Richard Smallbone

This quote from Colin Baker may have been about cheese, but he could just as well have been writing a Zune review. The first few are in and the level of intense, heartfelt loathing found in them is, at the very least, immensely entertaining.

Andy Ihnatko’s review starts the fun:

Yes, Microsoft’s new Zune digital music player is just plain dreadful. I’ve spent a week setting this thing up and using it, and the overall experience is about as pleasant as having an airbag deploy in your face.
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The Zune is a complete, humiliating failure.

Now, Andy is a well known Mac guy, so maybe he’s clouded by candy-coated iPod love. Let’s try someone with a huge Microsoft-lovin’ heart - Paul Thurrott of “Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite for Windows:

Microsoft’s “aren’t we cool” marketing for the Zune betrays the fact that Microsoft, the Zune, and the executives who spawned the device, are not cool at all.
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The Zune … is a me-too device that provides only a small fraction of the iPod’s functionality. It’s bigger, heavier, thicker, and delivers worse battery life than the iPod, despite costing the same.
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The bottom line is that Microsoft should have waited until it had a more compelling product to sell. I can’t imagine what they were thinking.

OK, not so much.

David Galbraith’s take on this, while not quite a review, is slightly different, and can be summed up in the title of his post:

I just saw a Zune, and guess what? It’s a piece of shit.

It can’t be all bad though, right? For a launch this big, Microsoft’s sure to have the software locked down, tested inside out and backwards. Engadget shares their experience with the install:

Oh, wait, see how that Next button is orange? That’s because this is where the software crashes for the first time.

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Crap, as soon as we click the options button, it crashes.

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Ok, we’ve seen enough, let’s back out of here and go hit the player app. Sorry, can’t, application crashes here.

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We tried the options menu again — and it crashed it again. So we’re not touching that anymore.

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Icing on the cake: restart after uninstall. No, sorry, the icing on the cake is the crash our computer took after we hit this, causing our RAID 5 array to crap out and spend a few hours rebuilding.

This is the point at the party where Microsoft’s friends stop looking it in the eye and get an urgent need to use the bathroom.

There must be someone out there with something nice to say. And here it is from News 10 Now reporter Lacey Johnson:

I think we have a gift you can give to anyone on your list! It is the Microsoft Zune! It’s an MP3 player, and more. It can play videos, movies, FM radio, you have Wi-Fi and you can share your songs.

Okay, I’m with her so far. I’ll overlook the other reviews and give this one a chance. Lacey seems like she knows what she’s talking about. And then it happens:

Well you gave the iPOD last year. Apparently that doesn’t matter to iPOD owners 60 percent are anticipated to purchase the Zune anyway.

I’ll ignore the bizarre capitalization of iPod. But that 60% figure - there’s something about it that says “I made that up” or “Microsoft just bought me a new house”.

I’m sold - I’ll take 2.