Review roundup: Zune HD plays catchup to iPod touch - Page 3

There's not a whole lot of reason to be discussing this anyway, I'm beginning to realize. This thing will flop the same way the original Zune did. It's an exact rehash of the original Zune situation, except a few years later.

We're debating yet another one of MS' failures-to-be.

I was talking about the Apple TV- can't you read? Well when is APple going to improve on its garbage, I mean "hobby". So now your telling me I can put Apps on my Apple TV? Is there no end to your delusion?

Try navigating the Zune from the couch while it is docked underneath your TV. Not that I am defending the Apple TV, I want to see it improve too.

PS. Quit saying iTV, that isn't its name.

What flop? Microsoft is a software company, hence making the Zune their "hobby"

It's been in existence for over 3 years now and getting stronger now with the ZuneHD. That sounds like pretty decent progression to me. I'm just being unbiased.

That's a typical MS excuse. It was just a "hobby" or an "experiment" that MS can afford to half-ass and not get called out on. They're not really serious, anyway . . .

Like the slow kid in the class. It's alright, he's trying!



A "real" experiment is the Apple TV. That's something Apple can afford to play around with for as long as they like. It's part of an emerging market, still trying to find its direction.

Nowhere to go but up from their 1% market share.

Hmmm, ever heard of the XBOX experiment, which played 2nd fiddle to PS2, and the XBOX360, which the PS3 plays 2nd fiddle to now?

Yeah, the one that's cost them over a billion in losses.

ZuneHD is more of a digression than a progression...

It's more expensive and it still lacks the craftsmanship of ipod touch.

Sorry MS it should be back to the drawing board again.

Your kool-aid in your bathtub has been drawn sir. It awaits you- don't drown. Later.

And the audio going to my receiver and the Ethernet cord if that's how you have it connected to your network. And don't forget to take your little Apple remote control or your AppleTV will be useless when you get to your friend's house.

I'm not saying it can't be done, but I don't keep my home theather cables out in the open where they are easily accessible. They are tucked away behind everying nice a neat. I'd much rather take just a small, pocketable device and a single cable, to make my content portable, than rip apart my entertainment center.

I doubt the Xbox is a viable analogy for the Zune HD. Certainly not when the Zune HD is competing directly against Apple's hendheld ecosystem. MS has absolutely no time to mess around in this area, and they've already shown a startlingly incoherent strategy when it comes to handhelds. MS "getting it right" with the Zune HD when the rest of the indsutry has long since moved on isn't really saying a whole lot.

Because Microsoft reward with $$$$$!!!

When you praise a company that has singlehandedly revolutionized the handheld industry (twice over), not as a reaction to any competition, but creating an entirely new paradigm each time, it's not Kool-Aid. It's making a smart bet.

There is no Apple "Kool Aid." Just the reality of witnessing continued success, year after year. Apple guides the rest of the industry. It's only natural that this will impress nearly everyone. Even naysayers. Why even argue against it.

When the Great Zune HD revolution happens and I refuse to recognize it, then you can call me anything. But until then, don't get all cooked because we're backing a winner.

The analogy was that I was hypothetically taking my AppleTV to my friends house to watch some videos or a movie. For that, we don't necessarily need the ethernet cable if the movie or videos are already on the 160GB drive on my AppleTV. If we wanted to rent a movie, then I could just connect wirelessly to my friends network. Though, borrowing the ethernet cable from his PS3 would be even easier. As for the audio to the receiver, the HDMI carries that to the receiver and then the receiver then sends HDMI to the TV. And that little Apple remote, the Zune's dock has one of those too. Lastly, if your setup's wiring is tucked away nice and neat behind the equipment, then presumably the Zune's dock cables are as well. No more or less than the cables to the AppleTV, except that I can just borrow the HDMI off of my friends PS3 or other HDMI source. Technically, all I need is the power cable and the remote. Oh wait, I don't need the little remote, I can control my AppleTV with my iPhone.

KASPER! Please made this the website's subtitle.

Interesting he did not know that the iPod Touch is actually thinner than the new Zune.

