Thoughts like these are especially prevalent when it comes to the devoted owners of BlackBerrys and iPhones. All too often, the people carrying these smart phones are curious about what one device has that the other lacks. This week, I’m going to save you the trouble and outline some of the personal usage ups and downs to each device.

Because I regularly use both gadgets and am accustomed to their different features, I have included fresh observations from five people who recently switched from BlackBerrys to iPhones. At my request, these people kept track of their impressions, noting the things they missed on their BlackBerrys along with things they preferred on the iPhones. This column isn’t meant to promote one device over the other; rather, it is a summary of some people’s sentiments, combined with my own observations in hopes of enlightening readers. I inevitably left out some differences.

The most outstanding observation from my switch group in favor of the iPhone was an appreciation for its applications, or apps.

They used things like driving directions for the first time because these apps looked and worked better on the iPhone than on the BlackBerry. And they went through a downloading frenzy during which time they found all sorts of apps for the iPhone, such as games, entertainment and those that enhanced business-travel productivity. “Browsing for games. Probably should leave the office now,” said one person’s notes.

Though Research in Motion’s (RIMM) BlackBerrys also run apps (including some of the same ones as for the iPhone), BlackBerry’s App World offers only a little better than 2,000 apps. Apple’s (AAPL) App Store boasts more than 65,000. A shortcut to the App Store ships preloaded on iPhones. BlackBerry App World is preloaded or virtually preloaded by carriers at their discretion, so a shortcut to App World may not be visible.

My switchers were frustrated by the iPhone’s battery life and complained of running low on battery. One person said, “I need to charge my iPhone a couple of times throughout the day which can be inconvenient, especially when traveling. With my BlackBerry I just charged it while I slept and it was good to go for the day.”

Granted, these people were all using the iPhone 3GS and had previously used various models of BlackBerrys that ran on slower networks and had smaller screens—two features that require less battery. Still, worrying about running out of juice is a hassle. One person said his iPhone’s weak battery was a tribute to the fact that he used it more often and for more things than he did the BlackBerry.

The most obvious difference between iPhones and BlackBerrys are the keyboards. The iPhone uses an on-screen keyboard, while the BlackBerry (except the touch-screen Storm model) uses a tactile QWERTY keyboard. As expected, the switchers had trouble using the iPhone keyboard–especially for the first few days. But after about a week, most people in the group had adjusted well to the on-screen keys and the iPhone’s auto-correct feature that fixes mistakes as long as you keep typing rather than stopping to fix an error. One person said, “I was a skeptic, and didn’t think the typing would work for me at all, but it actually hasn’t been too bad.”

Another said typing can be a real challenge at first, but that this could be overcome with a bit of practice.

Several people said they were still able to use their thumbs for iPhone typing as they did on the BlackBerry, though most preferred turning the screen horizontally to do this with slightly larger keys. Some said that they weren’t typing quite as fast as with the BlackBerry’s QWERTY keys but that they weren’t too far off.

The BlackBerry keyboard’s static position below its screen means all letters, numbers and symbols must come solely from pressing those keys; this is done by pressing ALT or Shift keys for numbers and symbols. Some switchers noted that pressing a button to change the iPhone’s on-screen keyboard from letters to capital letters or numbers took a bit longer than on the BlackBerry.

My switchers were ecstatic about using the iPhone’s Safari Web browser. They enthusiastically said searching, browsing and reading were all made much better and more visually pleasing compared with their experiences on the BlackBerry browser.

If you are a BlackBerry user, you know that all received and sent emails are listed on the same screen. The iPhone behaves more like a computer, storing sent emails in a special folder you must back up to open. This takes a little while to get used to.

Some switchers said they wished the iPhone had something like BlackBerry Messenger, the always-on messaging system that works to allow communication between all BlackBerrys.

The iPhone automatically changes its time when you enter a new time zone. BlackBerrys remain set to their home time zone for time stamping all emails with that time–unless you change the time in settings.

RIM prides itself on being able to run multiple applications at once; the iPhone allows this with its own preloaded programs like Mail and Safari, but not with other apps.

One switcher, for example, was frustrated that Pandora, a radio-like app that plays music according to user likes and dislikes, turned off when he opened Mail to read emails while listening to songs.

The BlackBerry’s AC adaptor takes up two power outlet spots, while the small, square iPhone plug occupies only one outlet, making it more versatile and able to charge in more locations.

The iPhone only works on one cellular service: AT&T (T). The BlackBerry is available from Verizon (VZ), AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint (S) and other carriers. My group used T-Mobile before changing to the iPhone’s AT&T service.

There will always be something on someone else’s device that looks more appealing than the one in your hand.

But the experience of using apps on the iPhone–and the huge selection of apps in the App Store–significantly enhance Apple’s device.

RIM is continually improving its own store, but it needs to move quickly to keep its loyal users contented.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Meanwhile, Microsoft’s Zune announced via press release that new players in different capacities and colors would be available this week, along with a software update.

Despite their different approaches, these two announcements shared a notable common thread: integrated music discovery. Each company’s new software features ways for users to find automatically generated suggestions of music they might like, the way Pandora Media Inc.’s popular personalized music lists do. Of course, music discovery also encourages users to buy more.

Apple’s new iPods include a thinner Nano with an accelerometer, which senses the direction a screen is being held in a user’s hands and flips the display horizontally or vertically. These Nanos come in eight- or 16-gigabyte versions for $149 or $199 and are available in nine bright colors. A new, thinner iPod Touch with a built-in speaker was also unveiled, and it comes in eight-, 16- or 32-gigabyte versions for $229, $299 or $399.

Microsoft’s two new Zune players come in 16- and 120-gigabyte capacities for $200 and $250, respectively. All Zunes have built-in FM tuners and wireless capability, but the new upgrade allows users to buy and download songs they hear on their Zunes’ radios via Wi-Fi, when available.

While Apple’s iPod has been a snowballing success for the company, its companion iTunes software is no slouch. To date, 65 million iTunes store accounts with associated credit cards have been set up on Macs and Windows PCs. But iTunes has always been weak on music discovery and community.

