On November 14th, 2006, Microsoft entered the digital audio player market with its own player, the Zune. Armed with Zune-to-Zune wireless sharing, a built-in FM radio tuner, a $15/month subscription plan, and Xbox 360 integration, the Zune is armed with several features that the iPod and other competitors lack. But is the Zune a worthy iPod/MP3 player competitor?

Straight out of the box, the Zune differentiates itself from its other competitors. It comes preloaded with content, ranging from mediocre to surprisingly good. I was impressed that “Munich,” a great song from the Editors, was included in the preloaded content. When I read that the Zune came with preloaded content, I figured that they’d all be from no-name artists, but the fact that it came with a song I’d heard regularly before on satellite radio really impressed me.

The Zune box

The box is a bit similar to the iPod’s, but once opened, you’re greeted with the Zune’s motto: “Welcome to the Social.” The motto’s based off the wireless sharing feature, a feature you’ll only be able to find on the Zune (as of press time, this reviewer was unable to find any other nearby Zunes in multiple locations). Inside the box you’ll find the Zune player, a CD with loaded with the Zune Marketplace software, a USB sync/charge cable, earbuds and a neat little carrying case/Zune-sized pouch. You’ll also get a Zune product guide and a quick fact sheet that explains the Zune’s controls. It’s a little disappointing that more literature wasn’t included with the Zune. As a self-proclaimed gadget geek, I like knowing what my gadgets can do. Though navigating the Zune is pretty straight-forward, so it’s possible Microsoft felt that more literature would be overkill.

“Scrolling” through the Zune’s preloaded content and content in general is fairly simple. Scrolling is put in quotes because while the controller interface does look like a scroll wheel, you don’t actually scroll anything on the Zune. Navigation is controlled mainly through a four-way directional control scheme. To scroll through items, you click the top and bottom of the wheel. To scroll through sections such as artists, albums and genre, you hit the right and left buttons. To navigate back to the previous menu, you hit the “back” button that’s located to the left of the click wheel. During my first few Zune uses, I found myself trying to use Apple’s iPod control scheme, which made things a bit difficult. However, after a few tries, I was able to nail the Zune’s controls. Navigating is easy, quick and simple. While scrolling through songs or artists, the Zune will even display the letter you’re currently on so you can find your content more quickly.

The Zune itself sounds great. I’m not much of an audiophile, but the Zune’s audio quality immediately jumped out at me. Songs sound the same whether they were imported, bought or downloaded from the Marketplace, which is nice. I was worried that there might be some discrimination towards imported files, but that’s not the case here. The Zune definitely has some power when it comes to its audio quality.

Installing the Zune is the worst thing about the player. Installation took me about three to four hours, with one minor hangup during the installation process (which, ironically, happened after I downloaded the first firmware update, which enabled the wireless sharing feature). After reconnecting the Zune to my PC and firing up the installation process again, I was able to finally get through the rest of the installation process. Near the end of the installation process, you’re asked to create an account for your Zune, which then becomes your ZuneTag, aka your Zune handle. If you’ve already got an Xbox Live account, you can use your .Net Passport and your Xbox Live gamertag will become your ZuneTag.

One of the cool things about the Zune installation process is that the Zune will actively seek out other music files on your PC, and as long as they’re unprotected files, it’ll import them to your library. It’ll also do this for any pictures and videos you have. However, it should be noted that it will actively seek out EVERY. Picture. On. Your. Computer. It found all of my pictures in my My Documents folder, which was nice, but it also found pictures and templates from other programs and imported them into my picture library. I had to manually delete them from my library, which was a pain and took a bit of time. It should be noted that I used the “express isntall” method of installation, so you might want want to try your luck with the custom install method if you’d like to save some time. It should also be noted that if you have video on your computer and it doesn’t meet the Zune’s video playback specifications, it will automatically convert the video for you. It’s a nice feature, but can be annoying if you’d like to do a quick music sync and have recently added some video to your My Documents folder. Thankfully when you’re syncing, you can view the sync results and kill the video conversion task and save it for a later date.

Music can be purchased through the Zune Marketplace software. The software has a nice, attractive interface, but some of the features, like the artist search result listing style, were directly taken from Microsoft’s other music service, Urge. Despite having some annoying bugs like only being able to search for music from the main page (if you try to search for another artist when you’re already in another artist’s page, the results appear for a split second and disappear, forcing you to go to the Marketplace’s home page to search for artists) and being unable to remember user ID details after exiting the Marketplace (there’s a “remember me” feature on the sign in window, but even when checked it doesn’t do what it’s supposed to), the Marketplace is impressive when it comes to content.

Zune Marketplace
With so few details about the Marketplace itself, I wasn’t sure what to expect when I tried searching for content, but the Marketplace has a great range of content ranging from classic to modern hits. The only annoying thing about the Marketplace is that it uses the Microsoft Points system. While it’s nice having this unified structure if you’ve already got an Xbox Live account, I have a feeling the non-gaming Zune public is going to have a hard time grasping the points system. There’s no points explanation other than the brief explanation given while purchasing points (i.e. 800 points = $10), so you’d better bring along your Microsoft Points converter if you’re buying albums.

If you’d rather not deal with the points system, there’s always the Zune Pass. For $15 a month, you’re able to download whatever you want; however, there’s a catch, and the catch is that you don’t actually own the music. If you cancel your Zune Pass, your music is no longer playable. With an active subscription, you can, however, transfer Zune Pass music to the Zune and take it with you wherever you go.

One of the best aspects of the Zune is its Xbox 360 integration. Once you connect it through your USB port and go to the media blade and click on “music,” a slot for your Zune is displayed. Click on it and you’re good to go. All your music is listed for your listening pleasure. I was also pleased to find out that Zune Pass songs play perfectly fine on the 360. So if you’re looking for a subscription-based music player that defiintely works with the Xbox 360, the Zune is the player for you. As with other MP3 players, you’re able to play your music while playing games. However, I noticed a small bug: when you try to load Zune music in-game, you’re greeted with an error code… but as long as you load up the music before you play a game, you’re good to go for the rest of your gaming session. Not much is known about future 360 integration plans, but knowing Microsoft and how update-heavy they are, you can bet that there’ll be at least a few surprises along the way. If Microsoft embraces this strategy, the Zune could rocket ahead of its competitors and could even make the Zune a killer app for Xbox 360 owners. I’m sure Microsoft would love the image of a Zune sitting next to every Xbox 360 users’ console.

Yes, I got a brown Zune. Got a problem with that?

The Microsoft Zune is a neat little player. It’s got great audio quality and a few great features that its competitors don’t have. While its Marketplace software offers great content, it’s also riddled with a few big bugs that will hopefully be ironed out soon. It’s definitely got some promise as a player and if anyone is looking for a subscription plan that’ll work with the Xbox 360, the Zune is definitely the way to go. Though it’s only a first-generation digital audio player, the Zune has some fight in it and with future firmware updates, it could definitely rival other digital audio players. Anyone looking for a different digital audio player experience and an open mind should definitely give the Zune a try.