Features & Specs
The Zune Microsoft sent me to play with is brown in color with a greenish cast to it; you can also get white and black colors. Certainly not an ugly color but brown isn’t high on my list of colors to obtain gadgets in. Size wise the Zune is 4.4” x 2.4” x 0.6” which makes it slightly larger than the perennial favorite video enabled DAP, the iPod Video which measures in at 4.1” x 2.4” x 0.43”.

The Zune display is a 320 x 240 pixel affair that has very good color reproduction and plays video very well. The main feature that the Zune sports that Apple doesn’t offer is wireless access. If you and a friend both have Zune’s you can transfer music, video and photos via 802.11 b/g that’s good for up to 30 feet.

Playable formats on the Zune include .wma at up to 320 Kbps, CBR & VBR at up to 48-kHz sample rate, MP3 up to 320 Kbps, AAC including mp4, m4a, m4b, .mov all at up to 320 Kbps. Image format is JPEG only in all resolutions, though the software converts the images to 640 x 480 during sync and the video format is WMV only. Microsoft also included an FM tuner so you can listen to radio as well.

Transferring media to the Zune is very easy to do with the software. Be sure if you are thinking of buying a Zune that your PC will be compatible. Zune software requires Windows Vista, XP, Tablet PC Edition or XP MCE to function so if you are running Mac or Windows 98 and earlier you are out of luck. Sync is done via an included USB cable that also charges the Zune. Battery life is 14 hours without wireless on and 13 hours with wireless for music playback and up to four hours of video playback.

Zune in Use
Video playback on the Zune is quite good. Despite the small screen size playback is full motion at 30 fps, colors are realistic and skin tones look good. Navigation on the Zune is pretty good as well with a round nav wheel that controls volume, forward and backward for music and video. The wheel also allows you to navigate the Zune menus easily with a center portion inside the circle that you push to select options. On each side of the nav wheel you find a button that moves you back through the menus and a button for play/pause of the music and video.

Music play back is good as well, though the stock ear buds are a bit bass weak for my tastes. The FM tuner works well even though the antenna is internal, though it was a bit underpowered to pick up all my local radio stations that I can receive in the car. There is also no ability to record radio programming to the internal hard drive. I do like the fact that if the station broadcast info on the tracks the Zune displays that as well.