Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

First a disclaimer. After one week I returned my Zune HD and bought an iPod Touch. I'll get into my reasoning below, but for those who no longer care about my opinion based on this one fact, I wanted to give you an easy out. This really was a tough one for me. I didn't want to like the Zune HD, rather I did like it from the moment I heard about it. I previously had a Zune 80, and thought very highly of it. It did everything that I wanted very well, very elegantly, and had a decent enough battery life for the way that I used it. Had I not accidentally destroyed it in a fit of stupidity (attempting to clean the dust off of the inside of the glass) I think that I would still be happily using it now and wouldn't have gotten another device. Since the destruction of my previously mentioned Zune 80, I have been stuck listening to podcasts and music on my Blackberry. Those in the know will understand how far that dropped the bar, and how many times said bar hit the ground before sinking further into the Earth's crust. It's not pretty, and I wanted a replacement. The Zune HD had recently been announced, and so I decided to wait until its release. It sounded fantastic, I loved my 80, so it would be worth the wait. In a nutshell, here's what I wanted from the HD. The HD radio, podcast support similar to or better than the 80, the ability to download my podcasts without being connected to my computer, a nice bright touchscreen, better battery life (though as stated, I was happy enough with the 80 in that regard), continued decent fidelity, mobile Internet access like I'd seen on a Touch, and maybe apps if they had a good IM client, easy access to GMail, etc. I sort of got that. But I didn't. Although I actually like the Zune software, it isn't without its bugs. One of the early ones after the version 4 release was that it decided to download all of my back podcasts regardless of whether or not I had listened to them or deleted them. This ended up filling my remaining 40gb of hard drive space, causing me some temporary system instability. I corrected it, but it was an irritant. For the most part, I liked how it functioned and still do. Yes, there's too much flash (not adobe) but it's fairly intuitive. The HD radio was great, btw. It's the one feature I really miss. The device itself is the problem. I get the feeling that Microsoft built this thing by committee, first by asking "what does the iPod Touch do?" and then trying to one-up it. Ok, fine. That is often how product development starts. The problem is that they didn't get it right. The volume controls are a perfect example. On my 80, I could reach into my pocket and just run my thumb up the touch pad, and that would raise the volume. I could hit on the right side, and it would change tracks, or hold it down and skip forward or backward within the track. On the HD, you have to first hit the button on the left side, then flip up the wallpaper, then finally you can raise or lower the volume on the touchscreen. If you practice this enough, you can even do it without looking with a good 95% accuracy. But it's slow and tedious. Same goes for changing tracks, which is actually a little more annoying since the on-screen controls go away after a short time, often before I could determine what it was I was listening to. To sum this part up, it's much harder to use for playing media. I would never have suspected that usability would get worse, which is why it wasn't on my list of things I wanted. Usability is a very big deal, and likely the reason for many unhappy returns. Internet was another big thing for me, and unfortunately it failed quite badly. I suspect that they will fix this down the road, but for now compatibility is very poor. For example, one thing I had wanted to do was to run [...] so I would have access to my IM accounts. No such luck. Most sites would run fine, but many wouldn't. And it just felt sluggish. And then there are apps. I did not care about this until after I got the Zune HD and had played with it for a few days. On the 80, I played a lot of Sudoku; it helped me to focus. On the HD it was still there, but somehow was harder to use. Perhaps this was just because I was not yet used to the touchscreen. On the other hand, I didn't imagine the ads. That's just tacky, if not downright insulting. It increases the load time considerably, and clearly isn't designed to subsidize the device. They're not a deal breaker, but they also shouldn't be there. Further, Microsoft has stated that 3rd party apps are not a priority. That's a huge business mistake on their part. With all of this not yet properly articulated in my head, I found myself starting to dislike the device without knowing why. But at $270, disliking was not an option. I don't have money to burn, so unless it's making me happy, something has to change. So after a week I returned it. I decided at the time to purchase a 32GB iPod Touch, under the assumption that I could also return it should it not work out. (I considered an Archos, but size and some of the apps I had heard mention of during my Zune HD run had me curious). If I were to guess where things went wrong during the design process, it would be a disconnect between the device software developers (I'm speaking of the device OS, not the desktop software) and the device engineers. The engineers made a thing of beauty with amazing power and design aesthetic. This was in turn screwed up by people who appear to have no comprehension of usability. And that's a shame, because the hardware is amazing. It also shows that they really don't know what they want to be. Yes, you need serious power to run 720p on a device that small, but other than that most of the power in the device is wasted. There were some games that took advantage of it when I got the device in mid-November, but they were nothing special. The Tegra should make the Zune run circles around a Touch, but the Touch just FEELS faster, and for the end user, perception is reality. Here's what it boils down to. Microsoft built hardware that was clearly designed to compete with the iPod Touch. They have, thus far, completely failed to take advantage of it. What they have come out with is a device that does what its predecessors did less elegantly without adding anything of consequence except for a higher price tag. The Zune HD wants to be both a good portable media player and a pocket computer, but due to software and other limitations imposed by Microsoft, it is neither. I'm very unhappy that this is the case, because I really did like my Zune 80. Lastly, yes I did replace it with an iPod. It wasn't the only device out there, and there are many other good PMP's on the market. Archos and Sansa are both good brands, for example. The apps and the podcast support on the iPod ultimately were what won me over. I can, for example, run a free RDP client and control my work computers. Podcasts can be played a 2x speed, but they still sound good. Sound quality is, to my ears, about the same as the Zune HD. (Some will dispute this, and it may just be that I am not that discerning, though I do notice in other contexts when things don't sound right) E-mail and browsing is quite good. In a nutshell, Apple thought it out and made something that is powerful and easy to use. (I am not a fan of Macintosh, incidentally) Microsoft came out with something powerful, but crippled. I think they can fix most of it, but I doubt they will. A really shame.