The Zune Pass is a really good effort and a good product. It's just a shame that Microsoft, who own less than 10% of this market, are trying to appeal to customers who are so used to iTunes, and have built up collections that aren't transferrable, and are happy to continue to do so.

Apple has been lucky to ride the wave of success in the legal digital download market for so long, but they will continue to do so until someone betters the simplicity of the iTunes > iPod platform.

Adding to this, 4 out of 5 people that I know who have bought the 120gb iPod classic have been older folk who wish to fill it with their massive CD collections, plus family photos and old videos. Not mass downloaders.

Also, Microsoft has remained indignant towards Apple users; the Zune software is available only for Windows XP and Vista. As long as they ignore Mac users, they are ignoring an invaluable slice of the in-tune, music-downloading user pie.

And they can't afford to not appeal to this market, when they are only clutching at the straws of a few percent of the PMP market.

This would make the iPhone even snappier. A good thing.

Oh, and those other smartphones.

Seconded. I would have thought Flickr to be more popular than Picasa (web albums?).

Thanks for the extended review. Should the stability be improved by a future update, then I'll think about shelling out the hard earned dollars...

This style may have been introduced by Sony, but did you see any other brands 'copying' it until Apple keyboards turned to the split-key theme?

Apple dictates the trends, which semi-stylish brands like Asus facsimile - and fail to individualise them.