Zune HD

No, it's the whole unicorn.

Ulairi wrote:

Why would it need to be that big for HD playback? They could do 32GB and that would allow a few HD movies, music, and everything on it.

I have a 30G Zune now with NO video on it and about half of my MP3 library and maybe 50 pictures and it is ~20G (it was preloaded with a bunch of Halo stuff). Throw in a few 4G 720p movies and you're quickly over 32G.

I guess I'm hoping for basically a portable flash drive with a touchscreen interface that I could plug into my car, AVR, home server, etc and that be where a majority (if not all) of my media lives. Constantly having to manage the files on there due to the storage would get old.

NSMike wrote:
trip1eX wrote:

Looks nice on paper.

But I don't see an iPod killer yet.

HD playback seems redundant to a 360 owner which is the universe the Zune seems to be tying itself into. Focus on radio and dock will surely net some users that want that stuff, but it seems like the market at large doesn't care much about those features.

I agree iPod's killer app is the App Store (and iTunes as well.) Otherwise there is not alot stopping the competition from gradually eroding Apple's market share as they catch up to Apple on the hardware/software fronts.

One thing the Zune could potentially have over the App Store is a familiar, and "open," (only insofar as Apple's is not) SDK. XNA has worked with Zunes for a while now, and if they keep going forward with that, XNA already uses a development platform many developers are familiar with.

Admittedly, that's more of a bullet point than a true advantage due to the small install-base of the Zune, and even though it's a nice looking device with some cool features, I'm not seeing any reason folks will give the iPod the heave-ho for a Zune. Maybe folks looking to replace an outdated device will give it consideration, but that's not much of a market to shoot for.

I'm planning on getting a Zune to replace my Lyra. I likely won't go with this model (I strongly dislike touch-only interfaces.) However, .NET app development for it is a big deal. There's a huge amount you can do with any given .net language that is an epic degree easier than futzing with an apple SDK on a windows machine. (Monodevelop for Linux.) And if they throw up a solid app market like Android has, then that _WILL_ be a killer app. The iPhone app store is pretty inanely run at times. And it doesn't really help the signal/noise ratio that much.

Then again, I also think Objective-C is probably the most pointless current language in existence. (C++ is pretty bad, and needs a major overhaul. Having another similar but equally.... archaic language around, only really in use for 2 systems? Way to be a NIH maniac.) At least .NET is well supported outside of one system. (Mono. Plus, I think someone got Mono running on Android, as well.) Or, you know, Java. Which despite my dislike, speaks for itself.

Captain_Arrrg wrote:

The first one to put out a device that lets me check my email; make calls; take pictures (decently); can store 120GB of music and hold up to being in my pocket all day, wins. Extra points if it works with my bluetooth headphones, I would love to ditch my dongle.

And I need to have T-Mobile, unless someone else can give me a Hot-Spot@Home equivalent.

Let's see:
My G1 can check my mail, make calls, takes pretty decent pictures (Ranging from decent to damned good, depending on lighting. It's weak in low-light, but it's fantastic for bright outdoors. Most of which I think is the software. A market camera app made the camera rock pretty hard.), and will now take video. I'm pretty sure they now work with bluetooth headphones as well. (Any goodjer with a G1 and set to confirm?). The battery life is weak thus far, and definitely the weak point of the system. (That's more battery tech than phone tech, unfortunately.). You can also get large SD cards to put in it. Not 120GB yet, but 8gb is affordable. Plus, SSD are more resistant to vibration in portable devices than HDDs are.

AFAIK (I don't own one, and I hack on my G1 constantly, so I know a lot about it.), the iPhone is comparable, but tied to AT&T, and you can't swap batteries (or SD Cards?) to overcome the limitations of the tech.

Kannon wrote:
Captain_Arrrg wrote:

The first one to put out a device that lets me check my email; make calls; take pictures (decently); can store 120GB of music and hold up to being in my pocket all day, wins. Extra points if it works with my bluetooth headphones, I would love to ditch my dongle.

And I need to have T-Mobile, unless someone else can give me a Hot-Spot@Home equivalent.

