Forget the iPod - GET A ZUNE
599481
We purchased the Zune 120gb for our kid for Christmas '08. He loves it. Our oldest is an iPod junkie and now wishes he had a Zune. Ease of downloading songs, ease of finding that special song quickly - well, you can't beat a Zune. The kid also loves being able to hook up to WiFi and also trade songs with other Zune owners. Only draw back is you need Windows Vista in order to add movies (other functions are fine with XP). We just need to get up to date with technology. And for the money, 120gb - well, the kid can have his music, his games and his movies and still have room! It should keep him quite for at least 2 years.
1867886
The Zune HD is an amazing media player, and was by far, my best purchase of 2009. I use it daily and enjoy every minute of it. If you want apps then this isn't the player for you, you want an iPod Touch, but if you want an unparalleled music and video experience in a PMP, the the Zune HD is perfect.
762715
Great device, does a lot of things really well, although a few not so great.  For me an internal speaker is a must(not on the zune hd).  Zune 4.0 software is really good and all you can eat music zune pass could over time pay for the zune(unlimited song downloads with subscription, as well as 10 downloads a month to keep even if you cancel zune pass).  Overall great device paired with outstanding software, the few kinks in the hardware's user interface i believe will be fixed in future firmware updates.  A must buy if you can afford or need a do everything mp3/video player.
507546
I just picked this up yesterday and I am very impressed.  Move over Apple!
Pros:
- Great user interface.  It's elegantly designed and very easy to navigate.  I like the button touch volume control which allows me to change volume through a cover or through my pockets (something you can't do on the ipod).  The player itself is beautiful too.
- Lightweight and easy to use device.  The actual device is basically the same as the 4GB and 8GB 2nd generation models.  LCD, weight, and hardware functionality is basically identical as far as I can tell.  Of course, here you get 16GB of memory.
- Love the FM radio and new Zune 3.0 features. You can easily add songs you like while listening to the radio to your cart (on your device) and then download them either when you connect to your computer later or immediately through a wifi network.  You also have the wifi marketplace which allows easy download of songs with Zunepass and I like now that there is a clock on the device.
-  The software PC interface is slick and intuitive.  You can easily drag and drop songs to reorganize them and I the interface is far more slick than iTunes.  There are helpful features to get album art or even missing tag information on music as well.  MixView is a very cool feature that enables you to see related artists with a simple click of the mouse.  There's also a user rating system for songs though the classification is binary - either like or don't like.
- Great sound fidelity, although there is again no equalizer
- Superfast download/sync speeds.  Downloaded about 3,000 songs in minutes!
Cons:
- You need Zunepass to get the most out of the marketplace, and it's expensive at $15/ month.  But for that, you can wirelessly (through wifi) preview songs and download them (and most songs/artists are available on Zunepass).  And if you ever stop your subscription, you lose your music.  If that's unappealing, you can always download and pay for songs individually.
-  Online marketplace interface can be a little vexing and still a work in progress.  The music is there, but not the easiest to get to it.
-  Earbuds that come with the device are so so.  To get full sound fidelity, probably will need to upgrade them.
-  1.8" screen is great for navigation and music, but only adequate for video.  If you want primarily a video device, I'd get the 120GB 3rd generation video player.  The screen is much bigger (3.2") though the overall device is bigger and heavier (4.5 ounces vs. 1.7 for the 16GB)
-  16GB model only available in black and like previous versions, scratches/smudges show up easily.

All in all, I am psyched they came up with a 16GB version without increasing the size.  I primarily use this as a music player and couldn't be happier with my purchase!
3026778
That's the very thing about Apple products; all the advertised features work well.  I have about 4 iPods and they all work perfectly fine.  They do what they claim to and do it well.

If you want an mp3 and video player that's easy to use and well designed, then the iPod is for you.  Sure there are many choices out there, but none give you the user experience that the iPod, combined with iTunes does.