Talks about how the screen makes it so thin.....but its really not.

rofl.

let him be. He's just an Apple fan who will hate anything Ms does, regardless of what it is. There is something telling, however, of his need to constantly comment on the subject. Deep down he knows the Zune HD is a pretty cool toy, but since MS makes it, he has to voice his disapproval.

Competing against the iPod Touch in 2009, and not the iPhone, is a bit like claiming you're master of the bunny hill at the ski resort.

Ok that's too far. You know how many lives the bunny hill has claimed? It's not something to be taken lightly. As soon as you lose your fear and respect of it, it'll wrap you around a tree like it was nobody's business.

Probably because most of what they've done for the past decade, and are doing now, really doesn't merit any significant level of excitement.

You'll forgive me if I have little to no faith in a company that has been in a near-comatose state when compared to a rival half its size and half its resources.

When it comes to the consumer sphere, MS hasn't known WTF it's doing for years. Sorry for not being super-pumped about a device that is yet again, trying to ape what Apple has already chewed up and spit out.

How the hell am I supposed to react?

Actually, this is true.

It's still an incline and the tow-lift can be deadly.

While I don't see myself getting a ZuneHD anytime soon, I'm glad it exists and I really hope it does well, if only to create some competition for the Touch. The ZuneHD does a number of things I really wish the Touch did, especially wireless syncing, the HDMI out, and the Zune Pass. The latter might not be an option for Apple anymore as the record labels seem to want to level the playing field among music download stores rather than help Apple solidify their dominance, but honestly the Touch could and should have had wireless syncing for a while now at the very least, if not the whole iPod line.

The HDMI out on the ZuneHD and the ability to playback movies with nothing but a ZuneHD, a USB cable and my HDTV would be enough to get me to buy one if it wasn't assuredly limited to Microsoft's stupid proprietary formats and wouldn't work for things like divx and mkv containers with multiple codec support.

Honestly, this is something Sony should be focusing on. With their lack of allegiance to one file type or another, they could corner a nice chunk of the market with a media player with that kind of flexibility and some better software.

Really? You're going to go there? Hey everybody, remember

CUT AND PASTE! MMS! REMOVABLE BATTERY! MULTITASKING! BLUETOOTH FOR MY HEADPHONES! REAL KEYBOARD! MORE BUTTONS!

You know, all the things that made the iPhone/Touch "fail"? That needed to be LOL'ed about because "my XYZ has had that for ten years"?

So MS makes its "competitor" to the Touch and all of a sudden none of that stuff matters anymore because, it focuses on the music, man! Why do want all that Touch clutter crap?

The Zune beats the Nano, except for size and cost. The Zune competes with the Nano. The Zune has almost nothing to do with the Touch.

Lots of Zune hysterics were absolutely sure the HD was going to totally have an SDK and an app store and some massively cool titles right out of the gate and just wait, just you wait.

They're hoping we're all just forgetting that, and abruptly changing gears to talk about what a focused device for music the Zune is, and OLED, and, um, radio, and did I mention OLED?

The Zune has been crippled by the Windows Mobile division, pure and simple. They don't want the Zune stealing their thunder, and they have pride of place within MS. The Zune could have been a touch competitor if MS didn't have such a Byzantine internal organization, but they do, and their mobile offerings are scattered across several divisions that don't cooperate.

The Zune is a single purpose device in a multipurpose world. All the fun animated transitions and OLED in the world can't change that. MS has made the best music player of 2006, no doubt.

Funny how everybody praises the Zune UI... but I don't like it. I don't like the list view menu... I prefer the way Apple does it on the iPod Touch... I actually enjoy the cover flow view and even that "list view" as well.

The features that the Zune has over the iPod touch are of little use to me...

HD Video via the Dock: Don't need my portable player to produce HD if I have to carry around a dock to do it. Makes HD a little less portable. I have plenty of devices attached to my TV that play HD that this is a useless feature for me.

HD Radio: I only listen to the Regular Guys morning show on the radio here... I guess FM wouldn't be a bad idea in an iPod because I could take my old Sony Walkman home from work... so, radio is pretty useless to me for music but could eliminate a device. However, that is not enough for me to move to a Zune.

