Zune Thoughts: Zune: Worst Out-of-Box Experience Ever?

"I don't hate the Zune player. In fact, I rather like its design, feel, and weight. I'm not crazy about the control buttons, but I can live with them. I do, however, hate the Zune software. It's shocking that Microsoft didn't simply integrate the Zune's rights management directly into Windows Media Player -- doing so may have eased many of the synching problems. Even with all of iTunes' well-documented software quirks, compared to the Zune it's the Holy Grail of music software. Microsoft is forcing hipness with the Zune, and people don't like that. It's like your Dad wearing urban gear and listening to underground hip-hop. Sure, it might technically be considered cool, but it makes you want to crack open an Emily Bronte novel with a concerto in the background."

I wholeheartedly concur with Mr. Marbles that it was just plain stupid to create a seperate piece of Zune software that's essentially the same thing almost all of us already have on our PCs. The Zune not appearing as a drive that you can manually manipulate is also a big minus in my book. That being said, workarounds exist, and while it may not do it out of the box, I might venture that most of us that desire manual control over our player can use these workarounds easily. The average person (who may have never owned a PMP) would probably rather have their music synced. Of course, I image they'd love to load all the PFS music they've already purchased, but we can't have everything, eh? In all, it's a fair review, just by someone with higher expectations and less patience than myself.