I considered getting the Zune because of its low price and features.  However, too many people are having problems with them not working as advertised.  So, I chose the iPod 30.
739096
I got this Zune about 13 months ago. The cost/Gig compared to the ipod was reason alone to pick it up. The pros were the screen, storage capacity and earbuds that came with it. Frankly, despite being an ipod user i have to say the Zune hardware design and quality is good. The problem is the software!

The Zune desktop software that you use to load/sync content is slow, difficult to use and VERY VERY buggy (Just go to the zune website and click the support forums). Things don't transfer over properly, numbers tracks is a pain and it does not get 'correct' album art from the web like itunes amongst other issues. Now, after updating to the most recent version (yet another one) of the software from Microsoft which updated my Zune device's software too, the device has become unreadable. I have tried everything and desktop software refuses to read it. Support is horrible. After talking to a few other Zune users online, it seems that the only solution is to mail it into customer service for repair. They will be charging me of course. So after being forced to upgrade software by Microsoft which rendered my Zune useless, i now have to pay to get it work again (It was working fine before). If i had to choose again, i would stick with an ipod. I will probably be selling this non-working Zune on ebay at a loss. Horrible Horrible Software!!!
3427567
First I'll say I've used an iPod for over years. It's a nice player but I always struggled with certain features. Its restrictive in what you can do with it and every time a new update for iTunes came down the pike, it would take me what seemed like hours to get everything working again.

Anyway ...

My wife wants an MP3 to use for exercise. It MUST have an FM radio because several TV's are available in her exercise studio and the audio is broadcast on low power FM frequencies.

After looking around I decide to try the Zune. I am nothing but impressed.

First of course it has the FM tuner and reception is pretty good. After installing the Zune Marketplace software I see why no instructions are packed with the unit. You simply do not need any. The interface and features of both the Zune player and software are very simple and intuitive. My wife has tried other MP3 players and was always calling me to try and figure out how to do this or that. Within 30 minutes, she had mastered the Zune and hasn't called me one time to explained something to her.

She loves the LCD screen and how easy it is to add and remove photos. She loves how easy it is to create play lists and add new music. I gave her the 8GB model and last I heard, she had almost 50 albums and 100 photos on it and it was barely half full.

Ripping music from CD's is extremely easy and they rip in standard MP3 format. Nothing proprietary, music you can play on any thing or burn to CD.

It has a infrared transmitter so you can trade songs with friends.

Finally, its wireless. Again, my wife can update her music and photos on her PC, simply turn on the Zune, it connects to our wireless home network and automatically updates.

To be honest, Zune is by far the BEST MP3 player I have yet to see.

iPod gets a lot of hype but it must be good marketing, its sure not about features and usability.
3432652
I purchased my 2nd generation Zune a few weeks ago and the experience has been a roller coaster.  When I'm running and doing nothing but listening to songs I've bought online and were properly tagged it performs flawlessly.  But throw in a bunch of songs that weren't properly tagged (that is to say, if your music collection isn't 100 percent from sources that properly classify the meta data) it has become a nightmare.  The Zune software does not do a good job of recognizing and inserting meta data based on the song name.  There are other applications that do this for you, and after a few hours of searching and experimenting I came across a program called MusicBrainz Picard that did a pretty good job.  After "Picarding" my music collection I had a much easier time actually finding the song I wanted to listen to.  Before that I had an enormous amount of music that just fell under the "Unknown Artist" selection even though it showed the actual artist's name!  So the early loading of the zune was extremely frustrating to say the least.  I highly recommend you use the above program if your collection has not been properly sorted and tagged.

Next thing I decided to do was load all my pictures on the unit.  I have about 9 gigs of pictures and I store them on both my external hard drive and my local hard drive.  So I directed the Zune software to automatically sync the pics on my local hard drive and started the load process.  24 hours later I was at around 47 percent complete and extremely puzzled.  So after erasing and reloading my zune a few times with both the pictures and the music I was still getting the extremely slow load times.  It turns out that the zune resamples and reformats the pictures for the zune, so it was doing that for every single picture I owned.  There was also a conflict with the external hard drive because when I later turned it off and manually synced the picture folder the sync went much smoother.  To this day I'm still not sure what the problem was.

