New Zune Models Land - First Take

Michael Gartenberg | November 12, 2007, 11:31 AM

The new crop of Zunes have hit today, things are pretty much as we covered in our first take with a few new details, such as the fact you can order your Zune from zuneoriginals.net  and have your device rather nicely laser engraved (although Phil Torrone will laser engrave just about anything for you if you like this kind of stuff) and a new ad campaign that's been running in theaters as well as on TV. I've also been using an 8gb flash Zune for a few days. Here are some thoughts.

1. The ad is interesting but it doesn't show off the device nearly enough or showcase what it can do that other players can't. I'm all for lifestyle marketing but this is too soon in the product life to show this off. By contrast, when Apple launched iPod and iPhone took a lot of time to show consumers what those devices could do and how the UI worked and what they could expect. Yes, today Apple just needs to show us some folks dancing to the tune of a new song with white headphones flapping about because we know the iPod is there (and when Apple intros new models, we do get to see them as well). The Zune ad was a little too artsy and frankly way too abstract I think for telling the story that Microsoft needs to tell at this moment in time.

2. The new hardware is nice (but my, there's a lot of paper generated for such a small package). The box has sync cable, a cheap pair of headphones and no software (like Apple, you'll need to download the Zune software from the site before you can get started). The hardware is nice, looking more like a 2nd generation Nano with a larger screen. The UI builds on the already excellent Zune UI (which in turn owes a lot to the old portable media center platform). Once nice thing is the fine matte finish on the back of the device which unlike the iPod is not scratch or fingerprint prone. There's also a glass screen that's likely to be scratch resistant as well. Overall, the hardware is nice. Color choice is in the eye of the beholder. There's no brown this time around but the green version I've been using leaves a lot to be desired. Fortunately, there are other colors available including a nice basic black.

Installation of the software was smooth on my Windows XP test machine (that had the first version of the Zune software installed). That is, until I noticed that only seven artists and 117 songs were visible (out of  the 4,000 + files on my PC). Unfortunately, unlike in Windows Media Player or iTunes, there's no way to force the Zune software to re-search. Quitting the app, deleting the Zune folder in the app preferences folder fixed that problem. Syncing was painless for me (including wireless sync, which is a nice feature but i'd much rather see the ability to sync podcasts directly without the need to go back to the PC)  and i had no problems getting music, pictures and video on the device. But there's a lot to be desired. Playlists lack flexibility, there was no easy way for example to create a playlist with all the songs in a particular genre. Creating a new blank jazz playlist, creates just that. A blank playlist that needs to be manually updated. I've grown way to used to smart playlists in both Windows Media Player and iTunes to go back to managing things by hand. There's not even a simple way (that I can see) to tell how many songs are in a playlist and how big that list will be making managing the 8gb of storage much more of a chore than it needs to be.

Bottom line, Zune is a solid experience but one that is a far cry from being able to challenge Apple's dominance in the field. While it's good to see Microsoft marketing Zune, it's not clear they're telling the right story, one that would resonate with consumers. And Apple isn't the only player out there. SanDisk who is currently the number two is going to give Zune a real run for the money. For example, while Apple and Microsoft give you an 8gb Flash player for $199, Sandisk over the Sansa View for the same price with 16gb of Flash, total compatibility with Windows Media Player and nicely revised hardware and software experience. While not everyone is going to buy and iPod,  Microsoft is going to find itself in squeezed from two different sides, Apple on the one and SanDisk on the other (reaching out for strong value play). While Microsoft aims for the number two slot, it's not clear that they'll reach it this time around. But in the words of Bill Gates, "I'm sure a year from now we'll do even better,"