The agony and the ecstasy: a review of the Zune Flash
 

*Review: Ars Technica (http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardw...ne-redux.ars)*
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Personal media players aren't often compared to misshapen men sewn up from the bodies of dead criminals, but Microsoft's first Zune (http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/zune.ars) was a true Frankenstein's monster. Cobbled together from bits of the Urge music store, the Toshiba Gigabeat player, Windows Media Player, and an ad campaign ripped right from the Abercrombie & Fitch playbook, the Zune was bolted together in a hurry, and some of the rivets showed.

The software application, for instance, was a pig, and a prize-winner at that. While functionally it was fine, the software's load time could be measured in geologic eras. The Marketplace clunked along. Auto-syncing would simply stop partway through the list. Oh, and did I mention that it had install issues? "It worked, mostly," was about the highest compliment it could be paid.

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