Last week, at the invitation of Microsoft, I was one of a handful of bloggers who had a chance to see Microsoft's Zune media player and music store. (Disclosure: Microsoft paid for all travel expenses to Seattle.) Part of the afternoon was spent talking to key employees who work on the Zune project. The other part was spent hands-on with the device and watching a Flash presentation of the Zune's interaction with the software and online store. (The device I saw was not the final version and did not have wireless capabilities.)

Here I'll talk about the Zune device, its user interface and a bit about the software. Tomorrow I'll post about its wireless capabilities that allow Zune users to share content. Also, I'll post separately about the company's marketing strategies and my thoughts on its overall vision.

What were my initial impressions of the Zune? It's a sleek piece of craftsmanship that's simple and functional. It doesn't have the sexiness of the iPod, but it does have a graceful utilitarianism. It comes in three colors: brown, black and white. The brown is an attractive, earthy shade and was my favorite of the three. (It looks much better in person that what is represented by the stock image seen above. No pictures of the Zune were allowed during my visit.) The black is more like a gray, actually, and the white has a full color to it. Each comes with what is called a "doubleshot," or a combination of a main color with a complementing trim. For example, when the power is on, the brown Zune sports a just-perceptible green trim. The device is heavier than I expected it to be. That could be a negative, but there's feeling of craftsmanship that goes along with the weight.

The Zune device and store will be a closed system, which Microsoft feels was the way to create the best total product and user experience. Tracks purchased at the Zune store can be played only on the Zune device. Those files will be 192kbps protected with WM-DRM. Supported audio formats will be MP3, unprotected WMA and unprotected AAC. Supported video formats will be MPEG-4, WMV and H.264 (Apple's video codec). In the Zune softare, tracks can be burned to CD. Content owners may place restrictions on the protected Zune files, though. Details on that are loose at this point.

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