By Donald Bell
() -- Having survived its fresher hazing, the Zune is back for its sophomore revenge, and the iPod have every ground to be frightened. The Zune 4 (4GB, $149) and Zune 8 (8GB, $199) offering a leaner, lighter version of Microsoft's full-size Zune 80 MP3 participant (80GB, $249).
With a new hardware and software system design, radio sync capability, subscription music compatibility, and incorporate support for audio and picture podcasts, the Zune 4 and Zune 8 are poised to vie directly with the third-generation Apple iPod Nano.
Design
The Zune 4 and Zune 8 are Microsoft's first raid into smaller, flash memory-based MP3 players. Zune 4 and Zune are indistinguishable to one another in every manner but storage capacity, and both come up in red, black, green, and pink. Measurement a flimsy 3.6 ins by 1.6 ins by 0.33 inch, the flash-based Zunes are considerably slimmer than their 80GB hard-drive-based sibling. In the overcrowded marketplace of flash-based MP3 players, however, the dimensions of the Zune 4 and 8 are hardly noteworthy. That said, the Zune 4 and Zune 8 have got a nice shape, which experiences evocative of the first-generation iPod Nano. Don't Miss
One designing characteristic that distinguishes the Zune 4 and Zune 8 from the competition is Microsoft's determination to utilize a glass-covered LCD instead of plastic. The 1.8-inch glass silver screen not only imparts the device a sophisticated feel, it also supplies a more than scratch-resistant surface with less ocular deformation than the omnipresent plastic variety. Although the 1.8-inch silver silver screen looks minuscular compared with the deluxe 3.2-inch screen on the 80GB Zune, the outsize fount on the chief bill of fare affords a discernability rarely establish on pint-size MP3 players.
Another alone designing characteristic is a completely new pilotage control that Microsoft nicknames the Zune Pad. Think of the Zune Pad as a cross between a criterion four-direction pilotage pad of paper and a laptop's touchpad. With the Zune Pad, users can voyage menus by either urgent or sliding their finger in four ways and choice points by clicking the center of the pad. We were initially disbelieving about the Zune Pad's usability compared to the tried-and-true click pad of paper of the first-generation Zune, but after just a few proceedings we establish the Zune's old interface to be positively archaic. Navigating drawn-out song listings is a breeze, especially with an speeded up coil kicking in when the pad of paper is held down. The new Zune Pad interface also allows you jump through songs, photos, and radiocommunication stations with just a visible light brushwood of the finger. Buttons for play/pause and bill of fare still flank each side of the Zune's control pad, and act exactly as they did in the first-generation Zune. It's hard to state whether the Zune Pad interface is actually better than Apple's patented iPod wheel navigation, but it is certainly comparable. We establish the Zune Pad made scrolling long listings of people much easier than using a coil wheel, but the iPod's centre choice button is more than dependable than the ambiguously defined button establish on the Zune.
The full Zune merchandise line utilizes a new graphical user interface that no longer looks like a rehash of the Portable Media Center operating system establish on the Toshiba Gigabeat S. While the critically darling "twist" interface of first-generation Zune remains, the chief bill of fare have been replaced with stunning, outsize textual matter that takes readability to the adjacent level. You can customize this same chief bill of fare with a background mental image from your digital photograph collection. Existing Zune stalwarts will be happy to cognize that Microsoft is offering the new Zune operating system as a free ascent to all first-generation Zune owners.
We're also happy to see that the dorsum of the Zune covered with rugged, matte-finished aluminum, etched with the Zune logo. Microsoft have also partnered with a smattering of graphical people to make custom-etched versions of the 4, 8, and 80GB Zunes, which can be ordered directly from Microsoft at ZuneOriginals.net.
Features With subscription music support, picture playback, Wi-Fi music sharing, a high-quality photo viewer, an RBDS-enabled frequency modulation radio, and composite picture output, the characteristics on the first-generation Zune were already impressive. The second-generation Zunes keep all of the compelling characteristics of the original and also includes new characteristics such as as audio and picture podcast support and a alone ability to automatically sync content over a home's radio network.