Apple (AAPL) calls iTunes 8’s ability to make smart music recommendations the “Genius” feature. The tool can automatically do two things after analyzing a selected song from your music library. First, it can generate a playlist of songs from tunes you own. Second, it can generate a list of songs you don’t own but might want to buy from the iTunes store.

MicrosoftZune’s Mixview feature displays content related to an artist with an explanation of the relationship.

Microsoft’s Zune software discovers and recommends music using categories called “Picks,” “Channels” and “Mixview.” The last of the three, Mixview, generates recommendations for other musicians and albums, as well as other Zune users with whom you might like to connect. The suggestions are based on the artist of the song you’re playing and are displayed in an interactive graphic that explains how each is linked — for instance, if your artist was influenced by a band or if a member of Zune’s social network is a top listener of the artist you’re playing.

After using the music-discovery software from Apple and Microsoft (MSFT), I felt like Apple’s Genius tool still had a lot to learn, though the company says it will improve over time as more people start using it. Zune’s software had some similar issues, but it offered recommendations in a richer, more engaging manner, encouraging me to keep digging around and learn more about my music. Though I didn’t happen to have as much time to use Zune’s software as I did Apple’s Genius, I got more out of my Zune experience.

Apple offers much more content at its iTunes store than Zune. In all categories, iTunes takes the lead: in songs, 8.5 million songs to Zune’s 4 million; in music videos, 10,000 versus 8,500; in television episodes, 30,000 versus 3,000; and in audio and video podcasts, 125,000 versus 6,000.

To analyze and learn from your music, Apple scans the contents of your music library, which may raise privacy concerns for some people. Apple says that the information it collects is completely anonymous, and that it does not and will not associate this information on its servers with you or your account.

Some of my Genius playlists were well-crafted, including songs that meshed well with one another. But outliers cropped up, such as when “Should I Stay or Should I Go” by the Clash was stuck in the middle of a list generated from Coldplay’s gentler ballad, “Green Eyes.” Some songs won’t generate playlists if you don’t have enough related songs in your library; this happened to me with the pop hit “Apologize” by Timbaland, featuring OneRepublic.

Songs from artists whose content isn’t sold in iTunes, such as The Beatles, won’t generate Genius lists, because Genius makes suggestions based only on what it sells in its iTunes catalog. Genius will soon work with songs beyond those sold in iTunes.

Genius has a bigger problem. If you hit “Play” in iTunes, a Genius sidebar appears to offer content related to a selected song. But as play continues, Genius doesn’t continuously generate new recommendations; instead, it’s stuck on the very first song that was selected — which you might have chosen two hours ago. This means music discovery must be a manual process, rather than an as-you-listen convenience.

Genius playlists can be made on a computer or iPod and sync back and forth. I synced Genius lists on two iPod touches, but this didn’t work in one test with an iPhone. Apple said it couldn’t replicate this problem and hadn’t had other reports of it.

Zune software never scans your music collection. Instead, it knows only the number of times you played a song and how you may have rated a song.

Zune’s Mixview adds a real zing to the discovery process. It is a kaleidoscope-like graphic that appears on the screen when a song, artist, album or friend’s Zune Card is selected. The selected item is surrounded by eight to 10 floating squares filled with graphics and text, each holding a related song, album, artist or graphic representation of a Zune listener who’s considered an “expert” on the selection.

Each of these related squares includes a line of text explaining its relationship to the center item. For example, as I played “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones, Cyril Davies appeared as a related artist; an image of Arthur Alexander appeared as an influencer of the Stones; a Zune community member with the tag “Rreynoso” appeared as the top listener for the band and other Stones albums were displayed.

Mixview changes as you explore it. When one of its recommendations is selected, a new Mixview is created around that selection, encouraging discovery. But Mixview has the same problem as Apple’s Genius: When one song ends and another begins, the Mixview graphic doesn’t automatically change; you must manually start Mixview for a new song. Zune says it doesn’t want to change the graphic in case a user is in mid-exploration.

Unlike Genius, Mixview shows songs and artists beyond what Zune sells online. But the company says Mixview does “favor” Zune content, and Zune Picks are limited to items sold by Zune.

Zune Picks and Channels are more passive ways of discovering music: Picks are generated for you in Zune Marketplace according to your listening habits. Zune Channels bring collections of music to Zune devices and software, but these are useful only for Zune Pass members who pay $15 monthly.

Apple’s Genius is a helpful tool when it comes to quickly making a playlist, and its iTunes sidebar might reveal fresh related content. But the Zune software truly allows people to discover more about their own music and that of others.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

• Email us at mossbergsolution@wsj.com. Find this and other columns and videos online free at the All Things Digital Web site: http://walt.allthingsd.com

Bet you’re thinking about Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone.

I’m actually describing a Windows Mobile device. In fact, any touch-screen Windows Mobile device made in the past couple of years can perform the aforementioned functions — as long as it’s running a new application called Kinoma Play.

This much-needed shot in the arm for Windows Mobile comes from Kinoma Inc. and for $30 can be downloaded onto a computer or directly onto a device from www.kinoma.com. It works on touch and nontouch screens alike, though touch features do add a lot of pizzazz. After installation, Kinoma Play seems to totally take over the device’s multimedia functions, hiding every trace of Windows Mobile’s clunky, antiquated, menu-driven operating system.

Kinoma Play in action, clockwise from top left: a media interface, touch-screen navigation, upload to YouTube, picture rotation, search by characters, and photo zoom.

It smoothly opens and displays all types of media, including photos, videos and music. But it’s also a fast search engine for multimedia content on the phone, on the Web or even on your computer via remote search. Kinoma Play works with services including YouTube, Audible, Flickr, iDisk, Live365, Orb and SHOUTcast. And a section called the Kinoma Guide compiles over 100,000 podcast episodes, radio stations, videos, live television and Webcam clips, panoramas and photos into easy-to-browse categories.

After almost a week with this application, I changed the way I thought about on-the-go Web browsing for media. I forgot about typical browser functions like typing a Web site’s name into a URL bar and instead did plenty of things online with my portable device without deliberately thinking about being online.

