Review: Microsoft's Zune 2.0 is much improved, but it's still playing catch-up
The media player has yet to surpass iPod, other competitors
November 27, 2007 (Computerworld) -- The first-generation Zune media player that Microsoft Corp. released last year was a me-too product with a few nice touches. So the question with the new, second-generation Zune is whether Microsoft is ready to surpass its competition, most notably Apple Inc. and its iPods.
In a word, the answer is no. The 8GB flash memory, Wi-Fi-enabled Zune I reviewed is quite a decent media player. Microsoft obviously worked hard to get it to compare favorably to the iPod Nano, and it does do that, but only if you compare this second-generation Zune to the previous-generation iPod Nano.
In other words, this is the Zune Microsoft should have introduced last year. The new Zune is well executed and has a notably intuitive user interface, but it's not particularly compelling when compared with the new iPod Nano and some of Zune's other competitors.
The newest Zune media players from Microsoft come in models with 4GB or 8GB of flash memory, and hard drive models with 30GB or 80GB. (Photo courtesy of Microsoft Corp.)
Out of the box
Perhaps the biggest news is that Microsoft released a flash-memory-based media player at all. One complaint about first-generation Zunes was that Microsoft released only hard-disk-based players, which account for a minority of media player sales. Besides the 8GB flash player I reviewed, Microsoft is also releasing a 4GB flash player and 30GB and 80GB hard-drive based second-generation Zunes.