When you say media player, the first thing that comes to mind is the Apple iPod. Earlier versions of Zune did not make much of an impact in the mp3 player world. But the Zune HD could potentially change the equation. Here are some reasons why you will love this product over any other PMPs.
Zune HD
- OLED Screen. Instead of an LCD display, the Zune HD uses OLED. OLED displays are superior to LCDs in that they exhibit better brightness & contrast and draw less power, which results in longer battery life. OLEDs also have much lesser response times which results in smoother video playback.
- NVIDIA Tegra Processor. The Zune HD is powered by an NVIDIA Tegra processor – an SoC (System-On-Chip) which integrates the CPU, GPU and memory controllers into one unit. The Tegra is capable of decoding HD video at 720p and supports advanced graphics, which can make the Zune HD a potentially powerful portable gaming machine too.
- 16:9 Screen aspect ratio. Most movies are encoded in this aspect ratio, so your movies will occupy the full screen without any annoying borders on the small display. In comparison, the iPod Touch comes with an odd 3:2 aspect ratio.
- Zune Pass Music Service. If you purchase a lot of music every month, you will love the Zune Pass. For about the price of an album ($14.99 per month), you can download unlimited music from the Zune Marketplace. Though you have to continue the subscription forever to keep the music you download, for avid music fans this will work out to be a much cheaper option than outright purchase.
- Multi-touch. Everyone loves multi-touch. First made popular by Apple on its iPhone, the multi-touch ability provides a great browsing and gaming experience. The browser on Zune supports multi-touch on its capacitive touchscreen.
- HD Radio. The Zune HD is the first PMP to support HD Radio. HD Radio is a new technology which allows local radio stations to broadcast their programs in digital format, thus dramatically improving the reception quality. FM stations will be indistinguishable from CDs. You will be pleased to know that there are hundreds of stations which have already started broadcasting in HD. Even if your Zune is empty, you will have plenty of music to listen to!
- HD capable Zune dock. The Zune dock (which unfortunately has to be bought separately), comes with a HDMI port which allows you to play 720p media content on your HDTV. HD content can be purchased from the Zune Marketplace.
- Better Sound Quality. If you have used the earlier versions of Zune, you will appreciate the sound quality over other PMPs, thanks to the Wolfson chip. Zune HD uses the same audio processor too.
- Zune Software & XBOX Live integration. Contrary to the popular belief of anything-from-microsoft-is-useless, the Zune Marketplace indeed has a great interface than some of the well known jukebox applications. Use it for yourself and then judge. As an added bonus, XBOX 360 users can get XBOX live on their Zune HD.
- Price. I saved the best reason for the last point. According to this Amazon pre-order page, the Zune HD 16GB will be available for $219 while the 32GB version will be available for $299. These are significantly cheaper than equivalent capacity iPod Touch players.
So finally, the iPod Touch got an worthy competitor in the Zune HD. This holiday season will show us how much the Zune HD can eat into the iPod Touch’s huge market share.
Also read my other post: Zune HD vs iPod Touch
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
All I want is DivX support. Who ever does that, with a pretty screen, will win me.