Kinoma Play is so well-designed that I wish it could entirely replace the dated Windows Mobile user interface, which still lags behind the iPhone’s. But, alas, it’s about media only. It isn’t designed to supplant, and doesn’t change or improve, any of the phone’s more common functions, like overall email and Web browsing, calendar, contacts or productivity programs.

Kinoma is working on Symbian, Linux and even iPhone versions of its application and will release one of those versions by the end of this year.

I ran into a few problems while using Kinoma Play. On three different occasions using two different devices, my touch screen froze when I tried to start the application, and the only way I could fix the problem was by completely rebooting my device. Once in a while, I experienced slow performance, though this could have been attributed to my network connection. And Kinoma Play lacks a one-step shortcut to its home screen; currently, users must press a “Back” soft key on each screen until they reach the home screen.

But the pluses of Kinoma Play outweighed these hassles, especially considering how enjoyable this application was to use. I tested Kinoma on two Palm (PALM) devices running Windows Mobile: the not-yet-released Treo Pro, which will be available here in the fall for an unlocked, unsubsidized price of $549, and the $250 (after discounts and two-year-contract rebates) Treo 800w available from Sprint (S). Both have touch screens that work best with an included stylus, though a fingernail or fingertip worked for me in most cases.

Upon installation, Kinoma Play automatically scans a device’s media and organizes it into categories under a section called My Media Files. I was especially eager to see how photos were handled, so I started out in the Pictures category.

All Kinoma screens have a set of familiar navigational tools that appear as soft keys at the bottom of the screen; they show up when the bottom section of the screen is touched and disappear when touched again. On the bottom left, a “Back” arrow takes users to the previous screen. On the bottom right, a list-like icon represents what Kinoma calls the Menu Pod. When touched, this pulls up three succinct menus — for media, settings and another action related to the program that’s open.

I opened some photos that were stored on the Palm Treo Pro and touched the center of the screen with my finger. A quick tap on the screen zooms in on each photo, and a small inset of the photo with a box representing the magnified area appears on the lower right of the screen. I dragged this tiny box around in the inset image to change where I was zooming. To zoom in on a photo slowly, I simply touched and held my finger on the screen for a longer period of time. A quick tap after either zooming method will quickly snap the image back to normal view.

I moved from one photo to the next as I do on my iPod Touch: by placing a finger on one edge of the photo and flicking left or right across the screen. Rotating was fun and easy to do when I drew a circle on the photo with my fingertip in the direction that I wanted it to rotate. The image followed whatever motion I drew. To rotate the photo 180 degrees, I drew a larger half-circle.

I selected Flickr from Kinoma Play’s list of services and signed into my Flickr account in just a few steps. My photos and those of friends were just as easy to browse as my own photos, thanks to Kinoma Play’s built-in tools. The Menu Pod icon offered a one-step way to play all photos in slide shows; music could be selected to play in the background.

With a touch on the Menu Pod icon, users can add any media to favorites or to an “on-the-go” list. This same tool also sends multimedia to others via email; I used it to send friends photos of a recent trip to California as well as a YouTube link to video footage of Sen. Joe Biden speaking.

Kinoma makes something out of every action. The Menu Pod button seems to jump into the center of the screen when summoned, and each of its three menus spins like a tiny top to get out of the way so another menu can be seen. Other screens seemed to do a mini back flip as they opened or closed. And long lists seemed to bounce when scrolling reached the top or bottom.

In the Services menu, I used Audible to listen to part of an audio book and listened to rock and country songs on Web radio stations from SHOUTcast and Live365.

I particularly liked using the Kinoma Guide, which is constantly updated with material that streams to your devices when you open it. I found a Restaurant Guys podcast in which chef Cat Cora was interviewed, and even saved it for later listening by downloading this seven-megabyte podcast to my device in one clean step. Kinoma wisely adds all downloads to a special section that’s easy to find. The last 100 things you looked at on Kinoma Play can be found in a section called History.

These days in the tech world, much attention is being paid to applications sold on Apple’s App Store for use with the iPhone or iPod Touch. But Kinoma Play is one application that is desperately needed by Windows Mobile users, and it just might remind them that they can better navigate media-related Web services — without having to buy a new mobile device.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

• Email us at mossbergsolution@wsj.com. Find all our columns and videos online free at the All Things Digital Web site: http://walt.allthingsd.com

As technology continues to shrink, more features are being packed into these small mobile devices, making navigation and ease-of-use more important. This week, I tested the Motorola ROKR E8, which costs $199 with a two-year T-Mobile service agreement and makes a real attempt to be more user-friendly. The device, which comes out on July 7, isn’t much bigger than a typical cellphone but its standout feature is its keyboard, which dynamically changes to accommodate whatever you’re doing at the time, revealing only buttons that would be of use to that particular function.

The secret sauce on the ROKR E8 is its keyboard, which changes when it’s used as a phone, music device and camera.

The surface of the ROKR E8 has no physical keys at all. In its off or resting state, in fact, it’s just a black surface with rows of tiny, unlabeled bumps. But this surface is actually divided into two: The top half works like a typical cellphone display while the bottom half projects virtual keys onto its surface and uses the rows of bumps to give these keys a physical presence.

When making a call or sending a text message, the ROKR’s surface displays a regular phone keypad. But as soon as a music shortcut button is pressed, the surface morphs into five buttons for music navigation: play/pause, seek forward, seek backward, shuffle and repeat. Pressing another shortcut button to start the ROKR’s camera mode shows four buttons for zooming in or out, switching to playback mode or changing to video. Motorola (MOT) calls this its ModeShift technology. Though the lower half of the ROKR can be considered a touch device, objects can’t be manipulated with gestures like pinching or dragging as with the Apple (AAPL) iPhone’s multitouch screen.

Overall, I found that the ROKR E8’s dynamic keyboard gave me a real advantage in figuring out how to use the multi-functionality of the phone. Its changing keyboard eliminated a lot of guesswork and time that I may have spent hunting through menus for a command. And true to its name, the ROKR (pronounced “rocker”) is focused on its music phone functionality with an FM radio, a neatly organized music menu and a speaker that has convincingly simulated surround-sound effects.

