Microsoft Zune 30 Review

Welcome to the social. Nobody goes here anymore.

I'm pretty sure most of you guys can figure out what convinced me to do this review but nonetheless Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 threw some shade at Microsoft's long dead rival to the iPod, the Zune. Yes it's that infamous MP3 player from the mid-2000's that you saw in FYE all of a sudden and wondered what the hell it was as you went looking for the iTunes gift cards. It was a complete failure to say the least but why exactly? Let's find out.

One shall stand, one shall fall.

First, a little bit of history on the Zune, the first model came out in 2006 and intended to compete with the iPod Classic and iTunes: it was never going to work. First of all people had already been long established with iPods for years despite the Zune being $50 bucks cheaper than the comparable 5th-Gen iPod Classic, resulting in little initial interest. Second, the iPod Touch would come out a year later in 2007 and completely change the MP3 player game. It was only until 2009 that Microsoft caught up with the touchscreen Zune HD but by then it was too late.

Size next to a 4th-Gen iPod Nano.

These two particular models are the Zune 30 which is the first model they released in 2006 and had 30 GB of storage, hence the name. Unfortunately I don't have an iPod Classic to directly compare these with so I'll just use my old Nano as a stand in. The Zune is pretty chunky, a bit bigger than the Classic yet it packs significantly more screen real estate. This boxy form factor that many old full size MP3 players has was largely due to the fact they had actual hard drives in them, which also means you could nowadays upgrade your old iPod or Zune with a ludicrously big drive if you wanted.

The Zune's outer casing is built out of some kind of heavy grade plastic, likely polycarbonate with a matte finish. It's gives off this interesting two tone effect resulting from the two layers of plastic being different colors, for instance the black Zune has a subtle blue color when looked at from certain angles. These feel and look better than iPod's of the era in my opinion; there's just something nice about holding this heavy, matte slab of polycarbonate compared to the metal bodied Classic that attracted nicks and scratches like crazy. I have yet to see a used Classic that didn't look like it was attacked with a knife and dropped on a sidewalk.

Lock it up.

On the top of the device you get the standard 3.5mm jack and lock switch that disables all the input buttons, much like an iPod and handy if you chuck the Zune into a place where it might be prone to accidentally switching from Metallica to Kenny G. On the bottom of the device is a 24-pin proprietary dock connector port similar to the 30-pin version on the iPod. The function of this port is about the same, data transfer and charging and I believe you can link the Zune to a TV through this port. The Zune 30 gets about 14 hours of battery life playing audio.

The 24-pin connector.

Like the iPod Classic there are no side buttons and everything is controlled from the front of the device. This biggest difference is that the Zune didn't fill the control wheel full of sensors that perform all the functions and it's instead a four-direction pad with a center button and two auxiliary buttons next to it, one dedicated to play/pause while the other is a back button. It works well enough and to me it's not much different to the slightly more streamlined system on the iPod although the slight changes to an otherwise similar looking layout will undoubtedly put some people off.

The UI is largely text based like the iPad but the Zune presents it in a scaled up minimalist sort of way. Unlike the Classic, you get the option to change your wallpaper with any photos you have saved on the device which is a nice touch for the sake of customization. At it's core the Zune has most of the same features as the iPod Classic but with some extras. We're going to look at each.

The music player works as you would expect and includes features like preset equalizer settings. I set mine on "Acoustic" and and tested it on Skullcandy's Crusher and PLYR1 headsets along with Sony's MDR-X10 and it performs quite nicely. Everybody is different though so it depends on your cans and how you like your equalizer set. Also, no Bluetooth support but this is 2006 after all. Playlist making on the Zune isn't any easier than it is on an iPod and much of the work is done through the software. Also noteworthy, unlike the iPod, the Zune features a FM radio which is a nice plus if you care for listening to the radio. Maybe in 2006 it was a more appreciated feature, I have my doubts.

Also the Zune has games! As you would expect though these are the kind of games you would be more likely to find on your cellphone at the time and with the iPod Touch ready to take the world by storm next year, these games really paled in comparison to the gaming handheld rivaling content that was available on the App Store over time. These were good for little bits of time killing.

Only one of my networks comes up. It does not work, much like on my PSP.

A number of other features on the Zune is video playback although with most newer formats this will likely require conversion, and Wi-Fi. This was the biggest edge the Zune had over the iPod was the ability to share songs with friends and download more music and videos from the marketplace on the Zune. If you had automatic sync on, the device would automatically sync songs from your computer when connected to your home Wi-Fi which is pretty neat. Unfortunately none of these features work anymore because the Zune can't connect to newer Wi-Fi routers and all the online services have been discontinued as of 2015.

You can't even update your Zune anymore either without some technological know-how. At this point the Zune is relegated to nothing more than a multimedia device with no connectivity features. Well, at least the software is easy to use and is more of good ol' drag and drop which if I remember right, iTunes made unnecessarily difficult. Loading your Zune up with content is a breeze although as I mentioned earlier, videos will take a little bit of work to get them to play on the Zune.

So if I'm totally honest, the Zune isn't bad! Seriously, I can't find anything glaringly wrong with the thing that would have bothered me back when this thing was still relevant. It's easy to use, it feels well built, and above all it plays music very well. I could have totally rocked this thing over an iPod without complaint, but why did it fail? Asides from coming too late into the game, it didn't really offer anything drastically different from what an iPod did. Yeah social features but most people just want something to primarily listen to music and the masses of people who already owned iPods had just that. 

The Zune just didn't have any meaningful features that would have swayed most existing iPod owners to Microsoft and that's largely what I think contributed to it's demise: nobody gave a shit about it to begin with. That being said, it's an underrated piece of hardware and it didn't really deserve the years of Zune jokes that followed it's struggle. Nowadays there's virtually no reason to own an MP3 player thanks to smartphones but my run in with the Zune helped settle a decade long curiosity about this thing. So, think back to 2006. To that brown MP3 player on display at FYE in the mall that clearly wasn't an iPod but wanted to be like one. You maybe even messed with it for a few seconds before setting it down without much of an afterthought. It was actually pretty good.

The Zune 30 is now discontinued.

Summary

• Built very solidly, feels great in the hand.
• The UI is very simple but really easy to use.
• The screen is significantly bigger than the iPod Classic, making it better suited for video playback.
• The Zune software feels less unnecessarily convoluted than iTunes.
• Social features allow you to easily share songs with your friends... oh wait.
• All of Zune's online services have been terminated so disregard that last bit.
• Your smartphone kicks the living shit out of any MP3 player.
• This only makes sense now if you have kids that you don't trust with anything more expensive.

Is it Better Than?

Apple iPod Classic 5th Gen- Depends, regardless of what most people would lead you to believe, the iPod Classic and the Zune are so much alike in terms of core features that it doesn't make much sense to nitpick their differences too much. People clearly didn't care if the Zune had an FM radio or Wi-Fi but for an easy to use music and video player, either device would definitely get the job done. The Classic will hold more longevity today largely in part to iTunes online services still being active but if by some chance you happened to want an old school multimedia player to load your existing tunes and videos on as opposed to y'know... your phone, you can't go wrong with either one. However I'll give the Zune a slight edge for screen size.