Subscription Music: While this might be neat, I have never dabbled in Napster, Rhapsody, or any of the other subscription services... so, this is not a selling point to me.

But the one feature that it doesn't have, is the one "must-have."

Mac Support: I do have a Windows 7 machine (RC) in my house and wil be installing Win 7 once it is out on Oct 22, but all of my media is on my iMac and I don't foresee that changing. With iTunes ability to stream from one machine to another, there is little incentive to copy all of the songs to another machine and into a different media manager.

That being said, I have no reason to upgrade to the 3rd gen iPod Touch... perhaps if it had a camera, I would have. I just hope Apple doesn't ignore the Zune as it is a worthy competitor to the Touch on the PC side of things.

The point remains: People like you (maybe not necessarily you exactly) defended the iphone/touch with the excuse that they would implement those features eventually. In the end, both sides are a bit hypocritical. The same happened with the palm pre. It's is coming along slowly but surely, and I think this zune hd will do the same. Anyone who wants to make the excuse that it'll take time for features to get to the device must SURELY be willing to admit it was acceptable for the iphone/touch to take that route.

Also, how do you know so much about the inner workings of microsoft's mobile platform divisions? I pretty much read up on anything that has to do with windows mobile constantly, and never has this sort of complaint surfaced. I guess the amount of time it takes them to give us an update is telling.

I saw engadget's review of this thing. Apps & webpages take forever to load, they had problems with the accelerometer & screen flickering, and to top it off, people are reporting lack of 64bit XP support with the desktop software. I personally think it's pathetic that there's that many issues with it, and that so much was left out. On one hand, they admit their focus was on multimedia, but on the other hand, they admit it's supposed to be an ipod touch competitor, which is capable of being more than a media player.

HD: Not exactly.

HD is a misnomer - you cannot watch movies in 720p on the Zune. In fact the iPod touch screen is higher resolution. For $90 you can buy a dock from which you can plug in your Zune to your TV and playback 720p video. Of course that assumes you will load large movies onto your Zune. The Tegra SOC is actually a Portal Player chip that Nvidia acquired when they bought Portal Player. Apple dumped portal player years ago and the company almost went under.

Apparently, the iPod Touch can play back 720p as well.

App Store vs. Windows Markeplace (or is it Zune Pass, Or Zune Market, or . . . )

Apple has over 75,000 apps for the Touch (Zune HD has less than ten apps) millions of songs, tv shows and movies - far more in every category than MSFT. You can sync all of these to your Apple TV and watch HD movies on that. The iTunes model is far more established.

iTunes v. the subscription model: Why rent?

Unlimited music services have failed because users do not want to be stuck paying $15 per month for music they rent. These services have very few users, which is why Apple has never set it up for iTunes. If it were a succssful model, Apple would have implemented it long ago. If you really want such a service there is a Real App for the iPod that allows you to rent music from Real's very well established library.

Video killed the radio star

HD radio is a non factor. There a very few HD stations out there and even fewer worth listening to. Radio functionality has never been a significant factor here. Unless you stick one in a Nano with a videocamera. Then it's impressive due to the accompanying form factor.

The web done right

The iPod touch is based on iPhone platform. These devices are capable of a full web browsing experience.

Here today, gone tomorrow

The biggest reason to buy the iPod Touch vs. the Zune HD: How long will Zune be around? The Zune has lost money since day one. Its market share is 1% and MS sells these with very low margins because (a) they do not have the economy of scale Apple does (b) they end up selling these devices at big discounts because they cannot sell them otherwise. If they continue to lose money on this venture, management will eventually have to divest, leaving the users with apps, songs, movies etc., that are obsolete. In other words, the Zune HD is a poor investment. Would have been a good one in 2006. Sadly, MS can't travel back in time, even though the Zune HD makes it look like MS did just that.

Long term: Hey, where's everybody going?