But this ROKR didn’t always jam out in perfect pitch. A touch-sensitive semicircle in the center is meant to make scrolling through long lists easier — much like Apple Inc.’s iPod wheel. But because this tool on the ROKR isn’t a full circle, scrolling felt unsatisfying. You also can’t buy songs with the ROKR, or even mark songs for purchasing later on a PC.

And while the morphing buttons look futuristic and hip, I experienced a few instances when the phone was slow to react after I touched a button, as when I touched the seek forward button while listening to music or when I chose to open an MMS message I sent to a friend.

Twenty-two tiny bumps dot half of the ROKR’s surface, and the surface below each bump vibrates when it’s touched to provide sensory feedback. Nothing is ever physically pressed down, though the vibration response leads you to think otherwise.

A smart switch on the side can be held down to turn it on or off, or switched into the upward position to lock the device, preventing accidental calls or battery drain.

The ROKR E8 runs on T-Mobile’s (DT) GPRS/EDGE connection, which felt sluggish at times. And not even the dynamic keyboard on this device could help make email or instant messaging easier.

It has a two-megapixel still camera with an 8x digital zoom that can change into video-camera mode in one step. Two gigabytes of memory are built into the ROKR, and more memory can be added via a microSD card slot, which is hidden beneath a back panel. A one-gigabyte microSD card comes with the ROKR. Without this card, the internal memory will hold about 1,500 songs.

With help from a USB cord and Windows (MSFT) Media Player 11, I transferred over 200 MP3s onto my ROKR. Album art that transferred with my songs appeared on-screen as songs played, and the speaker gave off a powerful sound. Built-in stereo Bluetooth can send tunes to Bluetooth-enabled stereo speakers, and it took me just a few seconds to pair my ROKR with Motorola’s EQ5 speakers.

A preloaded program by Shazam lets users hold the ROKR up to any speaker playing a song, and in 30 seconds, identifies the track title, artist, and album art. I held the ROKR up to my alarm clock radio and it worked perfectly. But once these songs are recognized, the track data can’t be used to buy the song or even to transfer a request to buy that song to a PC for buying online at another time.

The ROKR’s FM radio will work only if its included stereo headset is plugged in because the headset has the radio antenna. But once the headset is plugged in, the radio will play via the ROKR’s speaker.

The ROKR E8 has an audio technology called Crystal Talk, which Motorola says allows your phone to perform better in loud environments. Even if the person on the other end of your phone is in a noisy place, the company says Crystal Talk will raise the volume to improve the call. I tested this by speaking to someone on the ROKR while turning a hairdryer on beside the phone. I then used a regular Razr cellphone. The person on the other end said that the ROKR sounded slightly, but noticeably, better.

Motorola’s ROKR E8 is a head-turning phone with many built-in advances that give it a smarter interface. One might wonder what other ModeShift functions the company will integrate into its devices in the future, such as a full QWERTY keyboard. The overall idea of a dynamic keyboard is a step ahead for small devices. It forces the phone to work more intuitively and improves navigation while looking stylishly sleek at the same time.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg.

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Last year, when Microsoft Corp. introduced its Zune music player to take on Apple’s iPod juggernaut, the software giant struck out. While the Zune had a good user interface and a larger screen than the iPod, it was bigger and boxier, with clumsier controls, weaker battery life and more complex software. Its companion online music store had a much smaller catalog, a more complicated purchase process and no videos for sale. And the Zune’s most innovative feature, built-in Wi-Fi networking, was nearly useless and added little value to the players, which sold so poorly that Apple barely noticed.

The Zune Pad adds touch functionality for improved navigation.

But Microsoft is nothing if not persistent, and this week, the company is back with a second, improved round of Zunes. The chunky, older 30-gigabyte model remains in the lineup, but it’s joined by a slimmed-down full-size Zune that holds 80 gigabytes, and by a much smaller model that holds four or eight gigabytes. Prices range from $150 to $250. The 80-gigabyte Zune is available only in black, and the others come in red, green, black and pink.

We’ve been testing these new Zunes and find them to be notably better than last year’s entry. They are smaller, lighter and more attractive, and they include three big improvements. First is a new controller, called a Zune Pad, that combines buttons with a touch pad for scrolling. Second is a completely overhauled, simpler PC-software program and online store, the Zune Marketplace. Third is expanded usability of the built-in Wi-Fi, which allows you to synchronize your Zune and your PC without plugging in a cable and makes sharing songs between Zunes — its only function last year — slightly better.

Zune’s Marketplace is visually attractive.

Unfortunately for Microsoft, Apple hasn’t been standing still, either. It now has its own large-screen, wireless model, the iPod Touch, with a radical “multi-touch” interface like the iPhone’s. The screen on the Touch is larger than the one on the bigger Zunes and is much sharper. Its Wi-Fi allows you to browse the Web, watch YouTube videos and even buy music without a PC — none of which is possible on a Zune — though the Touch is $50 more and holds much less content than the new full-size Zune.

Microsoft’s new Zunes are directly aimed at the iPod Classic, Apple’s full-size, high-capacity model, and the iPod nano, its compact version. But, here again, Apple has been on the move. The 80-gigabyte Classic, which costs the same as the 80-gigabyte Zune, is slimmer than the Zune and has a flashy new interface, if a smaller screen. And the eight-gigabyte nano, which costs the same as the eight-gigabyte Zune, now plays videos and is much smaller — yet has a larger screen. Neither of these iPods includes Wi-Fi.

In addition, Apple has spiffed up its iTunes software, adding various features, including the addictive Cover Flow, which allows you to flip through all your albums with just a flick of the mouse. Cover Flow also shows up on the nano, the Classic and the Touch. Even the new Zune PC software has no interface as compelling.

And Apple still trounces Microsoft in the selection of media it sells. The iTunes store offers more than six million songs, about double what the Zune Marketplace offers, and dwarfs Microsoft’s selection of Podcasts and music videos, as well. Plus, Zune Marketplace still doesn’t sell any TV shows, movies or audiobooks, while iTunes does.

