Zune Thoughts: Zune Bringing Back the iPod Magic of Old

"So there you go. I know it's different than what the majority of folk out there are saying about the Zune, but I really feel as if I've found something that brings back that initial iPod magic I felt all those years ago. The body and design just feels so good and purposeful in my hand, and the audio rocks something fierce. I probably won't ever use the "WiFi" features of the Zune, but I didn't really buy it for that in the first place. I was looking for a great sounding iPod alternative that was easy to use and I found one."

A self-proclaimed iPod fan and audio junkie over on the Head-Fi forums, after being somewhat disillusioned by his iPod of late, decided to give the Zune a try. After plugging into a Zune at a local retailer, he was intrigued, and decided to take one home and run it through its paces. He finds the Zune to be quite a nice device, with great hardware, an excellent interface, and superior audio and video performance. His biggest issue is the with the companion software, which he found to be quite a beast but useable after some taming. This is a nice review that does a great job in pointing out the benefits Zune has to offer. I'm not an audiophile by any means and cannot speak to the differences between the audio performance of my iPod compared to my Zune, so I was intrigued by this user's account of how well the Zune performs. This is also the only other reviewer I’ve seen spend almost as much time on the packaging as Jason! :)