a month ago from Amazon, and I haven't had any problems with it. A few of my friends are even thinking about jumping off the Ipod bandwagon and buying one for themselves!So, if you want a high-capacity mp3 player with amazing video playback and some out of the ordinary features, then go for the Zune 80. Get off the bandwagon!Here are some accessories that I found that work well with the Zune 80:- Insten - Retractable Audio Video Cable for Apple iPod Photo, iPod Video, iPod U2 Special Edition, Microsoft Zune by Eforcity- Eforcity USB Travel Charger Adapter for Palm (PalmOne) m500, i705, Tungsten T, W, C, Zire, Zire 71, Treo 600, 650, HP iPAQ 3100, h5555, Jornada 500 series, Sony Clie NX70 /SL10 /N or S series Sony Clie 500 /600 /700 series, Toshiba e310 /e755 /Handsprin...- iLive IBR2807DPBLK iPod Docking System/Boombox with Speakers, AM/FM Radio in Black This works well with the Zune 80 because it has an audio line-in jack, and the Zune 80 fits perfectly in the Ipod cradle, even though it will not charge it. The iLive comes in severral colors, too: pink, blue, green, white. You can also find them in almost any K-Mart store. To be able to use this with your Zune 80 you will also need: Scosche IU3.5RC 3.5mm Retractable Cable- Monster Wireless Fm Transmitter- Premium White Universal USB Car (Vehicle) Charger Adaptor [w/ LED power indicator] for Apple iPod Shuffle iPod/Zune and Microsoft Zune\- Zune Leather Case 80 GBUPDATE:Well, the Zune 3.0 update came out last month. And it is GREAT!!! The software is pretty much the same, but the new features added to both the new AND the Zunes are awesome!- GAMES: Now even though the games that come with the 3.0 update (Texas hold 'em and Hexic) aren't that great, it IS promising, and Microsoft has said that they will release more. If they are free is another matter. Keep your fingers crossed!- TAG SONGS ON FM: This is a really great feature. Unfortunatly, I can't get it to work lol.- AUDIOBOOKS: Very exciting!- WI-FI MUSIC STORE: This is the best new feature! Really simple to use and REALLY fast. Only downside is the album art is low quality. I didn't notice a difference in audio, thank God.

So I should first admit that I was originally only familiar with the 1st generation Zune and had heard bad things about them. I owned 2 different iPods, the first one being an older 20gig model which was stolen and I replaced it with the 80gig iPod classic which I really enjoyed. Unfortunately it died without explanation--in the middle of playing a song even--less than a month after the warranty expired. The Apple store in my town said it could not be repaired and offered to sell me a new one at a small discount. I was so annoyed that this very expensive gadget had died as if almost on cue right after the warranty ran out that I went home and ordered this Zune as a protest purchase.To put it simply I really really like this player. I've had it for 2 months now and I mainly use it in the car with an aux connection to my radio, but I am comfortable saying that I like the Zune more than the iPods I have owned.The Casing: Unlike the iPod, I don't feel like I'm holding a delicate piece of equipment. It looks and feels sturdy without looking cheap. There were scratches all over my iPod within a week or two of taking it out of the box, but I've yet to see a single mark on this Zune. It's been in my pocket, my backpack, the center console and glove box of my car and various junk drawers around my house. This thing is a trooper.The Screen: Primarily, it's bigger. To watch videos you actually turn the player horizontal which provides you with basically a wide screen effect that makes watching movies or tv shoes very easy with no squinting. My iPod would always crop the sides of widescreen movies even when I adjusted the settings but you get the full picture on this thing. Everything is clearly visable even if you happen to be looking from a slight angle unlike the iPod. Also the screen seems very resistent to scratches.FM Tuner: I don't listen to the radio much but the FM tuner that's built in displays station id, song info and artist info if available. It also allows you to save a song from the radio if you like it so you can purchase it later from the Zune Marketplace (more on that later). Apparently the attenna is built into the earbuds that come supplied and I've had no problems with reception. I haven't used any other earbuds with the player, but I would assume you would loose reception without the Zune earbuds to pick up the signal. That's purely a guess though.Display: The background for the menu screens on the player can be customized much like your desktop wallpaper on Windows by either choosing one of the approximately 30 backgrounds