Radio Feature

Overall, we still don’t think the Zune line beats the iPods and iTunes. However, one of the Zunes, the full-size Zune 80, could give the iPod some competition, especially among new digital-player buyers who aren’t invested in the iTunes ecosystem. For the same price, it offers a significantly larger screen (albeit with the same resolution), wireless syncing and sharing, and a built-in FM radio — an existing Zune feature that the iPod lacks.

We tested the $249.99 80-gigabyte Zune 80 against Apple’s iPod Classic with the same capacity and price and then did the same for the $199.99 eight-gigabyte Zune 8 compared with the iPod nano equivalent.

We didn’t get a chance to test the battery life on the new Zune models or that of the iPod Classic and nano. But Microsoft concedes that unless you turn off Wi-Fi — one of the Zune’s key advantages — its claimed battery life is lower than Apple’s claims. Microsoft estimates as many as 19 and 24 hours of music playback with Wi-Fi on for the eight- and 80-gigabyte, respectfully. Apple claims as many as 24 hours and 30 hours, respectively, on the competitive models, which lack Wi-Fi. In the past, Apple has generally understated its battery claims, while last year, Microsoft overstated its claims.

Easier Navigating

On both Zunes, the front hosts just three buttons: the Zune Pad, a back button and a Play/Pause button. Its menus are divided into Music, Videos, Pictures, Social, Radio, Podcasts and Settings; navigating through this menu list and hundreds of songs is made easier with the Zune Pad’s touch functions. To zip through a list, we flicked a finger up or down. The top, bottom, right and left sides each work as individual buttons, as does the center of the Zune Pad.

The user interface is mainly unchanged from last year and still works very well, requiring an economical number of steps for each action.

Zune’s black, red and green colors are fine, but rather masculine — the latter reminded us of camouflage. But the pink was a glaring shade more appropriate for My Little Pony; it looks like an afterthought.

We initiated wireless syncs with the Zune software program, plugging the player into our PC the first time but leaving it disconnected each time after that. Wireless syncing took a little longer than with a cord and must be initiated by the user from within the player’s settings. One frustration: Presumably to save battery life, the Zune disconnects from the network periodically and then must reconnect the next time you want to use the Wi-Fi. Also, the Zune can’t wirelessly sync if you’re at a public hot spot that requires you to log in or pay.

Intelligent Syncing

This year’s Zunes also introduce a concept Microsoft intends to build on: intelligent, or automated, syncing. If you have your Zune set to sync only some of your music, not all, and drag an artist’s name onto the Zune icon in the PC software, the software will thereafter automatically sync every song you add to the PC from that artist. Microsoft believes many people would welcome such automation.

The Zune’s FM radio is well-designed and easy to use. Using the Zune Pad to flick left or right along the station grid, our Zunes detected numerous static-free stations, and we marked certain stations as presets by holding down the center button. Each radio’s digital data appeared on-screen, including the artist and song title.

We shared songs between our Zunes, beaming tracks from the 80-gigabyte to the eight-gigabyte and vice versa. A wirelessly shared song can be played by the recipient three times whenever they choose. Microsoft has removed the three-day time limit that applied last year. A minute of playing time, or half the duration of a song (whatever comes first) constitutes one play. At first, it took our Zunes a couple tries to recognize one another, even though they were both set to share music. And we noted that invitations to accept shared music don’t include any information about the music, so you could get stuck downloading an annoying tune or one you already own.

Photo Finish

Photos and videos looked great on the Zunes — about as good as they do on the comparable iPod nanos and better than on the iPod Classic because that iPod model’s screen is much smaller than its Zune counterpart’s. However, album art, which is often lower-resolution than normal photos, looked grainier on the big Zune than on the big iPod. And none of the Zunes came close to the stunning photo and video quality offered on the iPod Touch and the iPhone.

We didn’t get to test Zune’s a la carte point system for buying and downloading tracks because it wasn’t up and running yet. Neither were music-video downloads. We each had Zune Pass accounts, which work like subscriptions. If the Zune account stops, all content acquired during the user’s subscription is lost.

Album Focus

Navigating through Zune’s software can be a tad confusing. Four categories at the top left of your PC’s screen are meant to help: Collection, Device, Marketplace and Social. Collection shows your downloaded or owned content and focuses a bit too much on albums, which are becoming less significant with the ever-growing popularity of digital music. One example of this is the Collection’s default center panel shows album art sorted by date added.

Zune Marketplace’s artist pages really shine. Upon selecting a band or artist, a rich, full-screen background image of that group or person appears on the page with lists of songs floating atop the image. Various still photos of each artist are included; we found 10 for Mary Chapin Carpenter and 15 for Nelly Furtado.

A full-screen artist page for Avril Lavigne on Zune Marketplace

After listening to a Yo-Yo Ma album in her music collection, Katie wanted to download additional performances of the famous cellist from the Zune Marketplace online store. But, unlike iTunes, Zune’s software program doesn’t offer a way to link directly from your Collection to Marketplace for buying more of a certain artist or another song from an album you already own.

Another navigational hiccup in Zune’s Marketplace is its inability to bookmark searches. If, after searching in Zune’s online store to buy and download more Yo-Yo Ma, Katie looked in her Collection to see which piece she played last or liked most, then returned to the online store, her Marketplace store search would be lost and she’d need to start over. The iTunes store bookmarks your place during searches, allowing you to navigate through any other part of iTunes before returning to the idle search.

Zune tries to compensate for this glitch by identifying songs in the online store that you already own — either bought through Zune Marketplace or from other sources — with an “In Collection” label so you don’t accidentally buy content you already own. Likewise, if a song in your Collection is already synched to be on the player, a tiny Zune icon appears beside that song title.

Unlike iTunes, Zune software can’t create smart playlists. And it only offers two views, Browse and List, versus three in iTunes: Cover Flow, lists, and lists with album art.

Microsoft has greatly improved the Zune hardware and software this time. But it seems to be competing with Apple’s last efforts, not its newest ones.