After that I tried to load videos on the zune.  Well I knew the zune was extremely selective about what it did and didn't play but had no idea it would be so picky with it's own wmv format.  I tried several video conversion tools (cucusoft first and some others I can't remember) and the zune simply did not like the outputted wmv format they produced.  Finally I discovered Allok video converter and instead converted the files to mp4.  When converting to the 4 to 3 aspect ratio the movie still doesn't take up the whole screen and the top and bottom has the black letterbox type bars which is annoying on a small screen.

So I've finally sorted out all my issues with the media.  I'm not happy that the zune doesn't support various formats (xvid would have been really nice and it still does not support .aa files from audible.com) but I knew that when I bought the player so I can't really hold that against the zune's rating.  The zune marketplace is absolutely atrocious.  For some inexplicable reason they went with their own currency in the form of Microsoft points and you have to actually purchase these points instead of just spending cash each time you buy a song.  I don't want to perform another conversion in my head to figure out how much different songs cost!  I also don't want to spend gobs of money up front to spend the points over time.  I do not use the marketplace at all and instead buy all my mp3's from amazon.

Other quick notes:  The accessories for the zune are plentiful and adequate.  The earbuds are top notch for the player.  I haven't used the wireless feature so cannot comment on that.  Out of the box the unit cannot be used as an external hard drive but some creative people have figured out work arounds for this.

That's all I have to say.  Overall I'm happy with the zune but the initial setup was a nightmare.
1015037
This second generation Zune is a lot of fun to use.  In my opinion, the the touch-sensitive Zunepad is easier and more intuitive to use than the Ipod's scroll wheel.  The Zunepad allows you to "swipe" to scroll, which makes it a breeze to manage long song lists.  I also prefer the Zune's snazzy interface to the iPod's, which is getting a bit boring.  The Zune software is also a pleasure to use, and makes it fun to explore new music (especially if you use ZunePass, the [...] monthly music subscription service).

On the downside, the Zune does not play nice with [...]: it's currently not possible to play Audible files on the Zune.  A Zune-friendly alternative is audiobooks.com, which offers their titles in universally compatible mp3 files, but they do not seem to have as many titles as audible.com, so if you're an avid audiobook listener, this may be an issue for you.

The Zune 8GB is well-designed and feels solid in your hand.  It's a very worthy alternative to the aging iPod line.
2614276
The main reason people are going to choose the Zune over anything else is the size of the hard drive and with the new 120gb model out its simply an enormous amount of storage but Microsoft have made a dogs dinner out of some of the features.

1. Software.  Extremely annoying-doesn't delete when it says it does, synching is a right pain with a silly folder method, drag and drop doesnt work all of the time.

2. Extras.  Unless you're a computer geek then any videos you want to put on this have to be converted to WMV files or MP4 files and this involves buying a converter.  It takes an absolute age to both convert and then synch these onto the Zune.  It doesnt come with a case of any kind unlike the Iriver H10,see below.

3. Audio.  Iriver owners will appreciate what I'm saying here.  I had a H10 for years and the amount of presets it had including an equalizer AND SRS wow made the H10 a superb player accoustically.  The Zune has absolutely nothing!!!  I mean come on! Not even bog standard treble and bass like your old Sony 1990 walkman used to have.

4. Radio.  Yes its great to have a radio but why not have presets?

Ok thats the negatives.  The positives are that the screen is beautiful and clear and its easy to use and is a monster of a thing at 80gb and 120gb respectively.

