REVIEW
120GB Zune is Massive and Mighty
By Shaun Hatton - October 29th, 2008
Pictured above: The Gears of War 2 special edition 120 GB Zune.
I received an 8GB Zune as part of a Microsoft promotional campaign this summer. My thoughts about it can be read here. Overall, I was very impressed with the tiny device and felt it was an all-around better music player than not only Apple’s iPod, but every other player I’ve used.
Recently, I was sent a review unit of the new 120GB Zune. It’s huge by comparison, both in storage and physical size. The 120GB could easily fracture your toe, if you’re unfortunate enough to drop it on your foot. At first, I didn’t like that this bigger Zune was so much… bigger. But after a few days it began to grow on me, and my poor little 8GB player was left on my nightstand.
But the 120GB monster isn’t just big in form factor. What used to be a time-consuming task of meticulously picking 8 gigs of music that I’d want to listen to on a frequent basis was now non-existent. I could fit every album I’ve ever ripped to MP3 on this massive beast. What I didn’t realize till actually taking it on the go with me is that the discretion I use to select songs to put on its 8 gig brother was still there – only now I had to go through making that choice every time I wanted to listen to music.
There’s something entirely awesome and altogether too powerful to be able to carry all your music with you everywhere you go. It’s probably as close as I’ll get to having to carry around the One Ring – the feeling of having a terrifying power at your disposal but having to exercise restraint while using it. Well, perhaps I’m exaggerating a little bit. The 120GB Zune has a much larger screen, after all, and video files are fairly big. One thing I did notice about the screen is that while it’s way bigger than the one on its 8GB counterpart, it isn’t as crisp. But held out at arm’s length, it isn’t particularly noticeable. In fact, the bigger Zune is a lot easier to watch videos on because it doesn’t have to be held so close to your face when you watch a video.
This new wave of Zune players also coincided with the launch of new Zune software for the PC. Among the upgrades is the ability to listen to audiobook files and more importantly play games. At press time two games are available: Hexic and Texas Hold ‘Em. Both are neat diversions during the daily commute and they’re free for all Zune owners, so that’s a huge bonus. I’m looking forward to the day when I can play official versions of Pac-Man and Centipede, and I hope that day isn’t too far off.
I spent about a month with the 120GB Zune (which I nicknamed Killface [my own 8GB Zune is called Simon – it’s a Frisky Dingo reference]) before having to send the review unit back, and I’m seriously considering picking one up at retail now.
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6 responses so far:Subscribe to the Toronto Thumbs RSS feed to be notified when new articles are published.
Wow I want one! like post haste! I dont think I can look at my little 4 gig Creative Zen again!.
Yeah it’s tough to go back to the baby Zune. It’s all about inner strength for me, for now. But I know that’ll change once the Christmas money comes in, haha.
When my Nano dies, I’m definitely going to look into the Zune.
Ipods are becoming too glitchy for my taste, and they are over looking quality to turn them into pure money makers because they are popular. What are they on right now, the 4th nano? At least.
If you’re going to use it for mostly music, then I recommend the smaller, flash-based Zunes. They’re a much friendlier size for keeping in a pocket, for instance. The big one is more if you’re wanting to watch videos or have all your music with you at once.
I’m still pretty happy with my 30G iPod. By the time it ages out of/outgrows its use, I’ll certainly keep options open for what will follow. For the time being, though, with a sizable chunk of my 600-odd CD collection already on iTunes - and thus, on my iPod - changing over to another system at this point doesn’t hold much appeal. And if/when such a thing does happen, I’d hope I could easily port my mp3s over from my iTunes folder to a Zune folder.
Reay: The Zune software automatically finds all music on your system and grabs album art, too. It does a surprisingly excellent job at this but there are some instances with more obscure or unreleased material where it chokes and imports the art for another band/album instead. On the upside, that’s something you can manually compensate for as well.