The Zune is a failed attempt at Microsoft to produce an IPod killer…they entered the market too late, when everyone already had an IPod and weren’t willing to shell out another $500 for a similar device, and being that now Apple have released the Ipod touch and IPhone, there isn’t much chance of a comeback unless Microsoft do something really special, which they may be doing as there are now rumours of a new HD version.

That’s not to say that the Zune is a bad product….far from it in fact, with up to 120Gb of storage, support for pictures, music, video as well as games straight from Microsoft’s own XNA development kit (meaning you can make your own), a larger screen and support for wireless syncing over WI-FI, it is quite a nice device…not to mention the fact that the bundled headphones are many times better that the ones that ship with the IPod and the Zune software for the PC is both better and easier to use.

The only thing that I don’t like is the ‘squircle’ (button)….as well as being a button, it is also a track pad, meaning you might try to push the button to select your song and accidentally change your song choice by moving your finger slightly sideways on the button…the good news is that this feature can be turned off.

There is a comparison of the features of 2 different types of Zune to their IPod equivalents on a site called
Zunescene (click for link).

Chris Thursfield