that come preloaded or by using any picture or image loaded from your computer. I was actually surprised by the variety and quality of the images that come preloaded on the Zune and would have been relatively satisfied if my background options were limited to these mostly abstract, occassionally pyschadelic designs and patterns, although having the option to choose my own background image is even better. The menus themselves are completely intuitive and very easy to navigate.Controls: This model Zune has a square-ish touch pad with a 'back' button to the left of the pad and a 'play/pause' button to the right. I've found the touchpad to be much more responsive and easier to use than the fickle wheel thing from my iPod. You simply slide your finger up and down to scroll through the menus and once you're listening to a track you perform the same motion to adjust the volume. For making left/right selections you simply slide your finger in the desired direction. When you turn the player horizontal to watch video, the touchpad automatically re-orients the direction of the controls appropriately. And if you don't like sliding your way through menus, it can also be used as a d-pad to manually click through to the selection you want. I like to slide through my artist list to quickly get in the general area and then manually click to the artist I'm looking for so I don't scroll past it.Earbuds: The earbuds are great. Certainly not the absolutely best ones out there, but much better than the ones that come with iPods. Not much more to say about them.The Software: The only reason I gave this 4 stars and not 5 was due to the Zune software that you must load on your computer to sync the media from your computer to the player (I'll just call it Zune-tunes for simplicity and to avoid confusion) and partially due to the a particularly annoying feature of the Zune Marketplace which is similar to the iTunes store. To provide you a point of reference, I'm running Windows XP, fully updated.The one thing that I always like about iTunes was that the user interface was so simple that anyone who has even spent 5 minutes using a computer could easily figure out how to play a song, make a playlist, burn a cd, or download media. The user interface for Zune-tunes, however, seems needlessly complex and would be foreign even to folks who are familiar with Real Player, Windows Media Player or any other commonly-used multi-media software. That being said, it has grown on me over the past two months. After getting used to its design, I began to appreciate some of the little extra features that Zune has over iTunes. For instance it provides a number of options for managing your podcasts that I find very helpful. It also has a feature similar to iTunes Genius (the automatic playlist generator) called SmartDJ that gives a bit more control in setting criteria for the sort of playlist that you want it to create. I often found that my Genius playlists lacked variety, but SmartDJ provides certain options that let you generate a playlist that doesn't just keep repeating the same 3 or 4 artists. The settings menu also allows you to specify the level of 'flashiness' (my term) you want the software to display on a sliding, numbered scale depending on how much RAM you have to spare which I find very helpful because even though my 2gigs was plenty years ago, now it gets eaten up fast if I have a web browser open and media playing. Also, Zune-tunes doesn't ever try to take over your My Music folder like iTunes always wants to and is very non-intrusive to the computer's files overall. However, since it is a Microsoft program the whole thing still works pretty seamlessly with Windows just not in an obnoxious way.As for the Zune Marketplace, my only complaint is the point system which is used to make purchases. You must first purchase 'points' and then those points are used to buy various media. I haven't bothered calculating the precise exchange rate, but I bought 2,000 points for $25 and with that I've been able to buy 2 standard priced albums with enough left over to buy 4 individual songs which are usually 99 points each (I have a few points left over after that but not enough to buy anything). So you can see it's a little difficult to comparison shop but I suppose that's the point. Otherwise, the Marketplace is easy to navigate and has a decent selection of different media.The Zune player certainly isn't the status symbol that an iPod is, but I honestly believe it to be a superior product; and the software's flaws regarding its interface are certainly balanced by many other benefits that it has over iTunes (but again the points are really really annoying). I would definitely recommend this player.