• Email mossbergsolution@wsj.com

But how much is too much when it comes to shelling out a little more for convenience, and are you really getting what you pay for? This week, I tested what could be thought of as the ultimate convenience: a box that plugs into your television and Internet connection, letting you download movies whenever you want to watch them. The box costs $399 and doesn’t include the price of movies, which must be rented or purchased for fees as high as $4 or $20 each, respectively.

This box, called Vudu, comes from a Silicon Valley company of the same name (www.vudu.com). Vudu’s biggest strengths are its easy setup, good picture quality and simple user interface, easily navigated using a scroll-wheel remote control.

Vudu costs $399 plus prices to rent or own each movie title.

If the director yelled “Cut!” right here, Vudu would be a box-office smash. But actually using this device is just one problem after another. For starters, though Vudu says it has relationships with the major Hollywood studios, many of the 5,000 titles it offers don’t seem to be popular by mainstream standards. Lots of them are old or obscure. For instance, you won’t find any of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies, but how about a 1984 sci-fi/fantasy movie called “The Ice Pirates,” instead?

If you do find a movie that you’d like to watch, you must have a bandwidth speed of at least two megabits per second to download it instantly; millions of broadband homes have slower connections than that. Vudu offers to measure your bandwidth on its home page before you buy it. I tested Vudu for a week on a typical home-type DSL line, and my connection only clocks about 1.5 Mbps, so it took me about 45 minutes to download each movie.

While Vudu’s $399 price tag might take some getting used to, its fees for buying or renting each movie could be harder to swallow after a month’s worth of use: as much as $80 if you bought one top-tier movie a week. Worse, you have to pay in advance. Rather than charging your credit card on a pay-as-you-go basis, Vudu customers must choose a $20, $50 or $100 amount at setup from which movie fees are deducted. When your account hits $0, the amount selected at setup is charged and the debit process begins again.

On top of all this, Vudu relies on a peer-to-peer network system for faster downloading. So, essentially, this company is using your bandwidth to help it save money it would have otherwise spent on its own servers and bandwidth.

I set up Vudu in a snap, plugging it into three things: a wall outlet, the back of a high-definition Sony Bravia television and an Ethernet cord. Wireless connections won’t work with Vudu without a special “bridge” or a power-line adapter. Once Vudu turned on, a friendly voice guided me through setting it up, and I got started in minutes.

Vudu’s home screen is broken down into five menus: Find Movies, New Releases, My Movies, My Wish List and Info & Settings. I used the tiny remote, which fits perfectly in a hand, and rolled through menus using its scroll wheel. This wheel can be pressed down to select something, saving me from glancing down at the buttons. Also, Vudu uses an RF (radio frequency) antenna so you don’t have to point the remote at it.

In Find Movies, I looked through 18 genres, including biography, romance, family and historical. A sorting feature can filter movies by release date, MPAA rating, critics’ rating, studio, availability to rent and availability to own. An on-screen alphabet can be used to type in names of actors, directors or movie titles; the scroll wheel speeds up this process.

Parental controls, which are only accessible with a special code, can be set to block a child from buying or renting movies with certain ratings.

Vudu likes to think of itself as the instant-gratification alternative to running to the video store. But not many people I know still go to Blockbuster for a DVD; instead, they use mail-delivery services like Netflix. Compared with the 85,000 titles offered by Netflix, the selection at Vudu is pretty slim. A more similar comparison might be Amazon’s Unbox for TiVo, which has slightly less than 5,000 movies.

Though I couldn’t find numerous titles, I did discover plenty of movies I’d never heard of. A search for last year’s “Casino Royale” returned Robert DeNiro’s “Casino” from 1995, as well as two Asian films, “Casino Tycoon” and “Casino Tycoon II.” Since I never saw Helen Mirren’s “The Queen,” I tried to find her Oscar-winning performance on Vudu. But the closest I came to royalty were “Barbarella: Queen of the Galaxy,” an alternative name for the cheesy 1968 Jane Fonda sci-fi flick, and “Prom Queen,” which fell under the Gay and Lesbian category. I tried to laugh this off by watching Steve Carell’s “Evan Almighty.” But typing “E-V-A…” into a title search only returned “Deliver Us From Eva,” an R-rated 2003 comedy starring LL Cool J.

I searched and found the same three titles on Netflix, though Amazon Unbox only had “Evan Almighty.”

I downloaded two romantic comedies: “Music and Lyrics,” starring Hugh Grant, a $4 rental, and a Diane Keaton movie called “Because I Said So,” which I bought for $20. I also rented “Zodiac,” a suspense movie starring Jake Gyllenhaal, for $4. Movies that you own never expire, but rented flicks must be watched within 30 days and expire 24 hours after you start watching.

In the case of each movie, the original estimates for time to download were daunting; two started out by estimating “Available in a few hours” and one movie’s estimate read “Available in a few days.” But all three finished downloading in about 45 to 50 minutes. Only one movie can download at a time.

While watching movies, the remote’s scroll wheel can be used to fast forward or rewind scenes. Scrolling faster moves you farther ahead or back (the fastest jump moves you 30 minutes); the slowest scroll moves you ahead or back five seconds.

Vudu might cast a spell on users who don’t mind its poor selection and high-bandwidth requirement to deliver instant downloads. But for me, the convenience of Vudu is no convenience at all. As is, its lackluster selection, high prices and slow downloads make it more of a letdown than anything else.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Email mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Great songs, like chocolate-covered strawberries, can be sampled once and adored immediately. This is good news for online digital-music stores, where anyone with an Internet connection and a buck can log on from a computer and download a new favorite tune seconds after hearing it.

Now, XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. is making this audio gratification even more instant. Last month, it introduced the first portable combination XM radio/MP3 player, the $400 Pioneer Inno XM2go. Anyone with this device who likes a song playing on XM can simply press a button and record the entire song onto the player. No computer is required, but you do need an XM subscription, which costs $13 a month.

The $399.99 Pioneer Inno XM2go combines portable satellite radio with a digital music player, but watch out for reception problems.

These recorded songs can’t be transferred to PCs or other players. But they can be bookmarked for purchasing online at Napster’s music store the next time the Inno is plugged into a Windows computer. This purchased version of the song can be used on computers and other devices (but not the Apple Computer Inc. iPod).

