New Zune review (part 2): upgrade, hardware, software and Social

New Zune2 review (part 2-2): upgrade, hardware, software and Social

Posted Nov 18th 2007 3:21PM by Ryan Block from:http://www.engadget.com

Gallery: New Zune2 review (part 2-2): upgrade Interface and apps As for the interface, there's almost nothing to say there, either. Microsoft prettied a few things up, but there were very few substantive UI changes -- nearly everything was cosmetic. The main menu is now in an amusingly massive font; the Community menu is now the Social (and it doesn't sleep when looking for devices, anymore), which is also now listed above FM. The cursor has more of a glow, but users now also have one more click to get to the enable / disable WiFi option (which is pretty annoying -- turning WiFion and off should as close to a root-level menu option as possible, if you ask us) Browsing music is largely the exact same experience. We still prefer the Zune's twist interface to just about everything else out there, including our beloved SanDisk Sansa, but that didn't stop us from hoping that Microsoft would make some significant changes this time around and take the concept to the next level. So you could say we were let down in that department. The only other things of interest that have changed is the ability to disable display of the album name when browsing by artist, the removal of track flagging and the five star rating system (which is now blank, heart, or broken heart, and totally reminds us of Zelda), and the addition of micro-sized album cover art up top when twisting horizontally through albums and tracks.

And unfortunately for the Zune team, Apple made some significant improvements in their products' UIs since last year. In fall of 2006 the Zune twist UI pretty much categorically trumped the iPod's, but it's been a long year, and while Microsoft basically stayed basically at a standstill, the iPod interface got a much needed and much-improved redesign. (We'll leave the iPod touch and iPhone out of this, although we do think those devices' media apps handily outclass the iPod classic and nano.) Deciding whose UI is better is wholly subjective, but our feeling is that while we prefer the twist UI concept, the iPod now has more polish. Still, it makes you wonder why Microsoft didn't try a little harder on that. For example, iPhone with Cover Flow was announced shortly after the first Zune, and browsing your music by album art is quite the novelty that would have been right at home on the Zune. Or why not fill out some of the utilitarian functions the iPod still doesn't do, like add a recently played tracks list, or the ability to delete tracks on your player? And how about the ability to make more than one on the go playlist? Microsoft could have really gone to town here. The Zune also isn't up to speed on many of the apps and extras other media players have bundled. Besides the obvious omission of content downloads over the air like the Archos 605, there are no games for the Zune, nor is there a PIM app. Not that we do a lot of data organizing on our MP3 players, but the iPod does go the extra mile with mini-apps for calendars and contacts, multiple clock types (world time, alarms, and a stopwatch that even logs data), notes / text reader, and, of course, games. When it comes to the value-adds the Zune is still a non-starter.
New Zune review part 2-1 New Zune review part 2-2 New Zune review part 2-3 New Zune review part 2-4