Last month Ohmpage was sent an 8GB Zune. This new toy had been out in the US for a while now with lots of talk surrounding the little device but surprisingly little solid information since a lot of the discussion ended up in heated opinionated brawls with false analogies and rampant speculation. Comparisons to the iPod seem unavoidable though rational ones remain oddly rare. The toy is out in Canada this Friday the 13th, finally, and still so few people have any idea of its existence. Many of those who know it exists know little about it. So let’s clear some of that up, shall we?

Packaging
Right off the bat we were struck by the packaging. It uses extremely minimal amounts of plastic, which we find very pleasing and is a treat to open. Ritualistic unpackaging is here but yet with out too much waste. This is not common at all, particularly with consumer electronics. They even minimized the manual in to a small pamphlet rather than the traditional 1/8” booklet. There is no software disk either, but rather instructions that one should visit the product’s website to get the latest client software and firmware updates. This is pleasing because those pack-in disks are always outdated by the time you buy any product and end up little more than coasters. The intuitiveness of the device itself allows them to get away with such light instruction too, only telling you how to perform the initial boot up of the unit (by holding down the play button) then allowing the user to navigate the interface themselves, highlighting the intuitiveness of both the hardware and software.

Hardware
The hardware itself has a good, solid feel to it. It doesn’t flex or ever feel cheap. We were sent the black model which has a metallic casing. We discovered that the other colored models have a different plastic casing which might feel different in the hand but the black model we’ve been road-testing is very well resolved. The metal doesn’t scratch, the buttons have good tactile feedback and are generally well sized and positioned, the main touch-control pad is great. It’s like a cross between a laptop’s touchpad and a game controller’s D-pad. Aside from this control pad there are 2 buttons (back, and play/pause), and one switch which is located on the top of the unit and serves to lock all the buttons. It would be nice if the lock switch had a bit more tactile feedback though – a satisfying and firm click would mean we could always be sure of its status without having to make visual contact. The only real problem is that the headphone jack and the charge/data jack are both at the bottom of the unit. The charge/link cable needs to be pinched to be unplugged from the unit and this pinch can be less easy than it should be if you have large fingers and the headphones are plugged in. That is such a minor thing though and the screen more than makes up for it – It is very sharp and bright with high contrast. It’s a delight to watch video on it which seems crystal clear. It has a glass cover which keeps it clean and clear to. It has to be used to be appreciated.

Interface
The Zune interface is a delight. It has large clear text and is very intuitive to use even for those who are less than ideally technology savvy. It responds instantly with no noticeable lag time and seems very much based on the Windows Vista Media Center interface. Sending and receiving content to other Zunes is superbly easy as is wirelessly syncing. There is full use of album cover display for your music too which is a great touch, with substitute covers downloaded automatically if you don’t provide it yourself. It even finds the art for obscure albums to our surprise. It is extremely easy and quick to find what you want to watch or listen to. It’s so easy to get this wrong, and so many digital audio players do but the Zune somehow. There are no failings in the user interface department.

Client
The Zune client is the real downer here. It is the big obstacle that the Microsoft Zune team is going to have to overcome if they want this product to really take off. In short, the client software is garbage. There are so many things wrong here it’s hard to know where to start. The very fact that you need proprietary client side software to manage and sync your Zune is not a good thing but if you’re going to tie a device to a specific client software, you had better make sure it’s good. It has clear interface problems, can be a total resource hog, and yet is the only place you can do some actions. If you are running it on a Windows Media Center you can sync your recorded TV shockingly enough but that just highlights the fact that they are aware of the Media Center without actually supporting it enough. You can’t manage your Zune through the Media Center interface, with a remote while sitting on your couch. Such functionality would be great, meaning never having to sit at a desk to manage your Zune. Often the client seems to be giving us resource issues needing to be restarted just so we can see things again. It can be difficult to manage a large list with a fixed layout and it doesn’t even have a mini mode of any kind. It can act as a music player itself but why would you use it as such? Maybe because it’s the only way to get your music playback synchronized with ‘The Social’ which is the Zune social network. The Zune software doesn’t even play nice with others – for instance Last.fm which already enjoys a lot of popularity and is not in direct competition with the Zune in any noticeable way. Not having an open API or allowing users to integrate with other software or services is decidedly unsocial and something we are told that Microsoft is thinking about addressing soon. If Microsoft can fix these client-side software issues with the coming fall release we’d heard about from our inside sources, our hesitations will vanish. These problems are solvable and there is no reason they need to remain. It has been suggested to us that they will be resolved come fall. That would be great. Let’s hope so.

Marketplace
The Zune Marketplace is the Microsoft online music store with features such as a subscription all-you-can-eat type content plan. No Zune Marketplace has been announced for Canada yet and we are told by another Zune team insider that it is not even on the horizon. This won’t really affect the majority of us but it is a factor for those entry level users who need somewhere to source content digitally. If you already have a music library and get it elsewhere, this won’t really affect you though. With the Zune marketplace unavailable in Canada, we were unable to test it out so even if it does come to Canada, we have no idea what it’s like.

Games
Yet another Zune developer we cornered described a bit about the Zune’s future as a gaming platform. We were even able to play-test some Zune games during our road-test. They are still in the beta stage but all are very responsive and show a lot of potential. Game developers will have a lot of potential with this device which should be interesting to see unfold. There is likely to be the ability for sharing games wirelessly between Zunes, with each game working identically across all hardware models. There is the structure for up to eight player simultaneous multiplayer too which could get very interesting too. This feature is likely to make a public debut in the coming fall update for the Zune platform.

Party
A couple of weeks ago we descended upon the ‘Coming Zune’ party with a horrible name to go with all the other horrible Zune cachphrase based marketing. It was held in Toronto and co-sponsored by Red Stripe, Dose Canada, and Vice magazine. The party was great and we were able to check out some of the other models coming out in Canada. Live music was provided by Quest for Fire. They were pretty good with the screen on the larger units looking as good as on the smaller one we’ve been testing out. Sending songs back and forth was surprisingly quick and fun too – it was our first chance to test out some of the social features of the devices. While there we were also able to check out some of the artwork you can get ‘Tattooed’ (laser etched) on to your Zune for free for a limited time too, some of which is Canadian exclusive too. You can check that deal out at zuneoriginals.ca.

Conclusions
So the client is total crap but you don’t have to use it too much once you do your initial sync. You’ll probably avoid it anyhow. In the future this should be fixed though and there is some potential there, if only they pay attention to user feedback and think more about integration rather than providing users with reasons not to adopt. Other than that the Zune is a great little device. FM Radio is a nice feature though we don’t really use it much. Wireless now seems indispensable – we wouldn’t want a device without Wi-fi at this point. It seems durable and built to last. It’s intuitive and responsive. Sound and video quality are astoundingly good – better than they need to be. No Zune Marketplace will scare off the more casual among us but others won’t mind whatsoever. Is it worth your money? If you were going to buy an iPod, we figure you may as well buy a Zune. It’s marginally cheaper, with less planned obsolescence, and has a few more tricks up it’s proverbial sleeve. The most common question I’m asked is “So it’s like an iPod, right?” and after a few weeks of testing, my only response can be ‘yes, it does everything the iPod does, usually better, and it does a little more too which you might like’. There is no real downside to picking the Zune platform over the iPod platform except you don’t get to refresh your membership in the cult of Apple. Welcome to Canada Zune. Competition is good for us all.