Trevin Chow

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zAlternator is an app that allows the Zune to sync with other software clients like Windows Media Player (WMP), MediaMonkey and even Winamp!  From their site:

Finally, a release candidate of zAlternator is here! Yay! zAlternator is a program that will allow the Zune to be picked up and synced with programs other than the Zune program. It has been fully tested and proven to allow the Zune to be picked up and synced with the Zune program (duh), Windows Media Player 11, Winamp, and MediaMonkey. I have been unable to fully test the iTunes side of the program, but hopefully it should work.

While I love the Zune v2 software, the current lack of support for dynamic playlists and editing ID3 tag information is enough to turn me to WMP11.  I’ll jump right back to the Zune software when the Zune team adds these 2 features.

So I’ve been on my deathbed for 2 days now running one crazy fever. Good news is that the fever broke earlier this afternoon so I can finally stand up for more than 5 mins at a time. So I guess it’s a good time to write a lengthy review of the Zune 80.

After upgrading my sister’s older Zune 30 to the new Zune software, I was definitely impressed with the overall experience. Coupled with everything else I read about the hardware, I decided to place an order for one.

I ultimately decided on a Zune 80, since I could fathom a world with only 4 or 8GB worth of storage. I was getting sick of picking and choosing what media went on my music player, so I figured going with an 80GB would squash that whole issue. Yeah, yeah.. the Zune 80 is bigger than the Zune 8, but I’m coming off an iPod 30GB Video, so the size difference is neglible.

Shipping time

I placed an order for the Zune 80 last Thursday at 3pm on the Zune Originals site so I could get the custom engraving and design on the back. 24 hours later, I got a shipping confirmation. Woah. That was pretty fast production time.

This morning at about 11am, Fedex arrived at my door dropping off my brand new Zune. A few hours later I checked the UPS tracking numbre to find the origin and it shipped from from Shenzhen, China. Holy smokes, that was fast. Less 4 days from clicking “Confirm order” to my doorstep. Talk about impressive.

Unboxing

The Zune v1 was quite good with high quality build materials and a very minimalist (read: apple-like) approach. I didn’t expect much improvement in this area. However, Microsoft did a great job here making the customer feel special when ordering from ordering from the Zune Originals site with a special box and a “Thank You” card blazoned with a “Zune Originals” Logo. Very slick. Everything was packaged neatly and they upgraded the headphone quality.

(Looking at the unboxing of a non-Zune Originals, it’s safe to say that I got the better end of the stick.)

Connecting it for the first time

I already had the latest Zune client installed on my PC from when I upgraded my sister’s Zune so setup was as easy. I just plugged it in and was prompted to upgrade the firmware to the latest v2.2 and to give it a name. Entire process took less than 2 mins.

Setting up wireless syncing

I had visions of painful scrolling in the Zune device UI to connect it to my wireless network. Thankfully, they allow you to do this on the desktop software. Once connected, you choose to setup wireless sync’ing and it automatically finds surrounding wifi networks. I selected my network, entered my encryption key and it connected succesfully. At no point did I have to specify what encryption type I was using. I could definitely see a lay-person set this up in no-time flat.

Moving off iTunes to Zune

Since I was coming off iTunes, all my music is stored in the well-known “\iTunes\iTunes Music” directory. For me, it happens to be off a network drive mapped to V:. I figured it would be easy enough to make the switch, but to minimize the pain, I just told the Zune software to use the same iTunes Sub-folder.

Everything seemed to work fine, so I went on to sync my music, but then quickly realized 3 shocking things.

No Auto playlists

First, there are no auto-playlists (aka dynamic playlists). For some reason, we decided that it was a good idea to cut this feature. Maybe I’m in the minority here, but why in the world didn’t we ship with this?! This is the bread and butter of my music playing experience and device sync’ing strategy. My primary auto-playlists in iTunes consisted of:

• Recently added
  • Songs added in the last 30 days
• Favorite songs
  • 4 or 5 star ratings songs in any genre
• Favorite <Genre>
  • 3, 4 or 5 star rated songs in a specific genre

With the above playlists, I can listen to music in whatever mood I’m in and easily access all the latest music I’ve purchased. I’ve been using this system for years. Even Windows Media Player had auto-playlists! In scouting the various Zune websites and the official Zune community forum, this feature will be shipped in a future update. They’re even trying to canvas user scenarios, so I don’t think this is coming out any time soon. Let’s keep our figures crossed for something to happen within 6 months.

