Recently it seems like everyone has thrown in the towel and given up directly challenging the iPod Classic and instead gone into smaller Nano-like flash based players. The Zune 2 is the only recently released player directly challenging the iPod’s domination.
Microsoft initially struggled with the first Zune as it quickly became a joke, another example of Microsoft trying to play catch-up with latest trends, and yet unable to market itself as ‘cool’. However the Zune 2 was much more impressive. I have used one briefly and was very impressed with the interface, huge screen and touch pad.
The Zune 2 comes with the Zune Music software which is essentially a simplified version of Windows Media Player 11. The program is for syncing and managing your music collection with your Zune and comes the player, but is also available as a free download from the Zune website.
The software isn’t really an alternative media player, but the reason I decided to review it here is for one simple reason. If you leave your computer playing music while you do something else you may use the WMP visualisations such as in the screenshot below.
I personally find it a bit boring, and so even though I use WMP11 to manage my music collection and for burning and ripping CDs, I often use the Zune software to play through my music which it does much more attractively.
Apart from this the Zune software doesn’t do anything that WMP11 doesn’t either, but if this little feature interests you, you might want to give it a try.