Ever since Apple rolled podcast support into its iPod and iTunes merchandises back in 2005, no 1 have been able to fit their seamless integrating of audio and picture podcast discovery, subscription, and direction tools (although Creative's Zencast option acquires close). With the up-to-the-minute refresh of the Zune personal computer software, first- and second-generation Zune proprietors can now bask audio and picture podcasts with the same easiness as their iPod contemporaries. Podcasts now have got their ain directory within the chief bill of fare of the Zune, which is subdivided between audio and picture podcasts.
The Zune personal computer software system also includes a new podcast check that lets users to browsing through a growth library of podcasts. If your favourite podcast can't be establish in the directory, the software system system allows you both urge the podcast for inclusion and allows you add the podcast manually by copying and pasting its uniform resource locator into the Zune software. In the end, podcast downloads, auto-sync preferences, and subscription direction lucifer that of iTunes. In fact, Microsoft takes podcast integrating a measure additional by allowing users to unsubscribe from podcasts directly on their Zune -- a great characteristic for podcast drug addicts who desire to tidy up their subscriptions on the go. (Editors' note: Microsoft removed the podcast unsubscribe characteristic from the Zune's initial microcode release owed to instability. Microsoft bes after to reintroduce the characteristic in its adjacent microcode update.) We're also happy to see that the Zune includes a playback sketch option that automatically bookmarkers your topographic point in a podcast when you can't listen to it all in one sitting.
The Zune 4 and Zune 8's piece de opposition is their ability to wirelessly sync content from your personal computer over your place Wi-Fi network. The characteristic necessitates a one-time setup to familiarise the Zune with your place network, after which it will retrieve to look for the web automatically each clip you stop up it in for a recharge. If you're within scope of your radio web but don't experience like recharging your participant to trip the radio sync, you can also originate the sync manually by excavation through the Zune's settings. Of course, you can always link the Zune directly to your computing machine using the included proprietorship USB cable, but the radiocommunication option is a neat trick.
The Zune 4's and Zune 8's audio, video, photo, and radio characteristics are largely unchanged from the first generation--not a bad thing, really. The Zune's music participant back ups MP3, WMA, protected-WMA (Zune Market only), WMA Lossless, and AAC music data file formats. The continued support for AAC open ups the door for iPod converts, although you won't be able to shift DRM-protected iTunes purchases or Windows' aged DRM-9 files.
The Zune back ups WMV, MPEG-4, and H.264 picture formattings natively at a DVD-quality Thirty frameworks per 2nd rate. Windows Media Center users will be happy to cognize that the Zune also importations DVR-MS recorded picture content. Although the Zune's silver screen shows at a 320x240 resolution, picture data files stored on the Zune can be as big as 720x480. Unfortunately, the Zune 4 and 8 make not share the same television end product characteristic included on the 80GB Zune, so the support for 720x480 data files is pointless.
The Zune 4 and 8 show RBDS (Radio Broadcast Data System) station information, distinguishing their frequency modulation radiocommunication as one of the best on a hand-held device. Depending on the broadcaster, the Zune's frequency modulation radiocommunication demoes a station's phone call letters, genre, and occasionally shows the currently playing creative person and song information. Users can also switch over between European, North American, and Nipponese radiocommunication sets from the Zune's radiocommunication scenes menu. The Zune's radiocommunication depends on a affiliated brace of earphones (any volition do) to move as an antenna, however, so don't be surprised when the radiocommunication doesn't work while the Zune is connected to an Ab dock.
Aside from its radio sync capability, the small Zunes' most noteworthy characteristic is their ability to share music and photographs between users. With the up-to-the-minute version of the Zune personal computer software, the societal facet of recommending music and showing off your music involvements can now attain beyond Zune users who are within scope of your Wi-Fi antenna. Zune users are now encouraged to put up their Zune Card, a Last.FM-style Web page that uncovers your hearing wonts and favourite songs to the world, and open ups up the chance to detect and urge new music through interaction with other Zune users. The new Zune Card online community may be a spot much for some people, but programs to incorporate the Zune Card for usage with bigger social-networking land sites such as as Facebook and MySpace may supply an automatic manner to update your friends on your musical tastes.
