Original Zune 30 GB

I used a 30 GB Zune as my portable MP3 player for a couple of years and I loved it. The battery life isn't spectacular but I found it to be more than adequate for my use.

I gave mine to my wife a few years ago and its still going strong.  Nothing wrong with it other than I needed more space and got the 80 gb.  Both have great sound quality as far as I'm concerned (without EQ) - nice warm signiture.

Same here -- I've had mine for 3 years now and it was a "factory refurbished" model, and still going strong.  Warm-ish sound with a 7 selectable, but not customizable, EQ settings.  Being a hard-drive player, it is bigger than even some of the newer HD players.

Of course, it works only with the Microsoft Zune software -- which I always scratched my head at, since it is a MICROSOFT product -- what's wrong with using Window Media Player?  Why did the Zune need it's own software/library/etc.?  At least the MS Zune folks have release regular updates/upgrades to the software and player firmware.

Decent? Probably. I had a 30GB and still have a 120GB. The 30GB sounded slightly better, from what I recall. I was a Zune user for a couple of years, but there were a few big issues I couldn't get past. The biggest was that the Zune itself added diginoise to my music. I'd be listening to a song, and then it would skip, pop, etc. Re-ripping and reloading the problem songs didn't help. Sometimes it would add the same noise, but at a different point in the song. Gapless playback didn't work. It would work every once in a while, but that wasn't good enough for me. That, and I didn't like being tied down to the Zune software.