The lovely Mrs. W gifted me with an 80 gig zune for Christmas and, after some initial concerns (mostly due to sparse documentation), I do like it.

I don't have an Ipod but previously I used some Sandisk Sansa M200 series (shaped like a slightly oversize thumb) and can finally make some fair comparisons.

I like the Zune :

Some good things.

User interface is good. Once you get used to it, it's quite instinctive. This should take about a minute orso, once you get through the (non-existant) instructions.

Buttons are large enough that my fingers are a bit sausage like also.

Visuals are great. Large enough to read and the album covers are great to look at.

It had built in FM, which Ipods lack. To me, this is important. (So did the Sansas)

Some bad things:

You've got to get instructions from zune.com and even then it's not in a coherent fashion. You have to spend a goodly amount of time exploring the website to get any real information.

First off, know this! You can't change headphones "on the fly"! This will mute them until you power down/power up again. This was the cause of my problem with the FM in it. I changed headphones while changing modes. There is NO mention of this anywhere and it drove me fargin' bonkers! I think I invented a few Klingon curse words here.

It's got a rechargable battery. But, then again, so do Ipods. It requires either aUSBport or a (sold separately) power supply. I guess I'm spoiled here since the Sansas used AAA batteries and I could replace them anywhere. ...and did.

You MUST download the Zune software and "marry" your unit to your computer's Zune software. I ran into a situation when I had to rebuild my OS and all applications recently. I think the Ipods have the same relationship to Itunes, but I'm not sure.

I guess I'm spoiled here since the Sansas simply required WMP and you could load from any 'puter.

On the whole, I'd say it's an improvement over my old stuff and actually sounds better, is easire to read, and the ergonomics are vastly improved, but those Sansa's aren't too hard to improve on in that area.. My Grado SR-80's love this beastie.