Just so you know, there's nothing stopping you from playing podcasts on the Zune. All podcasts are (and I've had a long misconception about them) are
mp3s downloaded via
RSS.
Having said that, I would recommend an iPod over the Zune. It's simply a better music player with a better interface (the click-wheel is brilliant) while the few features the Zune might have had over the iPod have been crippled to useslessness.
As a side note, I don't understand why everyone complains about the iPod screen size being too small to watch movies. My 27" TV looks no bigger than the iPod screen from typical viewing distances so unless people are planted right in front of their TVs or watching their iPods with their arms stretched out, it's really not that small...