After a few days of traveling about 3/4 of the planet, my Red Zune Originals with 8GB of space arrived exhausted to my front door. But instead letting it get some sleep, I got it under the sun and started taking photos of it. I didn't took a couple of them, I took about 100 for your viewing pleasure...
First of all I'd like to thank my friend Stefan Shipman of IHaveAZune.com (ex IWantAPinkZune.com) for being the man-in-the-middle and helping me get a Zune Originals here in Greece. Surprisingly Microsoft customizes these in China and sends them directly from there to each customer (currently only in USA). The Zune Originals box is different than the normal packages you'll find in retailers shops. The Zune is in a matte white box which has the word "ORIGINALS" on it, in white shiny letters. Additionally you get a "thank you" card from Zune Originals but the rest of the stuff are the same with normal retailers boxes.
Of course the most significant difference is the decorated back-plate of the player. I chose the "squares" tattoo and wrote above of it the name of my site. You can write up to 3 lines of text and a tattoo, 5 lines of only text or just an artwork. Also you should know all the Zune players surfaces (Zune 4, 8, 30 & 80) are matte. The only exception is the Red 4&8 which comes shiny as you'll see in the photos below. Also the laser engraving on the back plater (also matte) are visible. My photos are shot under direct sunlight, where the reflection depending on the shot angle hides it. The player itself feels very robust and the part in question for me, the squircle touch pad, works very good both when moving your finger slowly or fast. An exception is with radio where a constant speed is needed to switch to the next (or previous) station. It takes only a few seconds to get used to it. The dual shot is less obvious and reversed (dark plastic outside, lighter red color plastic inside). The earbuds are similar to what Zune 30's have and still have the small magnets on their back to keep them untangled. Their audio quality is also compared to the old ones: nothing to get crazy with but they are good quality earbuds. Three foam covers colors are included: black magenta and orange to select the one which fits you best.
What you will definitely notice when you get one of these in your hands is the screen. Although it's very small (1.8") it is very vivid (more than Zune 30's screen) and the pixel density is high enough to display 320x240 content, although I don't recommend a that small screen for video. Another positive surprise is that you can see it under direct sunlight with the backlight on or off. Of course it looks like black-and-white but its impossible to use Zune 30 when sun hits it's screen, something that is true with most of the other gadgets I've used too! Another tiny detail I noticed is the sync cable. While all Zunes' sync cables are the same, Zune 30s have dual shot which is not there in the new sync cables. Anyway, who cares.
In the photos below I also compare it with my brown Zune 30 to see the difference in size and dual-shot cover. Photo GalleryView as slideshow
Links: Zune Originals The above photos on flickr (up to 6MP resolution)
Related articles: Zune Originals Launch Party in NYC Video: Zune Originals Designs and Howto Zune Originals: The Customization Process ZuneOriginals: ACCESS DENIED Zune introduces Zune-Originals customization
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