OMG! Ponies!

This is part 1 of a review of the Zune 120GB.  

Someone in Redmond has balls the size of watermelons.  You have to have giant freakin’ balls to walk into a boardroom and say “Here’s what we’re going to do to become competitive in the PMP market.  Two words:  Pink Camouflage.”  I got my Zune Original 120GB.  It came in a giant box.  The unifiying theme is pink camouflage.  With antique gold accents.  On a pale ivory background.  And you know – it works.

Time for a history lesson.  Back when Apple was trying to lock down the PMP market, it did some hot packaging with the iPod.  My first iPod was the Click Wheel (a.k.a. “the 4G”).  It came in a cube-shaped box that came with an adapter brick, a Firewire 400 cable, a USB cable, a software CD, stickers, and a cradle.  It was tastefully done and made you feel like you hadn’t been ripped off.  That was a lesson to the industry in how to package your product.

Microsoft has recently become Skynet inasmuch as it is a learning company.  It sees what works and acquires it.  I don’t mind that.  I’d rather a company learn from its mistakes and from others than keeping banging its head against a wall.  So when I got a giant white box, embossed with the Zune logo and the word ORIGINALS in glossy white on the right, I wanted to dig in.  The gallery is after the jump –

I opened the lid and saw on the left, pink camouflage lining the lid.  I did a double take.  That attention to little things and the risk shows that Microsoft is really trying.  In the box was an antique gold envelope and a plush drawstring pouch.  I opened the envelope; it was a thank you card.  I looked at it for a moment and put it down.  Then I opened the pouch.  

Inside the pouch was another ivory white box with the same antique gold on the bottom and the same glossy white letters lining the edge.  Someone was paid a lot of money to improve Microsoft’s packaging.  Microsoft got their money’s worth.  The inner box held the Zune and two smaller boxes – the cable and the headphones.

Here’s a shocker – the Zune Original ships with the premium headphones.  If you pay the extra money to get your Zune engraved, Microsoft will give you the premium headphones.  Classy.  And the engraving looks as good in person as on the website.  On the black backing, the engraving is tan.  It looks and feels nice.  As of my pressing Publish on this post, I’m still syncing.  Accordingly, my take on the actual player will be later.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 25th, 2008 at cocktail hour and is filed under Computers, Reviews, Zune. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.