The new XM device, made by Pioneer Corp.’s Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc., uses flash memory rather than a hard disk, and can store 50 hours of recorded XM Satellite Radio, plus about 8 hours or 150 digital songs copied from a computer. One half of the player is reserved for XM recordings, while the other half is reserved for MP3 or WMA music files. You can switch between the two modes by pressing a button.

The Inno is at the center of a lawsuit filed yesterday by members of the Recording Industry Association of America, who are challenging the legality of the device’s recording feature.

This week, we tested the portable Inno all around town. We liked the device itself, and enjoyed listening to various satellite radio stations on the go. But we were deeply disappointed with its radio reception, which failed in too many places. And we really didn’t like working with the Napster software when we synched the player with our PC. It was a hassle.

Our verdict: adding live satellite radio and the ability to record it onto a device is a good idea, and may appeal strongly to satellite radio lovers willing to pay $13 a month to subscribe. But, for people who just like music, the radio and recording features didn’t seem like reason enough for us to want to buy the Inno over, say, an iPod — especially given the downsides we encountered.

We liked the overall feel of the Inno, and it wasn’t too tough to get the hang of its buttons and functions. It measures 3.7 inches by 2.2 inches by 0.6 inches — just slightly smaller, overall, than a full-size iPod and a little bit thicker — and its 4.5-ounce weight makes it a tad lighter than a 30-gigabyte iPod. A 1.7-inch color screen on the front doesn’t take up the entire surface, and compared to an iPod’s 2.5-inch color screen, its size was more like the one on the tiny iPod Nano, a 1.5-incher.

The back and front sides of the Inno are decorated in cool gun-metal gray. Shiny black edges give it a modern feel, while its stubby antenna resembles that of a smart phone, but thicker and perfectly cylindrical. This antenna is the device’s only means of receiving radio. That’s a breakthrough, since satellite radio usually requires a large separate antenna or a car antenna. Unfortunately, we found the Inno’s little antenna was too weak.

It’s hard to overstate the reception problems that plague the Inno. We lost reception while driving through a short tunnel, walking through a row home and wandering through our office, away from the window. Even in an office with an entire wall of windows, we had to sit right next to the glass to get XM Satellite Radio reception.

Walking around downtown Washington, just a few blocks from the White House and a few miles from XM’s headquarters, the Inno constantly dropped the XM signal, even though Washington, by law, has no office buildings taller than about 12 stories. Walking just a few feet into a Starbucks killed the signal altogether. When we sat down on a bench in a small park, the reception got much better, but still wasn’t perfect. For a device that’s primarily a radio, this is a killer flaw. Of course, you can listen to the Inno’s stash of recorded music during these signal dropouts, but, when the failures are as frequent as ours were, this need to keep switching modes turns a supposedly pleasurable experience into a huge annoyance.

Optional headphones with an antenna disguised in the headpiece can be purchased for an additional $40, and these added slightly better reception, but not much.

A well-designed button on the right side of the Inno powers it on or off when pushed downward, and puts the device on hold when pushed up. Volume controls are just below this button, also on the device’s side. Three buttons line the bottom edge of the color screen — Mode, Play/Pause and Display — and four directional arrows surround an XM select button below these three.

We checked out XM’s 20 categories of music, over 170 stations altogether, by pressing the right arrow button. We paused in the Decades category to listen to “Sunshine Superman” by Donovan on the ’60s station before skipping to Hits where Daniel Powter’s catchy new pop song “Bad Day” was playing on the “Top 20 on 20″ station.

To record “Bad Day” onto our Inno, we pressed the XM button, chose Record and Record Song. A red “REC” icon appeared at the top of the screen, and went away when the song ended. In one case, we were listening to a station when a new song that we wanted to record started before we could press the right buttons. Thanks to the magic of satellite radio, recording automatically started at the song’s beginning, rather than halfway through.

If you’d like, you can schedule times for your Inno to start and stop recording, and these can be set to record on the current day, every day or on a specified date.

When listening to Elton John’s “Something About the Way You Look Tonight” on a romantic music station appropriately named “The Heart,” we opted to Bookmark the song so that it was set aside in a special category of songs for buying when we connected our Inno to our PC. An option called TuneSelect can be chosen while a song or artist is playing; from then on, a message will flash across your screen whenever that artist or song plays anywhere on XM, so you can tune in.

Before synching our Inno with our computer, we used an included CD to load XM + Napster software onto our Dell PC and typed in a special promotional code given to us by Napster for testing.

The Napster software program is confusing, to say the least. Napster offers three types of accounts: Napster Lite, music-store usage with no monthly fee that allows online listening and purchasing of songs à la carte; Napster Membership, a $9.95-a-month program allowing unlimited music downloads onto the PC — but not for transferring to a player; and Napster To Go, a $14.95 monthly membership that allows unlimited music downloading and transferring to a device.

If that doesn’t confuse you, add the fact that because Napster offers music rentals rather than just buying of songs — like iTunes — it considers purchased tracks to be different than downloaded tracks. Overall, your purchased tracks or previously owned tracks (in MP3 or WMA file format) can be transferred to the XM2go. Downloaded (not purchased) tracks can’t be transferred to the XM2go, but they can be transferred to special, more advanced devices with what’s known in techie land as DRM 10 compliance. XM plans to introduce devices with this technology in the future.

The Inno connects to a PC using a standard USB cable, but it must be simultaneously lying in its special sideways dock, which also powers the device. When the Inno is turned sideways in its cradle, its screen automatically rotates, as do its directional arrows. This cradle also has plugs for an additional included antenna and a line out, for using the Inno with a stereo system.

In Napster’s software program, our Inno was identified, as were the songs that we had recorded and bookmarked. Songs recorded from XM can’t be exported from the player, due to copyright laws. Most of the songs we had bookmarked, including Elton John’s tune, had a Download icon next to their track titles.

