I am sitting here right now with a Zune once again and am pretty impressed by its performance so far in conjunction with my HP TX2110 tablet laptop. I am listening to a podcast entitled "This American Life" and it is absolutely spellbinding and really helps me to take the time to evaluate life from a different perspective. Anyway, during all of my time with my MacBook Pro and iPod I never once imagined that I would ever give a Windows machine the time of day...let alone a Vista model! On top of that I now find myself captivated by the allure of my 80GB Zune in red as it lures me away from the familiar silver lining of my 80GB iPod Classic.
There are some interesting characteristics about this particular player that immediately become apparent out of the box: its slimmer profile from the previous version, its larger screen, its glossy finish that's reminiscent of bathroom tile and its distinct non-iPod stance that silently declares "Apple can kiss my *** and take that click-wheel and shove it!" :-) After coming out onto the world's stage behind its long forgotten predecessor, this fashionably late incarnation of Microsoft ingenuity can easily raise the question, "Where have you been?"
While the unboxing experience doesn't exactly reflect that of the Apple iPod, it is nonetheless worhty of a second glance in regards to typical electronic packaging. My first day with the Zune was basically a usual run through of the interface menus and settings as well as a test run of the audio and video quality. Upon hearing the first WMA song I quickly noticed a great amount of audio detail in comparison to the AAC files on my iPod Classic. I am by no means an experienced audiophile, but I assume this finding has something to do with the size of the format compression. Basically I figure that a smaller AAC file at a certain bitrate on the iPod is going to have a little less detailing on a song versus a larger WMA or MP3 file at the same bitrate, but I could be wrong. Either way I did hear music from the Zune that was much more richer in sound quality even though the lack of EQ and weak bass proved to be annoying. I was even more surprised to see that Microsoft stepped up to the plate and provided worthwhile headphones instead of following Apple's lead on those horrible earbuds!! Album art was a pleasure to see blown up on the Zune screen in the midst of music playback, and the three button system didn't take long to get used to...after I turned off that useless touch pad feature.
The second generation Zune proved to be very portable like my iPod Classic and I especially liked the scratch resistant back of brushed metal. All things aside in regards to audio quality and screen size, this is really no different from my current iPod and therefore is not a necessary purchase.
Such a shame since I even experimented with purchasing Zune Marketplace points and got a few items from the online store. The transaction of each media file was an easy situation with a couple steps of online point purchasing added whenever enough points weren't available, but I still prefer the direct method of iTunes. I admit that the music on my iPod Classic may not be as rich as the Zune, but it is good enough for entertainment and fulfillment...especially with the EQ and bass! So long Zune80, it has been great while it lasted.
TRENT
Sent from my Samsung i780
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