I was hesitant to try and squeeze my collection down into an 8GB “best of” set of music, but the advantages are totally worth it.
- The load time switching multiple tracks in a random playlist seems faster here than on the hard drive based models.
- The battery lasts MUCH longer than my 30 GB model. I can go a couple of days without plugging it in and don’t mind letting it sync wirelessly.
- Since I wouldn’t get much I kept my Zune 30 and loaded it with a playlist of everything on this zune and my wife’s zune. Good to keep in the car for road trips.
- I like the custom art. I went all out and set the zune background to the color version of the engraving. It’s a “Maniac” zune. 🙂
- The screen is sharper for album art than that the Zune30 since the resolution is the same with a smaller size.
- It’s a TON smaller.
- I don’t have to skip as many tracks if I just play the 8gb on random since this is just the best 8 out of 45gb of music.
- Personally I’ve never gotten into mobile video. The services just don’t seem to have it as baked as Music in terms of complexity and I prefer using my laptop on trips for movies if I want to watch something.
- I can frame the print that came with my Zune Originals purchase. It will replace the “kitty” art that still hangs in my office. (That was formerly Gretchen’s home office.)
The only complaints I have are with the client software, but it’s nothing that isn’t manageable. I highly recommend checking out a Zune 8 if you are in the market.
