Well, I happened to fall into a Zune, so I thought I would start sharing some early impressions. First, let me start by saying that my previous music player experience has been limited to the Creative Labs Rio device, which I liked but it went belly up almost a year ago and since that time I have not gone to the gym. Need my music - so I blame Creative for my recent weight gain. I know that is besides the point, but dear reader, it is important to understand what perspective I bring to the music player scene.

Immediate impression was I liked the cool box it came in. The player itself - well, it is what it is. It's basically a rectangle with a nice screen on it. Feels solid if a touch heavier than I thought it would be. Of course, my old Rio was feather-light since it was designed to be worn at the gym, but the Zune was still heavier than I expected. Annoyingly heavy? Not really. The screen is very nice and I am in the process of trying to figure out how to get a DVD ripped and copied over.

Setup: Flawless. A firmware update was the first thing needed, but the Zune setup handled it easily and the Zune music software installed just fine.

Zune Software: Lots of complaining about the Zune software in the various reviews I have read, but I really dont have a problem with it. A couple things were not as intuitive as I would have liked, but all in all pretty easy to use. Fast and stable so far. My biggest complaint is that the color scheme makes it look like all of the download buttons are not enabled because they are rendered in a soft gray theme. For anyone used to Windows, it looks exactly like a disabled button control.

Music Subscription: You get a free 14-day trial to the all you can eat music service. Now that has been cool though I am still trying to determine if it is worth $15 a month since I am not a huge music listener. Maybe I will be if I have unlimited choice. The one VERY NICE THING about the subscription is that you can use it on up to THREE COMPUTERS and TWO ZUNES. Now that is a nice benefit of the subscription and has me thinking I may get a Zune for one of my kids that really is getting into music.

Sound quality: I am no audiophile, but I am impressed with the quality of the sound. Comfortable ear buds as well.

Controls: Simple and pretty easy to figure out.

So far, I like what I am seeing, though I think the actual physical design could be a bit sleaker with more rounded edges and glossy casing - more iPod-like I guess.