While the Zune is one of the more than full-featured MP3 participants on the market, it misses some competitory features. If you're looking for a voice recorder, line-input recorder, or frequency modulation radiocommunication recorder, you'll necessitate to look elsewhere. Without support for Audible sound books or audio data file bookmarking, the Zune is also not our first pick for book lovers. Considering the restrictive capacity of the Zune 4 and 8, we would have got liked an South Dakota memory card enlargement slot as well. Still, far and away the most lurid characteristic skip in the up-to-the-minute harvest of Zunes is an audio equivalent control.
Software
Using the Zune also intends using the Zune's PC-only software. The Zune software system have seen a major inspection and repair from its earlier days, with a shockingly clean and bright interface. New icons lining the underside border of the software system do playlist creative activity and content syncing much more than intuitive. Fans of Windows Media Player will definitely necessitate some clip to set to the new data file and class organization, but we believe the new system is more than intuitive.
As with iTunes, the chief benefit of the Zune's dedicated software system is the ability to incorporate an online music shop (Zune Marketplace) alongside your ain music library. The Zune Market is also seeing a refresh, with added DRM-free download content, more than than attractive creative person pages, better genre-based editorial content, a podcast directory, and more farinaceous subcategories within genres. The Zune Market is still missing the television and film content establish through rivals such as as iTunes, but it makes offering music videos. Expect Microsoft to do another large pushing for its all-you-can-eat Zune Base On Balls music subscription service to cooccur with the launch of their MP3 players.
Performance
The Zune's Achilles' heel is its built-in Wi-Fi antenna. As any laptop computer proprietor knows, a Wi-Fi aerial sucks a batch of juice and can bust up battery performance. To optimize the Zune's battery life in malice of its Wi-Fi capabilities, Microsoft decided to ditch the built-in audio equaliser establish on the first-generation Zune. While one can reason that equivalent presets are simply a Band-Aid for mediocre quality earbuds, there's just no manner to experience good about having a perfectly good characteristic ripped away from a product. We cut Microsoft a small slump on excluding equivalent from the 80GB Zune because they bundled it with high-quality dynamical driver earphones. Unfortunately, the basic earbuds that come up with the Zune 4 and Zune 8 just don't compare. Listening on our full-sized Ultrasone HFI-700 headphones, we were more than than satisfied with the Zune's fidelity (especially considering its support for the WMA Lossless sound format). That said, bass addicts, control freaks, and people with partial hearing loss will certainly be disappointed with the Zune's deficiency of sound enhancement.
The 1.8-inch silver screen used on the Zune 4 and 8 is adequate for short picture podcast content, but nowhere fold to the luxurious, movie-worthy 3.2-inch screen establish on the 80GB version. With flash-based MP3 participants such arsenic as the Creative Zen Buddhism and Sansa Position offering bigger silver screens along with memory enlargement and EQ, the value of the Zune 4 and 8 is not as cut-and-dried as its high-capacity kin. Despite its size, however, the Zune's glass-covered, 320x240 liquid crystal display shows first-class screening angles, with above-average clarity and color. Zune's support for Windows Media Center DVR content is a bonus, but you probably won't desire to watch an full television show on such as a little screen.
The battery life of the 4 and 8GB Zune is about norm for this type of device, but we expected much better. With the Wi-Fi characteristic turned off, Microsoft rates the 4 and 8GB Zune's battery life at 24 hours for audio, and 4 hours for video. Those Numbers aren't bad, but we doubt many users will believe to turn off the Wi-Fi feature. Once testing is complete, we'll update this reappraisal with consequences from our CNET Labs.
Final ideas
With every MP3 participant maker coming out with their ain takes on the video-capable, flash-based MP3 player, Microsoft's spin on the subject is somewhat predictable. Radio sync and podcast integrating give the Zune an border over its competition, however. Still, we're much more than enthusiastic about Microsoft's high-capacity 80GB Zune.