Old Zune is Still New Zune to Me

I was looking at getting a new mp3 player and came across this at costco.com

It's 30GB for $120 after tax and shipping. And it's supported by my Xbox 360. The content service even uses Microsoft Points for music purchasing. There is also some cross-over with my XBL friends list since the Zune Social site just launched. It appears that none of my friends have participated and shared any activity yet. I doubt any own a Zune. So it is clear that the Zune Social has a friends list so you can share your listening activity with your friends if you don't feel like sharing with the public. Ok, but as you know there is a 100 friend limit on XBL, so you can't have more than 100 friends between the two services. Lame, and I hear that the issue has been addressed. I also heard in the same discussion that most people don't have that many friends. The average is between 20 and 25. I have about 70, but anyone who is any kind of personality rides the 100 mark all the time and has to maintain their list.

I' not worried about these 100-frienders, but I do see a potential problem of the social aspect of Zune taking off but stalling because users can't add persons of interest to Zune friends. Maybe I want to see what XYZ musician plays and he only shares with friends or that the only way I can note his profile is to Add to Favorites. How archaic. Personally, especially now that I've thought about it, it doesn't seem like a very big deal, but a lot of people go crazy about these things.

Aside from Social, the Zune seems to be a very fine product. The interface is intuitive, although people complain about it because it's not iTunes. Hello? I have tried using iTunes for music organization and playing and I still can't figure out an easy way to rip, burn, or set music in a playlist. These tasks all seem to take one or two steps extra to complete and I usually have to re-figure out how to do them every time. Windows Media player is a bit messy, but at least what you need is easy to get to and there is quite a bit of freedom in organization. The Zune application is very clean, provides a lot of information and management options, and I had pretty much everything figured out in a short amount of time. I ripped CDs, set them up for syncing, browsed my content quickly enough to decide what I wanted on the player, set up podcast subscriptions with realistic download and syncing options, and perused the Marketplace. If I want to see what in my collection has been synced, or if I want to look at the content on the Zune, it's all easy on the brain and the eyes.

I don't care for the button-mashing navigation on the player, but that issue was addressed and corrected with the new models. I have to live with the old buttons, but I did get the new user interface that comes with the new models, thank you very much. The final caveat I might need to face is the DRM limitations the Internet is complaining about. I don't usually but music online, so I can't relate. As long as my 2000 songs play, I'm happy.

Here I am: http://social.zune.net/member/PWKWSFI