It's all about device convergence now. MS arrived to the party when everyone's leaving. MS releases a crippled mediaplayer with no phone functionality, in the wake of a major decline in iPod sales over the last year. If Apple can't sell as many iPods - which offer a lot more than the Zune HD and dominate mindshare, then what can MS realistically expect?

The results seem to speak for themselves. There's not a whole lot to know, anyway. It's a mess.

[crap, it won't format right. how do i import a word table?]

Such rambling discussions here and everywhere on the web on the topic. No one has sorted it all out properly, not even all the pundits and tech sites. so here is a good start chart (hope formatting works):


FUNCTION\t ZUNE\t iPod NANO\t iPod TOUCH
\t\t\t
Web Browser\t IE Mobile\t No\t Safari Mobile
E-Mail\t No\t No\t Apple Mail
Text\t No\t No\t Apple Messages
VOIP\t No\t No\t w/Skype App et al
Calendar\t No\t No\t Apple Calendar
Contacts\t No\t No\t Apple Contacts
Data Sync\t No\t No\t w/MobileMe
\t\t\t
Apps\t About 5\t None\t Tens of Thousands
Games\t About 5\t About 50\t Many Thousands
Standard Apps MS Maps\t No\t Apple/Google Maps
\t MS Weather\t No\t Apple/Yahoo Weather
\t MS Calculator\t No\t Apple Calculator
\t\t\t Apple Remote App
\t\t\t MobileMe iDisk App
\t\t\t
Camera\t No\t Video VGA\t No
Radio\t FM “HD”\t FM\t No
\t\t\t
Music Player Yes\t Yes\t Yes
Music Store\t Zune Marketplace\t iTunes\t iTunes
Home Server
Music
Streaming No\t No\t w/Simplify Music App
Music
Subscription Zune Pass\t No\t w/Rhapsody App
Earbud Sound
Quality\t Average\t Average\t Average
Sound Output
Quality\t ?\t ?\t ?
Speaker\t No\t No\t Yes
\t\t\t
Video/Movie
Player\t Yes\t Yes\t Yes
Screen Size\t 3.3”\t 2.2”\t 3.5”
Display
Resolution\t 480x272 ?dpi\t 376x240 204dpi\t 480x320 163dpi
Indoor PQ\t Excellent\t Very Good\t Very Good
Outdoor PQ\t ?\t ?\t ?
TV Streaming No\t No\t w/SlingMobile App
Video Output 720p w/$90 dock\t No\t 576p w/$49 AV Cable
\t\t\t
Battery Life
(Music) 33hrs\t 24hrs\t 30hrs
Connector\t Wifi & USB Cable \t USB Cable\t USB Cable
\t\t\t
Price\t\t 8G: $149\t 8G: $199
\t 16G: $220\t 16G: $179\t
\t 32G: $290 \t\t 32G: $299
\t\t \t 64G: $399
\t\t\t
3rd Party
Accessories\t Very Few\t Hundreds\t Hundreds


When you lay it all out thoroughly like this, it is clear the Zune is really competing with the Nano. both are primarily PMP's with various extra features. beyond that the Nano is "dumb, " the Zune is "a little smart." but the Touch is in a whole other category - "superdupersmart."

No kidding. Hurry up on WM7 for Christ's sakes.

6.5 will be out on Oct 6th I believe. The changes seem mentionable, but they still seem to want to recreate a desktop environment on a phone. They're wising up a bit on the finger friendly stuff, but there's plenty that's stylus oriented.

I was actually hoping he could link me to some ex-employee's rant or something though, not just make assumptions.

I wouldn't mind reading such a thing, either! Would be interesting.

This.



I've quoted this passage a couple of times now, but, again, this is the Zune Director of Marketing pretty much saying flat out that Zune development was constrained by the WinMo dev effort, that the two enterprises "didn't line up perfectly to snap to" one another, and that maybe somewhere down the road it would be cool if they could work together. Anyway, they'll "look into it."

Does that sound like a company that's planning to walk in the iPhone/Touch's footsteps and gradually expand on the Zune platform to make it their singular mobile offering? If not, how does the Zune camp and the WinMo camp divvy up the turf? Like I say, a mess, and a mess that looks to cripple MS's competitiveness in this space.

