I’ll never accuse MSN of brand loyalty, tat is after admitting the Zune, especially the Brown Zune is one of the worst design disasters for a consumer product. Here’s what the site had to say about the Microsoft MP3 player:

When Microsoft launched its “iPod killer” in 2006, the company made sure to include many of the things that made Apple’s iconic players a runaway success, including great sound and an integrated music store/manager. Somewhere along the way, though, Microsoft forgot to include the iPod’s sexy design, opting instead for a boxy plastic casing and a spectacularly unflattering brown color.

So Zune is boy and it comes in brown, never mind that the brown is “double-shot” with a pearly white. One can only admit that as far as form factor is concerned iPods arelight years away from the Zune, but to say that Zune is one of the worst product designs ever is to ignore and entire section of the global tech market. Below are just three players we recently covered that are uglier than Zune. Read on.

[via theappleblog]

1. Newman MINI ALL VX1000 - for such an ugly piece of plastic, this Windows CE device is fully-loaded with WiFi, Skype, MS Office support and instant messaging.

2. MP4 3010A - they are trying to make this look like the SideKick and failed miserably in the attemtp.

3. Good Brother - that’s what it says below the screen. The button is shaped like our favorite mouse but very few children would swap their iPod-lookalike for this.