Its been a little more than a month that I've had the Zune and as I mentioned in an earlier post, the packaging is tight. It appears that thoughtful consideration was not only given to the player itself, but even to the colourful foamy ear bud covers which fit over comfortable ear buds (unlike the ones that come with the iPod). But what is not so thoughtful, no what bites, is that Zune is 100% NOT Mac compatible. How it makes good business sense to alienate that much of the marketplace who are Mac users I'll never be able to figure out. But for this reviewer and Mac user, this is a big downer.
Luckily my BF does have a PC so he volunteered to download the Zune software to get started. In the process of downloading the software it actually seized up his laptop. A smooth looking machine it may be but that wasn't enough to make for a smooth start to use it. Talking later with a friend, I learned that he had experienced a similar sort of ordeal when he bought a Zune for a Father's Day gift. Nevertheless my intrepid BF sorted it out and by day's end I could begin my test drive.
The elegant 8GB Zune has 3 buttons on its face just below the scratch resistant 1.8" 320X 240 pixel colour display. The screen has a vertical orientation while listening to music and makes a smooth transition to a horizontal one while viewing videos and pictures. Hit the trackpad or little play/pause button and a two dimensional menu with easy to read font comes to life. Designer Steve Kaneko and his team have done well. While I'd say that so far, the Zune is generally intuitive to navigate, the trackpad is annoyingly sticky compared to the iPod.
In my next post, I'll tell you about my take on the marketplace and social aspects of Zune.
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