I don't know, maybe the Zune people arm themselves and attack the WinMo camp and kill them all and install their religion. But even then, the Zune OS doesn't appear to have been designed to scale well for a general purpose machine. All that "fun" jumbo typefaces and flippy-ness might get a little tiresome if you're trying to do something more than playback music and movies, or if you have more than a couple of apps.

For all the iPhone/Touch's shortcomings at launch, the framework was there, which is typical for Apple-- get the foundation right so you can add stuff in a coherent way down the line. The Zune is not built this way. It is built to be the most diverting PMP MS could muster, and in that it succeeds, I think. But while things like cut and paste and MMS and moving data between apps were implicit in the original iPhone/Touch, can anyone tell me how such things would be handled by the Zune? There's not even the outlines of that kind of functionality.

Just claiming that "the iPhone was missing stuff too, at launch, look what happened" is a bit of a category error, IMO. The Nano lacked those things too, but has not and is not likely to get them, because it isn't built that way.

Well, since I can't fit my 50" plasma TV in my pocket either, how is that supposed to be compelling?

I'm hoping someone will respond to this question, even someone from the site. I've counted on this site for years now for all the most up-to-date Apple news, and it's pretty much never failed me. In fact, the addition of the price matrix helped me to purchase my latest laptop at an insane price, so I'm indebted there as well. And while it's true that AI has a tendency to be biased towards Apple, sometimes even unreasonably or overly so, I just sort of keep that in mind whenever I read things on here. I do think there are times when it goes too far, but, as others point out, this is APPLE insider, so I guess they're entitled. (Although it should also be pointed out, I'm a *huge* Apple fanboy, and even I find it annoying after a while. It seems to have increased noticeably over the last year or two.)

But the article a few days back about the Zune's OLED screen is really bothering me. It's the first time I'd read anything like that about OLED, a technology which I was actually really excited about, and have been hoping will make it's way into Apple's products eventually. What bothers me is that it seems to be an outright fabrication; a lie, plain and simple. And that's something I've NEVER seen from this site. I could be wrong, but I haven't seen anything in any other reviews about the screen being problematic in outdoor or bright lighting, and if the situation is as bad as was depicted in that article, you would assume it would have come up SOMEWHERE.

Maybe I missed it? But if not, what was up with that article, because it seems to have been very deliberately misleading to the point of utter falsification. I'm very curious as to any opinions on this, because if that's what has happened, it represents a new low. Biased is one thing, but if I can't rely on the site to tell the truth (even if god forbid, they must admit to a halfway decent product from a competitor), that's another thing altogether.

And before I get attacked for this, please understand that I'm just posing a question here.

Let's see, that would be one HDMI cable and a power cord. WIth the Zune it would be what? HDMI cable, dock, and presumably a power adapter for the dock. Either way I don't see much difference.

I think DVD and Blue Ray win that one, assuming of course that the friend in question has a player so you don't have to bring that.

http://www.oled-info.com/oleds-direct-sunlight

http://www.intomobile.com/2009/09/02...very-good.html

http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/featu...Holy_Grail.php

Could be some issues.

Does anyone know why Apple took away the ability for iPhone to output video? They used to sell a couple video out composite and component cables as did a number of third parties. All gone now since OS 3.0.

Edit : I actually found it on Apple site

http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB128LL/B

You forgot to mention a killer Zune feature:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/gadgetreviews/?p=7558

And all those things came to fruition- except the battery. So like what is your point? I spoke and Apple listened.

The Zune is the Zune and should not be compared to the Touch anyway.
And isn;t the Classic a single purpose device in the manner of the Zune- it concentrates on the music. Isn't that Steve Job's mantra- "It's all about the music!"

AI said a lot about the OLED screen, so I don't know what part you considered to be a lie, but if it was the daylight visibility part, I'll give you this from Engadgets review. As far as I can tell AI never lied, but instead placed a spotlight on the flaws while downplaying or ignoring the benefits (which really isn't much better).