I got mine as a present-if I had bought it I probably wouldnt have been amused-the lack of any equalizer on the sound really is incredible though.
350382
Everything about Zune sucks - so please don't waste your money! The device is flawed, the software sucks, and the social is a joke! Save yourself a lot of frustration and steer clear of Zune.
906034
The Zune 8Gb is a good media player. Is it better that everything else out there? No, not that I've seen. Battery life is good (make sure you do about 5 or 6 full discharges and charges before passing judgment), interface is good, sound quality is good.....blah, blah blah, good, but nothing earth shattering. So why 5 stars? Because Zune Marketplace is the best thing to happen to music since the electric guitar. Seriously, for $15 a month I get 10 songs to keep and access to millions of songs. I can download as many damn songs as I want, the whole Stones catalog?  You name it..... well, I've run into a few that are not available, I'd say less than 5% of what I looked up and it's usually something obscure that only the geekiest [...] reviewer would know.  Heidi Spencer's two small time Milwaukee releases are on the Marketplace....and they're great too! And, Heidi, you owe me a double espresso.  So, for a $5 a month premium over 10 songs on iTunes, you increase your music collection by a few hundred thousand titles (entire albums, if you're 35 or older, CDs if younger). If you love music, get a Zune, it's that simple. If you want apps and blah , blah ,blah buy an iPod Touch. However, MS is making a big mistake by discontinuing every player outside of the Zune HD. I'd never want to take an HD to the gym, it's too big and beautiful to get knocked around and soaked in sweat.  This one is portable enough to carry around, stick in your waistband, and Griffen makes a great clear case that covers everything but the inputs and buttons to protect it.
4370100
I bought the MS Zune 80GB because I wanted an alternative to the unexciting iPod.  I loved the look and feel of the Zune - from the sleek black casing to the edgy graphics and backgrounds.  I loved everything about this product - except the fact that it broke right away.

I bought my Zune in June 2008.  I loved the "squircle" and how easy it was to scroll through menus and lists of artists.  I loved the larger screen and the way that videos played with the Zune turned sideways.  I loved the nifty little headphones.  I loved the packaging.  I loved that this really seemed like an alternative to the iPod.  (I am a Mac person, but I found the  iPod to be boring.)  I loved the price.

I loved everything about the Zune, until everything started to break.  First, the battery would only hold a charge for 3-4 hours of music play time (with the wifi turned off).  Then the unit started to hang when I moved through the menus.  Then, to top it all off, the "squircle" stopped working.  Without it, I could no longer scroll through lists or menus, reset the unit or make song selections.  Internet research tells me that I am not the only with this problem, and there is no easy fix.

I loved the Zune so much I was willing to overlook the slow, clunky Zune computer interface.  It took me a total of about 10 hours over 2 days to load up my 50 GB music library, and the software needed a lot of coaxing, restarting and troubleshooting.  This was easily forgotten, once my 50GB of music were happily playing through my awesome little Zune headphones.  But when the music stopped for good, I remembered how much I HATED the Zune software.  It reminded me of Windows ME, the ill-fated OS that was absolute hell to use a few years back. Yes, it was THAT bad.

I hate to admit it, but my new iPod WORKS.  It loaded my now 60 GB music library in 2 hours, and the iTunes software is a dream  in comparison to the Zune.  The iPod has not broken so far, and I honestly don't think it will.  And if it does, I will not worry because my AppleCare experience has been very positive.

If only MS could give us all the great features of the Zune without the wonky "squircle" problems and glitchy software, we would have a real winner.  Maybe in a few years, I will give the Zune another go.
2114332
Just like a lot of us I bought one of these, thinking that it would be better than the Ipod (bigger screen etc.). I use Microsoft Vista, and first of all the device is not recognized, so I try to download the drivers and no luck, it simply doesn't work under Vista. So I go to my wife's windows XP machine and I start fiddling with it, after few unsuccessful tries (hours!) I am finally able to listen to my own songs from Zune.

Zune's interface is clearly not as good as the Ipod, the Ipod does make sense and it's a no brainer, the creators of Zune probably focussed on getting the Zune as cheap as they could so they can hope to make a few sales so they didn't focus on the interface, and/or computer support. After hours wasted I understood that the Zune is completely unusable and I will not wait 6 months that Microsoft releases a patch for it to somewhat make it work. I am returning it to the store today to get an Ipod, it's a no brainer, the Ipod is the same price and WORKS.

