I bought a refurn Zune a couple of weeks ago, and I'm pleased with it. Don't worry about the brown color, you'll almost certainly want a protective case or skin for it anyway.
A couple of points that might be helpful:
My refurb unit is nice, but had some minor scratches on the screen. I would consider that when deciding between new and refurb.
Windows xp 64 is not supported. (Can you believe that?!!?) There is a hack to let you use the software, but it has limitations and is not completely reliable (for example, if you rip music at the highest bitrate, the software won't convert it and let you put on the Zune.)
There is no doubt in my mind that this is a good buy, compared the $250 ipod 30gig. But realize that there is not the market share, so there are many, many more accessories for the ipod. You may end up having to buy the pricey Microsoft accessories in some cases to get what you want. (I bought a package on ebay for it, with a black rubber skin, screen protector, home/auto charger, cheap ear buds, cheap leather case, a/v cable, and FM transmitter for $30 shipped. The FM transmitter is worthless (sound quality sucks beyond belief), but the rest was worth it.
The interface is really nice. I like the way you can have your Zune software set to rip a music cd automatically when you insert it into the computer. I was able to rip quite a few disks very quickly. However, even in Vista, I find some minor bugs (like it "loses" the Zune and I have to unplug and plug it back into the USB port sometimes.)
Bottom line: great deal, despite the possibility of having to work around a few things.