Let's see:
My G1 can check my mail, make calls, takes pretty decent pictures (Ranging from decent to damned good, depending on lighting. It's weak in low-light, but it's fantastic for bright outdoors. Most of which I think is the software. A market camera app made the camera rock pretty hard.), and will now take video. I'm pretty sure they now work with bluetooth headphones as well. (Any goodjer with a G1 and set to confirm?). The battery life is weak thus far, and definitely the weak point of the system. (That's more battery tech than phone tech, unfortunately.). You can also get large SD cards to put in it. Not 120GB yet, but 8gb is affordable. Plus, SSD are more resistant to vibration in portable devices than HDDs are.

AFAIK (I don't own one, and I hack on my G1 constantly, so I know a lot about it.), the iPhone is comparable, but tied to AT&T, and you can't swap batteries (or SD Cards?) to overcome the limitations of the tech.

Sounds like the G1 is in the lead, now all they need to do is give me enough storage to justify giving up my Zune.

...And if they want to put a fancy touch screen on it, then I better not pull it out of my pocket only to find it cracked.

Captain_Arrrg wrote:

Sounds like the G1 is in the lead, now all they need to do is give me enough storage to justify giving up my Zune.

...And if they want to put a fancy touch screen on it, then I better not pull it out of my pocket only to find it cracked.

I've dropped the damn thing more than I care to admit, and it's not even scratched. I'll be perfectly honest though: I love my G1, but I wouldn't use it as a MP3 player. It'll murder the battery. Well, scratch that. I use it as my MP3 player now, because my Lyra is sadly down for the count. (An arc off of an overloaded cable finally fried it. After multiple washings, getting run over by a car not once, but twice, and a battery literally exploding in it. The SD card was still good though.) But the battery on it doesn't do too well with mp3 player and my bluetooth headset. I can only imagine pushing it over bluetooth headphones would be worse. Plus, there's always the issue of only one port, so you can charge, or you can have headphones. Not an issue with bluetooth, however.

The power of GWJ on-the-go cannot be denied, however. Plus, the app market is full of epic awesome stuff. And t-mobile is utter awesomeness as far as mobile companies go.

Kannon wrote:
Captain_Arrrg wrote:

Sounds like the G1 is in the lead, now all they need to do is give me enough storage to justify giving up my Zune.

...And if they want to put a fancy touch screen on it, then I better not pull it out of my pocket only to find it cracked.

I've dropped the damn thing more than I care to admit, and it's not even scratched. I'll be perfectly honest though: I love my G1, but I wouldn't use it as a MP3 player. It'll murder the battery. Well, scratch that. I use it as my MP3 player now, because my Lyra is sadly down for the count. (An arc off of an overloaded cable finally fried it. After multiple washings, getting run over by a car not once, but twice, and a battery literally exploding in it. The SD card was still good though.) But the battery on it doesn't do too well with mp3 player and my bluetooth headset. I can only imagine pushing it over bluetooth headphones would be worse. Plus, there's always the issue of only one port, so you can charge, or you can have headphones. Not an issue with bluetooth, however.

The power of GWJ on-the-go cannot be denied, however. Plus, the app market is full of epic awesome stuff. And t-mobile is utter awesomeness as far as mobile companies go.

Stop tempting me!!!!

Nah, it's my job as a filthy enabler. You should go see if they have a phone to mess with in a t-mobile store near you if you're thinking about getting one.

Kannon wrote:

Nah, it's my job as a filthy enabler. You should go see if they have a phone to mess with in a t-mobile store near you if you're thinking about getting one.

Didn't I just seen an article this week with Google claiming that there will be 18 different Android-based phones out before this end of the year? Something like that, anyway. If you haven't gone for a G1 at this point, you'd probably be well served in waiting to see what new flavors become available in the coming months (unless you need a phone immediately).

Found it:

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/0...

Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:

There is no way the control schemes in the absolute majority of XBLA games can be ported to an all-touch-based user interface.

True, but the Zune HD is not necessarily the only Zune-enabled device coming out.

For example, this might work:
IMAGE(http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/bto/20090515/xboxportable.jpg)

I think Microsoft would have a hit if they could come up with a PMD that had real controls to support XBLA games and allow you to play Castle Crashers away from your home..

/drool

TheGameguru wrote:

I think Microsoft would have a hit if they could come up with a PMD that had real controls to support XBLA games and allow you to play Castle Crashers away from your home..

