Microsoft Zune 8GB Review - Digital Trends » Handy Gadgets: Information, news and highlights of handy gadgets for you, the home or travel.

Digital Trends have published a review of the new Microsoft Zune 8GB portable media player. 'The 8GB Zune seems to be based much more than coincidentally on the first and second generation iPod nano. It has the same vertical layout, very similar dimensions and identical location of dock connector, headphone jack and lock button. The Zune, however, has a vertically oriented LCD screen that allows for viewing cover art, movies and photos. The new Zunes, whether 4GB or 8GB, use flash memory instead of hard drives, making them much lighter, thinner, durable and battery-friendly. Of course, the dollar-to-gigabyte ratio is much higher with flash memory, but the benefits are well worth it to many buyers.

The new Zunes have sleek, scratch resistant plastic faces with a distinctive glossy finish. The Zune Red is really bright red, like deep red fingernail polish. There's also a pink Zune (think Pepto Bismol), a sleek black version and a queasy, pea-soup green model. The back sides of all the flash-based Zunes have a matte aluminum that makes them virtually fingerprint resistant. This matte finish is so much better than the grease, scratch and fingerprint craving silvery backsides of the iPod. Microsoft should be commended for this positive feature.'

Read: Microsoft Zune 8GB - Digital Trends