Order Zune HD 32 GB Video MP3 Player (Platinum)

I have had multiple MP3 Players and video players. This one is by far the best. I can not compare it to the iPod because I have never owned one, but I have used my sisters. But not owning one and spending significant time with it and updating it would be unfair. However I have owned about all the Creative models and several Sansa. I am hard on MP3 players, they go to the gym with me, and I live in Michigan so they go out with me to shovel snow in the cold of winter and the heat of summer to mow lawn. This one is by far the best, i sure hope it stands the test of time, but it is not to say it is without some flaws in the software which I hope they fix.

First off is is extremely light, this think you do not really know it is there. Also the ability to just walk in the house and hit sync and have it sync everything without plugging it in is a great feature. I also like how the controls work and the speed of the device to do what I want. However, the one thing is which I could find no information on anywhere even on Amazons site is that it only comes with a USB cord that you have to use to charge the device and the initial setup. However after the initial setup the wireless sync would be optimal for me rather than plugging it in to the PC every night then leaving the PC on and letting it charge. So I will have to invest in a wall outlet charging adapter and probably a car adapter.

The Zune software on the device, again I have only had it a day, is a little clunky in some parts but overall I would give it an A-. If you are looking to play music, and videos and podcasts it is quick easy and fast to get going with default behavior, which leads me to some of my instant dislikes. Some of the problem with it is that I might not have figured out where to adjust or set something away from the default behavior. Which leads me to the biggest problem, getting help on how to do something with the device. This seems pretty non existent. If you get an error there is a link to a really good article on the web about the error and what causes the error and how to fix and resolve the error. This is great and a great feature to have, I mean this is really great because I got 2 different errors syncing files and the error had a link that took me to the web and told me exactly what to do. But say you want to change something for example, Podcasts. They download and sync to your device flawlessly. However say the podcast you have is a daily one and you do not listen to it daily you let it build up maybe a week at a time. Well they come in a chronological order, and the podcast from today may reference something from yesterday. When you go to podcast and click on the podcast to start playing all of them in the Zune well it plays from newest to oldest. So you can not just go play them all in the order they were meant to be in. I really want to change this so it plays the oldest to the newest. However there doesn't either seem to be a way to do this or I can't find it. So now I have to go into each podcast and scroll to the bottom of the list and play them each one at a time. If there is not a way to do this then there needs to be, if there is a way to do this there is no easy way to figure out how the heck to change this behavior. Another every time I have to go and change to play the next chronological podcast the first screen is some red ribbon thing that also displays the time that I have to swipe my finger up to get it out of the way so I can start playing another one. I would really like to turn this thing off because it is annoying and is an extra step, I would probably hate it less if all my podcasts played in chronological order and didn't have to switch podcasts every 5-7 minutes. However there is no visible way to turn this off either. I have went into display settings and tried changing things there, I seem to get nowhere. So more googling the web seeing if anyone has found a way to disable this again no central help or easy to find help for these things. Then my only other complaint with the zune device itself which I think is a major one, HD radio. I have been curious about HD radio but I am not about to go out and replace my car radio so I can see what this HD radio stuff is. I figured this would be an opportunity to see. Well from the menu I tap on radio and the radio starts up and I can go to all my regular radio stations and set up presets and everything. However where is the HD radio? All I see is the same old radio stations. I know they exist in my area they advertise them on the local radio stations. How do I get to them, or how do I know I am listening to an HD radio station? This one totally perplexes me. Honestly all I see are the same old radio stations at the same old location on the dial I see with my regular old radios. I see absolutely nothing on the device telling me I am listening to HD or Standard or what. Then I have no help to tell me what I am doing wrong if anything. Again I think this is something I need to figure out, but come on this is supposed to be one of the big features of the device. Honestly had I not read other reviews about people saying they were listening to HD radio stations I would think it is something not implemented yet, again no instructions or help. Playing music, I like to sometimes choose an album or a playlist and then just set it to randomly play songs on the list. I am sure this device can do this, but how? There are some buttons at the bottom when something is playing, but there are no tool tips or anything that tells me what these buttons do. Again no help that tell me what these buttons do either. So I guess my biggest problem with the device is it has a pretty steep learning curve, but that I would expect because it is a great device, then being that it has a steep curve is that there is no help or instructions beyond the "this is how you turn the device on and hook it up." So basically if there was anything I would improve would be to allow some customizations to default behavior if they are not there or make it easier to change them because they are not obvious then provide instructions somewhere. Get more detail about Zune HD 32 GB Video MP3 Player (Platinum).