Break Away II

The Apple ipod has dominated the digital media player (DMP) market. Understandably so, ipod is a good music player with many great features.

But Microsoft’s introduction of the Zune, the company’s MP3 DMP player, Apple is facing some serious competition.In late 2006, Microsoft released the first Zune.The Zune has done very well in the marketplace and is giving the ipod a run for its money.  And the Zune and the ipod are similar in price and share many features.  However, there are some things that the Zune has that the ipod does not:

Below are the list of features supported by Zune and not ipod (based on a comparison of a 30GB Zune and a 30GB ipod:

• Landscape video
• Preloaded Audio and video
• Built in FM tuner
• Social networking
• Custom background

In addition, the Zune features file sharing and Wi-Fi (wireless) support.Zune is set up to wirelessly share and play videos, songs, and photos with other Zunes. The 30 GB Zune can hold up to 7,500 songs, 100 hours of video, or 25,000 photos.  Microsoft will definitely take a big chunk of the MP3 player market form Apple, especially since a lot more people use a PC than a Mac, so that may be a big factor in how well the Zune performs in the marketplace.

I highly recommend the Zune, I have an 80GB and I love it!  I’ve already maxed out all 80 GBs of space.  Recently, Microsoft introduced a 120 GB Zune

Other nifty features include the subscription-based Zune Marketplace, which allows you to access an online database of new music without having to download it first to your computer. This makes Zune the first real portable media device. The other important aspect of the Zune Marketplace is the ability to download as many songs as you want for a flat fee.

For more information about product reviews, check out the Nostalgia Guy Music website.