But instead of seeing a Buy icon next to our bookmarked tunes, we could only purchase songs by right-clicking on tracks and choosing Buy Track since our account type was designed for streaming music rather than buying it. This type of navigational confusion was abundant in the program, and users would easily and understandably be befuddled by what account type they had and what was or wasn’t included in it.

We dragged and dropped songs onto our Inno player without a problem, and they showed up in the MP3 section of the player when we started it up again. We even created playlists, right on the Inno, combining music recorded from XM stations and our own MP3s. Switching between the live XM stations and our MP3s and WMAs was easily done with the Mode button. XM estimates that the Inno’s battery will last for 15 hours in playback mode and five and a half hours in Live XM Mode.

When it’s all said and done, XM’s Inno is fun to use on the go, as long as you’re not underground or in room without windows. But its spotty reception, confusing software and monthly fee make the Inno a no-go, except for hard-core XM fans.

• Email: MossbergSolution@wsj.com

This week, my assistant Katie Boehret and I tested a new software product that aims to solve that problem. The $20 product, called iFill, allows you to fill your iPod with songs or other material recorded from Internet radio stations, free. IFill, which comes from iPod accessory maker Griffin Technology, runs on either a Windows or Macintosh computer.

The software uses the computer to receive the Internet radio, and to send the radio output directly to an iPod, where it is stored as separate song files that can be played at any time. The music from the radio stations isn’t playable on the computer, and doesn’t show up in Apple’s iTunes software, which normally manages your music, and controls the iPod-to-PC link. It shows up only on the iPod itself.

We tested iFill on three Windows PCs and two Macs, using four different iPods. Our results were mixed. IFill worked great with various iPods on the two Macs, but we had lots of trouble using it on our three Windows machines. In our tests, iFill failed with Windows whenever we tried to record radio for any significant length of time.

However, just as we were writing this review, Griffin released a new version of iFill for Windows. We had time to test it only for an hour before our deadline for this column, but it worked fine. We hesitate to recommend a product based on such a short test, but the new version is a hopeful sign for Windows users.

You can try iFill free for up to 28 days, by downloading a trial version from www.griffintechnology.com/products/ifill/. The company will email you a key code that allows free use of the software for seven days. Up to four free codes can be obtained for each email address before you have to pay the $20 software price, stretching the trial period to 28 days.

How does iFill get around copyright restrictions, when it is allowing users to download free music that the record labels usually insist must be paid for? In the documentation, Griffin claims that “iFill’s main use is as a timeshift device, and as such it encourages private use of music within the legal limits of personal copies.” The company adds: “If you like what iFill puts on your iPod, please support the artist by buying the song or the album. Stealing music is not fair.”

Katie first tried using iFill with her iPod mini prior to a weekend trip to Boston, so she’d have a collection of new radio songs to listen to while traveling. She plugged her iPod into her Windows laptop, following a simple set of iFill directions that first instructed her to adjust her iPod settings (using iTunes) in order to “enable disk use,” and got started.

IFill’s user interface is clean and clear. It includes a visual depiction of how the space on your iPod is allocated among different types of files, and simple icons for choosing radio stations, and recording.

The list of stations continuously changes, reflecting the top 1,000 radio stations from www.shoutcast.com, an Internet directory of Web-only radio. These stations include popular music genres along with unique content such as Albanian, flamenco guitar, Russian, sports talk, big band swing and Christian rock.

Stations can be perused by opening a new window that lists each station’s name, number of listeners, bit rate and genre. You can also preview the music that is currently playing on the station by selecting “preview” or double-clicking on the station’s name.

Katie selected three stations — country, classic rock and classical — to record at the same time. While the low-end iPod shuffle can record only two or three stations at once because it can’t write fast enough, other iPods can record from multiple stations simultaneously and are limited only by your computer’s Internet connection speed.

Before recording, you can adjust the “song offset,” or number of seconds — up to 20 before or after a song begins — to more specifically mark where a song starts if, for example, a certain station plays announcements or commercials at the end of songs.

After a few hours of recording, Katie unplugged her iPod and headed for the airport. Seventy-four newly added songs showed up on her iPod, sorted by artist and song title and grouped in the Genre list under “iFill.” But as she boarded the plane and tried to play her new tunes, Katie was dismayed to find that none of the 74 songs played — the iPod simply skipped through all of them in a matter of seconds, without any music.

For $19.99, the iFill software program from Griffin Technology will record content from Internet radio directly onto your iPod.

After arriving in Boston, Katie tried to record 30 minutes of Internet radio using iFill on a different Windows laptop with the same results. Back in our office, she used a new iPod and another Windows computer to successfully record just five minutes of songs using iFill. But her attempt at recording for a longer time period — one hour — on the office PC resulted in the same familiar skipping symptoms.

These Windows results were on the older version of iFill, version 1.11. Again, the new Windows version, 1.12, which we tested for an hour yesterday, worked perfectly.

Things worked much better on the Macintosh platform. I used iFill, running on an Apple PowerBook, to record 58 songs in an hour, from three radio stations, onto my new full-size iPod. The songs played perfectly. Katie also tested a different iPod with an Apple iBook for about five minutes of recording, with success.

Griffin’s Web site suggests that you “go to bed while charging your iPod, and wake up to an iPod full of new music.” This is a great idea on the Mac. And, if the new Windows version is as stable as it appears to be, should work well on Windows as well.

When recording onto our iPods did work, the songs sounded great. Most of the stations we chose had 128 kilobits per second bit rates, the same as those on iTunes. And in many cases, commercials were distinguished as their own tracks, so we could simply skip through them on the iPod.

There are a few annoyances with iFill, even when it works properly. Song information on the iPod’s screen can be a mess, with the artist name, song name and radio station sometimes munched together on one line. Without any adjustments, songs often begin with the first few seconds of the prior track. Also,iFill changes the way iTunes works with your regular songs that don’t come from the radio. It turns off the feature that allows iTunes to automatically synchronize the music on your computer and your iPod, requiring you to transfer normal iTunes tracks manually.

IFill could be a truly handy little piece of software for all iPod owners, assuming it now works on Windows as well as it does on the Mac.

With reporting by Katherine Boehret

• Email me at mossberg@wsj.com