Some weeks back, Matchstick was kind enough to send me an 8 GB Zune (think iPod Nano and you've got it), which has some mildly clever features and is very pretty. It looks exactly like a very tasteful clone of the iPod Nano as designed by Microsoft, and I mean that as a compliment.
It is also a very competent media player (mostly music, really) released at the very moment in time when standalone portable media players have ceased to be interesting.
Even without the iPhone showing the way of the future, and the iPod Touch as some sort of bellwether of the present, the Zune is going to run in second place to the other alternative: the mediocre capabilities of your current MP3-playing phone.
And let's be serious: if you bought a phone in the last year or two, it's unlikely you didn't get one with music playing built in.
Want to see the near future of standalone music players? Look at the recent past of standalone personal digital assistants.
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