Re-designed Rating system is a dud?

The second disappointment was the change in rating system. Previously, when I used the Zune software, they used the typical 1-5 star rating system which was consistent with iTunes and WMP. With the latest v2.2 update, however, they changed this to a “Love it” or “Hate it” model. Each song can have exactly 3 values: unrated, Love it, Don’t like it.

They’ve attempted to make it a bit easier by doing some WMP rating translation to their new system. That is, anything below 2 stars is “Don’t like it” and anything above is “Love it”. (Obviously everything unrated is still unrated).

After some digging, I found the personal blog of someone on the Zune team, and found a bit more of an explanation.

Last year, we extensively tested the 0-5 star rating system with users – both on the current system and their potential usage – and learned a few interesting things. First, there was a great degree of confusion between different ratings for different users – e.g. a 3 star rating for one user might mean “I love this song” but for another user, it could mean “this song is just ok.” And when we asked users if they would rate content using the existing system, 90% said that they wouldn’t. So we had to figure out a way to implement a rating system that users both understood and would be likely to use. We tested several different variations, and in the end users gravitated towards the heart/broken heart system, as it put track ratings into more human terms. Hence, the new rating system.

While I always struggled for what it meant for something to be “2-star” rated in a music library, I got used to it. If I didn’t really like a song, why the heck would I have it at all? All my songs in iTunes ended up being either Unrated, 3, 4 or 5 star rated. Nothing was 2 stars. Songs were un-rated because many times I’d buy entire albums because I liked 3 or 4 songs, but never got around to listening to the entire thing. If I didn’t like the other songs when I did listen to them, I’d just delete them.

I also don’t buy the given explanation that across users there wasn’t consistency in the meaning behind ratings. Who cares if my rating definition isn’t the same as everyone else’s? It’s my music library!

Speaking objectively, and without factoring in existing rating systems in iTunes and WMP, I might prefer the new Zune rating system. However, since iTunes and WMP have been around for what seems like forever, has Microsoft been painted into a corner and should just adopt what already exists? What makes things worse is that I thought by going to the Zune I would make my song management easier since it would finally play nice with my Vista Media Center PC. Since Media Center is WMP based, this isn’t the case and I’m essentially stuck with the same problem I had with iTunes.

Auto-collection management no more

The final shocking thing was the omission of auto-collection management. In a nutshell, this is when the software auto-manages your folder hierarchy and filenames based on ID3 tags. iTunes does it, so does WMP. The new Zune software? Hmm.. nope!

Whenever you drag and drop songs into the Zune client, it just adds them from their existing location. So if I have songs on “D:\scratch”, I not only have to copy them to my Zune library location, but also create all the artist\album hierarchy. What a complete pain in the butt. Thankfully I’m not adding as much music to my library as I used to, but this is seriously another huge feature to be missing in a flagship product launch. I’m surprised I haven’t read about this anywhere yet.. perhaps I just haven’t been reading close enough?

Final thoughts

Despite all my gripes about the 3 missing features, I still do really like the Zune. Much of my experience has been colored by the face that I’m migrating off iTunes and have an enormous music collection (nearly 60GB). For the majority of people I know, this migration issue will be, well, a non-issue and I doubt they will notice the changes in ratings (they might even like this simpler method). The lack of auto-playlists will either another polarizing issue — people either use them extensively or not at all, so this will again be another love-it or hate-it issue.

I love the form factor of the Zune 80, it feels much more polished than the Zune v1 and more importantly better than my iPod 30GB Video and even the “new” iPod Classic.

The end-to-end experience from ordering on Zune Originals, insanely quick delivery and high quality physical product make the new Zune a winner in my books. The good news about the missing features? They are clearly on the Zune team’s radar and I bet you that in 6 months, I’ll be making a blog post telling you about how great the changes are. (Note to Zune team: Please don’t make me a liar )

As my usage with the Zune 80 continues, I’ll be sure to update you all with more info. But for now, here’s to hoping I can survive the transition from avid iPod user to Zune dork.

I surely didn’t cover everything about the Zune 80, so if you have a question please ask and I’ll do my best to respond.