Microsoft Zune 80

If anyone is qualified to talk about the Microsoft Zune, it is me. Not because I'm some audiophile. Not because I know all the technical aspects of it. Simply because I've had to endure hours and hours of time on the phone with people who know twenty words in the English dictionary, to try to fix the various problems that I've had with this. My feelings toward the Zune are lukewarm. They are bittersweet. When I look at a Zune, a bunch of positive and negative thoughts towards it interweave and create a bubble of emotionless blah. Here's a review of this confusing device. I'm not really going to go in any order, I'm just going to list the features and write my opinions on it. Haphazard.

Sound Quality

The quality of the songs are great, especially when listening to the songs downloaded from the Zune service. There probably isn't a difference between the sound of the old 30 GB Zune and the newer 80 GB. If you're listening two it through headphones, it's probably CD quality, but when plugging through outputs, the audio seems significantly quieter. I often have to have it at full blast going through my car's speakers through a tape adapter.

The new touch pad

This is the most prominent new feature to the Zune. The touch pad is terrible. I'll get that out right now. You can't have it in your pocket unless it's on hold or else it will randomly switch songs or turn up the volume full blast. It's also pretty hard to navigate through the songs with the touch pad. With the 3 Zune 80 gb's I've had, I've turned all three click wheels off almost right away.

The screen

I was pumpin iron one day and one of the weights tapped it. I don't think it hit the screen very hard, but it still cracked it like crazy. Other than that, the screen seems fairly durable and thick. It doesn't get scratched very easily.

The battery

The battery in this thing is sweet. I can listen to it for days without having to charge it. They never seem to lose the great battery life, but they've also broken on me quite quickly.

Durability

It's almost as if they have some kind of programming in this that knows whether it has any physical damage, and then kills itself because of that. I dropped one of my Zune 80 gbs one time from a very small height, and it created a mysterious dent. The Zune stopped working a little while after. After much chatting with people in other countries I finally got a box in the mail. I sent it in. They refused to fix it because of the physical damage. Also with the Zune who's screen was cracked, it stopped working after awhile. I didn't even bother trying to send that one in. I've had another Zune for awhile and it's been working like a charm.

Freezing

I think every Zune I've ever had has had a problem with freezing. Sometimes, on rare occasions it will freeze and I'll reset it and for some reason all the music is gone. Sometimes I'll get an error message telling me to connect to a computer.

Zune service

The Zune service is awesome. $15 a month and you get unlimited downloads, but you have to continue to pay that every month to listen to your music. If you're not going to use that service, there are other MP3 players that are better.

Headphones

The headphones have great sound quality, but they break easily. The little foam things always fall out too.

Movies

I still can't understand why people watch movies on these little screens, but if you want to watch a movie, what I've seen of the quality is pretty good.

Radio

The radio is a pretty cool feature, but I doubt many people use it. The stations don't seem to have as much static as a car radio. The MP3 player kind of eliminates the purpose of the radio though.

Average life span

While I have my Zune, I cruise through town, dancing and singing. It's an awesome device, but after like maybe 4 months the Zune usually breaks.

Ease of use

I think pretty much anyone can figure out how to use these. All you have to do is hit a few buttons and you're where you want to be.

How it looks

After a couple of days iPods look like they've been demolished. The Zune looks sweet for pretty much the whole lifetime you'll have it. It's definitely not as small as the iPod, but I think it looks just as cool. The newer Zunes are just a tiny bit thinner than the 30 gbs and weigh 4.5 oz. The red Zune looks awesome.

All in all the Zune 80 GB doesn't do much other than improve the space and add a touch pad and make it look cooler and sleeker. If you don't need more space, you're pretty much wasting your money on it. It's a good MP3 player, but it's not the best out there. The Zune service is pretty much the same thing as Rhapsody and Napster. The transfer speeds and downloads are very fast so it's a great MP3 player while it lasts, but it doesn't seem very reliable. Sure it has the manufacturers warranty, but I wonder how many people who actually break their Zunes while honoring the warranty. If you get this, get it at some store that offers a protection plan, because a small dent was enough for Microsoft to refuse to fix my Zune.