Last month I wrote one of my classic vitriolic fueled rants about how much I despise iTunes. I never got around to posting the rant because I thought it was too over the top – even for me. So I really want to like the Zune, I’ve given it a go on several different occasions, I love the hardware but the Zune software has always left a lot to be desired. When the ZuneHD came out a few months ago I had renewed hopes of finally getting out from under the tyranny of Apple and iTunes. I mean the ZuneHD has been getting universal raves. So I couldn’t wait for the fine folks at Microsoft to send me a review unit. I finally gave up and purchased a 32-Gig ZuneHD from Amazon last week and I have to say – color me disappointed.
Hardware
First the good stuff – I Love, love, love the ZuneHD hardware. It’s very small and lightweight. The iPod Touch feels really heavy compared to the ZuneHD. It has an absolutely gorgeous 3.3-inch OLED screen with 480 x 272 resolution and 16:9 display. At first the screen seems smaller than the one on my iPhone/iPod Touch but when you examine it closer you realize the difference isn’t as big as you think because on the Zune it’s all screen. There are no borders or big “chin” on the device. When you watch a couple of short videos on it, it’s stunningly beautiful. The problem is, just like the iPod Touch; I wouldn’t want to view it for more than 5 or 10 minutes at a time. The much ballyhooed touch screen works really well; it’s smooth and doesn’t feel clunky and most importantly doesn’t have an accelerometer, which drives me batty on the iPod Touch.
Even though the screen is “large,” when looking at your music it seems busy. There’s almost too much eye candy. The album art is thumbnail sized in the corner with album information in big bold letters but it doesn’t fill the entire screen. When you click on it, the controls (Volume, skipping, etc.) are overlaid on it. Instead of displaying the album art, after a minute or so it displays some dumb wall paper, when you want to navigate the device you have to slide it up to “unlock,” it.
HD Radio
HD Radio is another of the ZuneHD’s selling points. It’s a nice addition if you are in a market that has HD Channels. In the DC area there are a ton of HD Radio stations, I bought my mother an HD Radio last year that cost me $200 and she loves it. So the fact that it’s included on the ZuneHD is not something to scoff at. The cool thing about HD Radio is each station has the ability to multicast so while I only found 3 HD Radio stations here in Jersey, they were broadcasting 3 different channels each so in effect I had 9 HD stations to listen to. The problem is I didn’t think HD Radio sounded any better than regular FM and it still had static breakups.
Zune Software
Here’s where I had issues. The Zune software is just as clunky as iTunes only it’s a heck of a lot prettier. When you fire it up, it looks beautiful, in terms of how it displays your album art, music information etc. But navigating around the Zune software is a pain because the navigation between what’s in your Collection and on the Zune Marketplace is the same.
Dealing with Podcasts is an absolute nightmare. I migrated my iTunes playlists over (Zune isn’t compatible with iTunes, so I had to spend a couple of hours to figure out how to do this) once I did, it made switching over to Zune pretty painless – or so I thought.
Zune found 40 Podcast episodes in my Podcast folder, which is all fine and dandy, the problem was instead of simply importing the podcasts from that directory it insisted on downloading them! I’m on a very slow and spotty connection in my Hotel, so it could take literally HOURS to download ONE podcast that alone 40. I kept going into the downloads items area and repeatedly cancelled all those downloads but the damn software refused to listen to me and kept trying to download them EVERY time I launched the Zune. I tried deleting all the podcast out of the folder, not monitor the folder, and unsubscribed to all the podcasts but no matter what I did it somehow still discovered all my podcasts and tried to download them. Not only that but it found Podcasts that I haven’t listened to and deleted months ago. I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s somehow pulling that information from my previous Zune account.
