Swoon for Zune?

Engadget has a fantastic walkthru of the Zune. After watching that (twice), I think the Zune may have some staying power.

Here's what I like:

• Track flags - Yes, I happen to like this idea. Good job Microsoft.


• RDS - I don't really care for radio in my portable music player, but if it is in there, it's great that it makes use of identifying data that is available.


• Progress Bars - Ok, they don't work any better than an iPod, but they look snazzy!


• Pre-rated music - Just like Amazon and Netflix, items are pre-rated based on what the rest of the world thinks. This might help organize your music, and hopefully the pre-ratings get better as it knows more about you, like Netflix does.


• Backgrounds - This could look really bad, or it could be a nice way to customize your player. I say thumbs up.


• Brown - I like the brown color. No one else seems to, but I do.

What I don't like:

• Search everytime on wireless sends - This is terrible. If we've learned anything from Bluetooth, it's that recently and frequently used devices are good to remember. It is just silly that you have to search for the wireless device to send to every time you choose to send a file. Sending 10 items back to back? Looks like the Zune will make you search 10 times. Yay.


• No wireless sync - I don't really care that you can't buy music wirelessly. I'm more concerned that a (mainly) infrastructure technology is being used for peer to peer activities, and is not being used for wireless syncing. Unless I'm missing something, I have a Wi-Fi network, but I can't use it to sync with my Wi-Fi enabled Zune? What's up with that? If I want to burn my battery, that's my business. Microsoft must have other plans for the Wi-Fi. If they don't, why didn't they use Bluetooth 2.0? I'm curious to know the techincals of the search procedure that Microsoft is using. How does a Zune make itself discoverable and how do the other Zunes go find it?


• Cluttered - It isn't too bad, but the heading chains across the top are confusing. I still don't see what they're trying to tell me.