/drool

That's what I'm sayin'! Or maybe some Geometry Wars 2?

SommerMatt wrote:

Didn't I just seen an article this week with Google claiming that there will be 18 different Android-based phones out before this end of the year?

Very, very few of them are in the G1 / iPhone class of smartphones.

Most of them are much more simple (and cheaper) handsets.

Podunk wrote:

I want one. That is all.

Seconded

Just got an email from MS saying that you can pre-order the Zune HD online. Available stores are Amazon, Best Buy, Wal Mart and Microsoft store. Only the MS store would actually let you purchase one, but you couldn't pick your color yet.

The pricing seems fair - $290 for a 32G and $220 for the 16G.

Looks like the ship date is Sept 15.

The 'average' consumer knows Apple, and rightly so.

But the Zune is much-maligned for no good reason. Perhaps, if they sold the original Zune at lunch for 15% cheaper and a nice piano black finish-- it would have been adopted more.

The Zune software is great, it does exactly what it should to take advantage of the Zune.

Plus all the features: touchpad, xy-axis menus, RDBS FM, wireless sync, sound quality independently judged better than the iPod, constant updates, free games...

My 2nd Sansa Clip just died, and while that is a super piece of tech, I may just go with an 8GB black refurbished model this time around...

I think the biggest reason the Zune was maligned was because it IMPOSED copy protection on tracks you shared, even if the original track didn't have it. That one misfeature alone probably wrecked the buzz.

Malor wrote:

I think the biggest reason the Zune was maligned was because it IMPOSED copy protection on tracks you shared, even if the original track didn't have it. That one misfeature alone probably wrecked the buzz.

Which is funny in that most other players simply didn't offer device-to-device track sharing at all, but DRM-restricting track swapping was somehow considered worse.

I do think you're partly right that this was a big part of it. I also think the negative effect of the poop brown color of the original Zune can't be underestimated. Apple ruled the market with a snazzy, attractive little device, and MS saddled up to the table for the first time holding poop brown. The metaphors were simply inescapable.

Finally, the Zune improved significantly in its second gen. If MS had brought that second gen device out as their initial entry, perception might have been wildly different. The problem was that MS only had one shot at generating enough first impression buzz to be sized up as a valid alternative to the iPod or not, and they didn't bring their "A" game until they had already blown that opportunity.

I'm still unhappy about the Zune's encrypted handshake and gimped autoplaylists. The iPod Classic fixed a number of my old iPod complaints, though I still would prefer a Zune that I could access from Linux and create the kind of programmable playlists I can on the iPod.

trip1eX wrote:

What's the reason to buy a Zune other than you hate Apple?

Refer to the other Zune threads (which you've posted in) for the multiple repeated answers to this question.

What's the reason to buy a Zune other than if you hate Apple?

Seriously. I don't see it. The extra features look like they were taken from Apple's reject list. Apple never thought FM important enough to put it in their players. Sharing seems tedious, but even if it isn't it's a catch-22 for a newly released product. Worthless until there are lots of owners. And no one is going to buy a Zune for this feature until there is.

And the Zune is always portrayed as an ipod with these extra features when the reality is probably closer to an ipod missing a bunch of features, but with these extra ones.

Best case the Zune might be a fine music player, but the challenger never wins against the champion in a close fight.

*Legion* wrote:
trip1eX wrote:

What's the reason to buy a Zune other than you hate Apple?

Refer to the other Zune threads (which you've posted in) for the multiple repeated answers to this question.

It looks like I fixed my post a bit above at the same time you posted.

Anyway it was just proposed (again?) that the Zune is maligned for no good reason so I'm asking the question (again?) in reference to that. These products get updates. Perhaps there has been significant change.

trip1eX wrote:

Anyway it was just proposed (again?) that the Zune is maligned for no good reason so I'm asking the question (again?) in reference to that. These products get updates. Perhaps there has been significant change.

Your argument is coming from the starting position that there's just no reason for anything other than Apple players to exist, as if choice itself is not valid. That's not a very sound position to start the discussion from.

The argument that Apple saw no reason to put FM radio in their player is meaningless to people that still want to be able to hear the radio (I remember in the Discman days, I looked far and wide until I found the Discman with FM radio built in).