Zune Pass
One of the major selling points of the Zune is that for $14.95 a month you can access the Zune Marketplace subscription service. I used to love DLC and subscription based music, but I’m off the DLC kick and frankly considering the way Microsoft handled the shutdown of their PlaysForSure service I DON’T TRUST THEM. Beyond that Microsoft does the same sleazy that Rhapsody does – you can register on the site, but if for some reason you want to cancel, then you have to call them. I despise calling any customer service number especially ones where you can get your subscription online but then they make you jump through a million hoops to get out of it.
I had an Rhapsody account that I really did like a lot but rarely used, I could never cancel the subscription because the few times I tried I was on hold for 45 minutes and I gave up. Earlier this year I signed up to test out the Zune Marketplace and when I called to cancel I was put on hold for almost an hour. More and more internet companies are doing this to discourage people from cancelling their stupid subscription services and I don’t like it. Zune Marketplace gets an automatic F for pulling this garbage. I really love the idea and concept of subscription music, but I don’t like the hoops these companies make you jump through to cancel the service.
Sync
Just forget it, I used to complain about my iPod touch taking up to 4 hours to Sync my 27 Gig music library, the Zune took almost, literally 2 DAYS. 2 FREAKING DAYS! I started the sync process at 5pm in the afternoon, I went to bed at 11:30, it had only gotten 23 percent done, so I left it running all night, I got up at 7am, it had only finished 53 percent, when I got back from work at 5pm it had finally finished. This is utterly ridiculous. For 3 weeks I had only used 1.2 Gigs, I started thinking, hey, “a 5 gig cap isn’t so bad after all.” I checked my data usage the next night and discovered I used 4 Gigs of data in ONE NIGHT! I racked my brain to figure out what the heck was going on, I mean my computer was turned off for three days.
After yelling at Verizon for three hours, I realized what happened. During its two day Sync marathon, the Zune was repeatedly trying to download those damn Podcasts AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN until it finally worked, because I did notice all of them there even though I had already emptied the folders, un-followed those directories, used the little slider thing that lets you tell it how many episodes to keep, unsubscribed to the podcasts, but it JUST WON’T STOP! I’m scared to even launch the Zune software now because it’s going to keep trying to download new episodes no matter what I do.
Conclusion
The ZuneHD is a great piece of hardware that is still shackled to software that isn’t ready for primetime. Unfortunately iPods and Zunes are so tied to their respective software that the devices are “unusable” without it. If you are one of the few people who haven’t invested in the Apple music ecosystem, then you should give the Zune line a serious look. But be warned the Zune software and Zune Marketplace are just janky dark alleys that you shouldn’t walk down.
Correction
To clarify my comment about the accelerometer, obviously the Zune has one, but since people don’t know how to read between the lines, let me be clear again, yes it has one it’s just not as obnoxious as the one on the iPod Touch and only works with the web browser – which I would never use on a ZuneHD because I almost never have access to WiFi. As far as the Zune Marketplace goes, my negative experience with it happened in May/June, so if MS changed it with their last Zune update which happened around the launch of the ZuneHD then that’s great news. I didn’t waste my time testing this theory because I’ve repeatedly said, I despise calling customer service. To cancel the ZunePass I had to call 4 times and spend an hour on the phone. You are crazy if you think I’m going to go through that again. To all you whining about me not mentioning every little thing the ZuneHD is capable of, let me repeat - I don’t about The Social, I don’t care about WiFi, I don’t care that you can get custom Zunes. I cared about if it was functional, compatibility, navigation, the HD Radio, syncing, Zune Marketplace and that’s what I based my review on. I will also say the Browsing experience on the ZuneHD is excellent, but again since I’m never in a place where I can get decent WiFi the browser is pointless – for me. I will sign up for the Marketplace today and will do a separate review based solely on the Marketplace – hey Glee is coming out tomorrow so it could be worth a test.
Grades
- ZuneHD Hardware – A
- Zune Software – F
- Zune Marketplace – F
Overall Grade – D
EM Review by
Michelle Alexandria
Originally posted 11.01.09
