Re: Zune HD
 

Well I've always had an intense dislike for Apple. In their singleminded effort to make things accessible to the technology illiterate, they have cut out features that I love to use and restricted me from doing things that I want to do.
Not that there's a whole lot to do on an iPod. I've found that iPods are decent players and work well, but since you "have" to use iTunes, and iTunes is a piece of **** (wish there was a stronger curse word), iPods are generally out for me.

Now I bought an iPod, and a Creative Zen, and I liked the Zen, and found the iPod passable, but it wasn't until I lost the Zen and gave the iPod to my sister that I discovered the Zune 80. I fell in love and used it for over a year until I dropped it into a cup of water in my car which killed it. Luckily I had bought a flash Zune to develop multiplayer games with so I just switched right over to that without any problems.

Yes at first glance it has a tiny screen with an annoyingly large bezel, but as soon as I began using it exclusively, the screen size just didn't bother me. I mean I see its the same size, but since I've been using it I just don't care, it works for me.

So in short, if you have a lot of music locked into iTunes, then you might as well go iPod again, but if you have all DRM-free music, I definitely suggest going Zune. If this is just a gym player, get a flash Zune. They have them in 16GB now.

If you're going to be watching lots of video on it, I suggest the Zune 80. The screen is just so large and nice for video.

Re: Zune HD
 

Lol the OP sounded like a sales pitch. The Zune HD looks pretty cool but definitely don't count on it getting decent 3rd party support. They'll sell what, a few hundred thousand? Wouldn't be too lucrative.


It will be a great media player, but IE6 based browser? 3 weeks after it comes out someone will hack it, make a fenec port that all the nerds will pee on themselves for, which barely runs and that will be the last anyone hears of it.

I have no idea why Microsoft is fragmenting their mobile platforms, Windows Mobile and Zune should share a platform so they can create a solid software base. They know how to do it, but some crap executive directive will keep the Zune as a obscure and small platform.

Re: Zune HD
 

What I don't understand (well I can probably guess why.. DRM) is why don't they at least let you put music on it via USB as a dumb drive (plug it in, drag and drop music into whatever folder).

I understand if you have DRM tracks, fine yeah put them into an exclusive database or whatever. But for regular tracks that are DRM free I should be able to drag and drop into any mp3 player without requiring any software installed. That's partially why I wound up with my n800 as an mp3 player.

Re: Zune HD
 

If you don't like iTunes, and it's not an iPhone... use YamiPod.

Re: Zune HD
 

Yes, just as web developers started hoping IE6 will die, MS started shoving the IE6 engine into everything that moves. This will ultimately kill anything that has it for browsing the Web... maybe it will be good for watching movies though.

Re: Zune HD
 

I just took a look and that sounds great, I may just go to the apple site and get a referb 16 GB nano while they're cheap, and use this program if I dnt settle on the idea of zune

Thanks grebick :D

Re: Zune HD
 

The 480 x 272 pixel screen on the Zune "HD" doesn't do it for me. The "HD" obviously stands for "Half Density".

Re: Zune HD
 

Does it allow you to install 3rd party apps (some form of app store)?
Does it have email, IM, and some form of voice communication software built in?

(I'm just trying to figure out how it's a competitor for the NIT platform, as opposed to just a media player ... where I definitely don't consider media players to be NIT competitors)

Re: Zune HD
 

I definitely wouldn't consider the Zune HD a competitor for the NIT platform even after it were hacked to death. Wifi + media playback doesn't equate the NIT platform in the least.

I'd consider it just a media player. But that's my opinion.

Re: Zune HD
 

I think the HD part comes in when you hook it to TVs or monitors (I guess via HDMI?).

Though I don't own any HDMI TVs or monitors so that feature would be useless to me. And I don't carry movies on my mobile devices generally unless I'm going be watching it frequently or haven't seen it yet (e.g. for a road trip) Cool feature nevertheless.