What does the 604 do right out of the box?

[wmtyrance]

The plugins thing bothers me. What does the 604 do right out of the box? I can't believe i have to buy plugins to play podcast. I'm not a techie,are these plugins easy to install. I just want a player that will let me listen to podcast and music with a video here and there. I do have a Zune but the new software is crap. And of course microsoft is hiding and not telling us anything about a fix for it.