Let me take a moment to familiarize you with the Zune's primary features;
Music Playback – Of course this is so expected I don't even need to cover it, but I will anyway. The Zune supports playback of your typical mp3, wma, mp4, m4a, m4b and mov audio. Did you buy lots of DRM protected content from your favorite audio store online? Sorry, the Zune does not support playback of DRM protected music. I'm still questioning the fact that Microsoft would go against supporting some of their own technologies on this device of theirs. I have lots of questions about the fact the Zune has no adjustable EQ and there's a perfectly good answer to this that won't be accepted by everyone. Anyone in the professional audio field knows that the more components you introduce into the signal path, the more potential for noise to get into that path by poor component quality. This is still true even in a small media player setting where digital chips are often of good quality but nothing truly top-notch because those components would simply cost way too much and put the player into a price category where no one would buy it. In favor of keeping the audio as pure and noise-free as possible, Microsoft opted to not put an EQ into the Zune. For me, I had no complaints to this because I always listen to my music at home through an expensive audio interface in my studio which feeds a pair of professional studio monitor speakers. When I'm on the go, I have a good sounding set of earphones that I use for listening to my music and when I'm at home I use a $300 pair of Ultimate Ears Super.fi 5 Pro in-ear earphones. Even using the earphones that came with the Zune 8gb, I had absolutely no complaints about the sound quality – it sounded great! It was very clear, articulate and precise, exactly what I expect from a really good quality audio player.

(A further look at what's in the box)

Video Playback – As with all colour screen media players these days, I wasn't surprised to see the standard video playback abilities on the Zune. Supporting wmv, mpeg-4, H.264 and DVR-MS (proprietary Zune format), this player is sure to cover almost everything you can conjure up. The Zune software can even be set to transcode your favorite video files into a format and resolution that can be played back on your Zune device. When viewing a video on the Zune, it is played in landscape mode so you have to rotate your player sideways. This is excellent for wide screen content and allows a little more viewing space than trying to fit the videos on the vertical screen.

(Everything that's included (minus the manuals)

Picture Playback – You can view your favorite jpg pictures as an album or even as a slide show. The Zune's background can also be set to any picture of your choosing.

FM Radio – I couldn't believe my ears when I heard this – the Zune has FM radio! This is one major feature that almost all competitors to the Zune do not have, especially in the larger capacity players. All Zune models, even the 80gb one, have an FM tuner. You can save your favorite presets into a list and the FM tuner will also display basic station info/song player info IF the station you are listening to chooses to tag this information into their broadcast steam (not done by all stations).

Wireless – With a built-in 802.11b/g wireless adapter, listeners can sync their Zunes to the Zune Desktop software without even plugging it in. Simply update your library, power up you Zune and let the sync process begin. However, you will still need to make use of the USB cable for charging purposes. This wireless can also be used for Zune to Zune communication. If powered on, it will display the “now playing” song of any nearby Zunes (within 30ft). You can also transfer songs and pictures to another Zune but the receiving Zune can only play the songs 3 times OR for 3 days (whichever comes first).

Podcasts – With podcasts becoming ever-so-popular now, the Zune can sync up with your favorite podcasts for listening on the go. You can also set the Zune Desktop software to only keep X number of previous podcast shows to prevent old and listened to episodes from wasting memory space.

Navigation through these features is taken care of by a touch sensitive pad that you can see in the pictures below. What I really liked about this is that you can also use the pad like a regular button-based D-Pad by simply pressing on the edge corresponding to the direction you wish to navigate. If the touch pad isn't for you, you can even completely disable that and use it simply as a button navigation pad! At the two top corners of this pad you'll see the back button (left) and play/pause button (right). The Zune is powered down by pressing and holding the play/pause button, as is standard on most media players. When I was first playing with the touch pad I noticed that it seemed to be a lot more sensitive than I was expecting it to be. However, after only a few short minutes I was already used to it and could fluently navigate around all the menus.

The menus themselves are another thing I compliment the Zune on. The main menu is big and bright which makes it easy to see and follow. When going into a sub-category such as music, sorting and navigation is further quickened by the use of both directions of the navigation pad. Up and down scrolls through the current song selection while left and right handle the sorting options. You can sort by artists, playlists, songs, genres and albums. Furthermore, when an artist is selected the left/right controls will flip through artists for you in alphabetical order starting at the selected one. Select an album and the left/right controls will now flip through all that artists albums. Previews of what is next for the left/right pad is shown across the top bar of the screen so you can always see what the next and previous artist, style or album is. Albums themselves aren't sorted by text but rather by small album art thumbnails across the top.

Battery Life
The battery life of the new generation of Zune is a lot more up to par with a certain player or two they are competing with. The 4/8gb models have a battery life of 24 hours of audio and 4 hours of video with the wireless turned off. The 80gb model will do 30 hours of audio and 4 hours of video. Detailed numbers with the wireless on are not given for either model. I highly suggest keeping the wireless off and just turning it on when you need to use it, this way you can further prolong the amount of time your Zune can go between charges.

Zune Desktop Software
Since the Zune is a Microsoft device, most people expected it to work hand-in-hand with their Windows Media Player platform. Sadly, they were wrong in this regard. The Zune uses it's own Zune desktop software to take care of media syncing and organizing. Although I never got to use previous versions of this software, I will admit that I hope future versions are better than where they're currently at. It's a great program with tons of amazing abilities to keep your Zune up to date with your digital media collection but the interface seems unorganized. I'd like to be able to customize things further and be able to have more power of what, how and when my media is synchronized to my Zune. If they can keep up the visually impressive GUI, but re-design some of the media organization aspects then it could have huge potential. I just felt it was way different than other media software I have used before like WMP or Winamp. Even a future Zune update supporting Windows Media Player would probably be warmly welcomed by most.