Also, as gets brought up every time: the Zune still has the superior audio quality, period. The iPod Classic isn't nearly as far off as before, but it's still not the Zune's equal.

*Legion* wrote:
trip1eX wrote:

What's the reason to buy a Zune other than you hate Apple?

Refer to the other Zune threads (which you've posted in) for the multiple repeated answers to this question.

Seriously. There are plenty of other threads for discussing the merits of the current gen Zune. This thread is for the new sexy one.

*Legion* wrote:
trip1eX wrote:

Anyway it was just proposed (again?) that the Zune is maligned for no good reason so I'm asking the question (again?) in reference to that. These products get updates. Perhaps there has been significant change.

Your argument is coming from the starting position that there's just no reason for anything other than Apple players to exist, as if choice itself is not valid. That's not a very sound position to start the discussion from.

Well I wouldn't and didn't put it like that. That seems like a very internets point of view.

But the reality is the iPod is, by far and away, the market leader. Apple has the most experience in this market. And so I am coming from the point of view that says you have to knock out the champion to win sorta speak. Otherwise why is the consumer going to take a risk on the other guy?

*Legion* wrote:

The argument that Apple saw no reason to put FM radio in their player is meaningless to people that still want to be able to hear the radio (I remember in the Discman days, I looked far and wide until I found the Discman with FM radio built in).

True on an individual basis. But in terms of why a product is maligned or not successful in the larger marketplace you have to look at the market at large. And from what I can see FM radio is not a compelling feature under that macroscope.

*Legion* wrote:

Also, as gets brought up every time: the Zune still has the superior audio quality, period. The iPod Classic isn't nearly as far off as before, but it's still not the Zune's equal.

It doesn't seem like consumers who purchase an "mp3" player are too concerned about the very best audio quality. IT looks like the iPod's audio quality is good enough for the market at large. Hence "better" audio quality is not a selling point for the Zune in the marketplace. On an invididual basis you might differ, but I don't think that changes the bigger picture. IT's the exception to the rule.

trip1eX wrote:

It doesn't seem like consumers who purchase an "mp3" player are too concerned about the very best audio quality.

You can't ask "What's the reason to buy a Zune other than if you hate Apple?" and then, when given a very direct answer, say "oh, but the masses don't care about that". Your question is asking why someone would buy an MP3 player other than the one the masses have embraced. Changing the premise of the question is not a refutation.

I don't remember seeing the confirmed storage for the Zune HD, but i'm disappointed that they're following the trend of using flash. I was hoping that the Zune HD would at least differentiate itself with a larger storage capacity, 160GB+. A great touch device with tons of storage would be fantastic.

I wish my Iphone and Ipod had an FM radio built in.. at the gym all the TV's use FM radio stations so you can listen to them.

*Legion* wrote:
trip1eX wrote:

It doesn't seem like consumers who purchase an "mp3" player are too concerned about the very best audio quality.

You can't ask "What's the reason to buy a Zune other than if you hate Apple?" and then, when given a very direct answer, say "oh, but the masses don't care about that". Your question is asking why someone would buy an MP3 player other than the one the masses have embraced. Changing the premise of the question is not a refutation.

Well I thought it was implied that my question was "Why would the masses buy an mp3 player other than the iPod?"

After all my post came after yours and the others where it seemed like you were all talking about the market at large and why the Zune failed and/or is much maligned.

"You" in this case meaning joe schmoe mass consumer. I guess I write a little informally according to the context of the posts above.

trip1eX wrote:

"Why would the masses buy an mp3 player other than the iPod?"

iTunes is sh*t and the Zune sounds better.

No ad populum necessary.

If I could take it back, I'd buy a Zune instead of my 80GB Ipod classic. I was a major Ipod fan until I actually got my hands on someone's Zune. Ya know, Microsoft might of done something right here!

Itunes is {ableist slur} when it comes to organizing my music, I have no idea what the Zune software is like but I doubt it's worse. I do like the Itunes store though.

In my mind (for me), the iPod only really holds an advantage with accessories.

There so many boomboxes, car radios, control schemes and exercise equipment that are distinctly made to interact with iPod. And although I am a small flash memory player type of guy-- if I was in the market for a player that can hold all my music; the iPod just might win out versus the technically-superior Zune.