If you are thinking about buying one of these, then don't. Get an Ipod.
3267443
this thing rocks i got it for my birthday. i was tring to decied between this and the itouch and my friend told me that it suckes compared the zune now i laugh at the crapiness of the itouch ZUNE ROCKS
2956467
Having Never owned a MP3 player before I don't have anything to really compare it to, but I'm pretty happy with the Zune. There are some things the prevent it from being perfect in my mind, but it is well worth the money and works real well for music. For the most part I'm impressed.

I did a lot of research before buying an MP3 player and decided on the Zune for a few reasons. Some of these reasons turned out not to be as important as I thought and others didn't work right out of the box, but a couple of them are really impressive. I was really intrigued by the Automatic Wireless syncing, but to do this you'll need to buy a separate AC power cable. You can still sync wirelessly by going to the menu on the Zune, but this uses up a lot of batteries and the only included way to charge it is with the USB cable. So, unless you're going to go out and buy the power cable you don't really get wireless syncing. Another thing that was advertised was syncing with your recorded windows media TV shows. I've tried setting this up, but I couldn't figure out an easy way to do it in the Zune Program. It could still be possible but, if it is it isn't as simple as syncing with your music collection. The one feature that really works and sold me on the device is the Zune pad. I tried it out in the store and it is even better in practice. It is really easy to scroll though the long lists of artist/albums/songs on the Zune.

The Zune player itself seems pretty well built. Its small and light weight. The screen looks beautiful for the album art and for pictures. Video looks good too, but it is a little small. The Zune Pad that I mentioned before is a great feature. You can brush the pad to scroll through music and change the volume. It also responds to pressing it like a button. Overall the Unit is pretty nice. Battery life is good enough from my experience, I've never ran out of power when I needed it. However, like I mentioned before I don't have anything to compare it too.

The software, though downloaded separately is a pretty big portion of this player and, thankfully, it works real well. When you first load it up it should be able to find all the music and photos and videos, unless you store them in a weird place. If thats the case you'll have to tell the program where your media is before it will find it. Syncing is painless and you can set it up to sync all your media, or just your music, or specific items. There are a lot of options for what to sync and what not to. Using the software is pretty intuitive and I doubt any one would have trouble getting acclimated to it. The Zune Store isn't too bad either. It uses Microsoft Points, which is 80 points per dollar and is the biggest downside, but the quality of the music is better than the music from iTunes. There isn't as much selection as iTunes, but for me most of my favorite music was there. You can actually download the software and give it a try without buying a Zune, which is something I recommend doing.

There is also a social aspect to the Zune, but I won't go into it much. Right now it consists of a Zune Card that shows what songs you've played and a friends list where you can track the plays of your friends. Right now it can only be accessed by going to zune.net. Unless you have a lot of friends who also have a zune, I don't see this being very useful.

Overall, the Zune if very functional and fun. Although it didn't live up to all my expectations, I am still very happy. The Zune is a great looking very fun portable music player and I would encourage people  to give it some consideration for their next MP3 player purchase. I don't think you'll be disappointed.
4701384
After reading the reviews of the 80GB Zune being better the the iPod Classic i was skeptical.  I own my ipod for more then 2 years, and I love it.  But i wanted to try something new, so i purchased the much praised 80 GB Zune.  All i have to say is.....WOW

Everything in this Zune is....well..."Sexy."  The interface of the software and hardware is amazing.  The sound of the zune is very good, despite not having an Equalizer. The screen looks huge, after looking at the ipod screen for so many years.

Another cool feature is the Radio on the Zune.  It not only picks up the station on the zune, but i can pick up the current song that is playing, and its artist and title scrowls on the bottom of the frequency number.

Lastly, the headphones are really nice.  Most headphones that come with the mp3 players suck, but the zune headphones are high quality.