In many ways, the Zune HD looks more like a phone than a media player, and with any luck, when and if Microsoft ever decides to make a smartphone of their own, we can hope that it is based around the look and feel of the Zune HD. But, of course, the Zune HD's design isn't perfect.
While the casing and buttons have a nice sturdy feel, the Zune HD's glass screen is absolutely abhorrent. Regardless of how clean your hands are or how many times you wipe it down, the Zune HD's screen always seems to smudge and collect dust particles, which can be problematic considering the device relies almost entirely on touch-enabled control.
To be fair, most users will probably use a protective casing of some kind, but we would have liked to have seen a more smudge-resistant glass or coating on the screen. Moving beyond the look and feel to the user interface and functionality of the device, users will immediately notice and, in all likelihood, drool over the Zune HD's lush OLED Organic Light Emitting Diodes display. While many manufacturers remain wary of the technology's high production costs for use in HDTVs, the new ultra-vibrant display tech has found a new home in small portable electronics.
The display has some of the deepest blacks we've seen on a screen outside of Pioneer's now-extinct Kuro plasma series. Additionally, the OLED display has a viewing angle of almost degrees, meaning you can look at it from just about every outward facing angle and still get full fidelity.
Unlike other display technologies, OLED doesn't achieve richer color representation by augmenting the color balance beyond the natural range, and as such the Zune HD's graphics are impressive but not oversaturated. While some are likely to prefer the more straight-forward approach of comparable products, the Zune HD's graphic heavy interface is a refreshingly creative approach to menu navigation and how playback information is displayed.
While the controls aren't always where you'd expect them to be or look like the more traditional iconography, the device is overall pretty easy to navigate. Browsing artists is a matter of flicking the screen to scroll, or if you're looking for a specific artist and have a wide selection, tapping the letter categorization to select the first letter of the artist's name to jump directly to that section.
Once the desired artist is found, however, we did find navigating a wide discography and finding a specific song a bit cumbersome.
As we mentioned, the interface does rely heavily on graphics, and as such album covers are more prominently displayed than titles, which makes life a little difficult if you aren't already familiar with any given artist's collection of album art. To be fair, however, these problems are more of a matter adjustment and get worked out over time, but for a first time user it can be daunting.
The organization of video media is comparable to the way music is arranged, but are naturally more intuitive since users are more visually familiar with the thumbnail imagery. As far as video performance goes, the OLED display shines yet again. Of course the real heart of the matter comes from the quality of the source video, but when you've added a high-resolution, low-compression video, the Zune HD's display is likely to blow your socks off.
Unless you're displaying on a high-end HDTV, however, the built-in OLED display is likely to look crisper and more vibrant, albeit limited to a purely individual viewing experience. While most users will never need to crank up the brightness beyond the default level, which delivers 20 or so hours of battery life during standard audio playback, we decided to do a little stress testing and maxed out the screen brightness and got some disturbing results.
From a reviewer's point of view, the Zune is an interesting combination of real strengths and real weaknesses. While it is sure to be the general consumer populace that will make or break Microsoft's attempt, read on to see what the biggest threat to Apple's hegemony is all about. Zune Hardware The Zune project was launched by Microsoft's Xbox division and, over generations of products, is planned to become an integral portion of Microsoft's ever expanding family of hardware products.
The current Zune is the first edition of the family, and to a degree, it shows. The hardware is based upon Toshiba's Gigabeat S10, a critically well received yet rarely purchased mp3 player. Microsoft obviously needed to get hardware and name recognition on the streets as early as possible, and so chose to rely upon Toshiba's base of technology in this first edition. Microsoft designed and engineered products are surely already in development for future generations of the Zune line.
That's not to say the Zune is a Toshiba product with a Microsoft logo. The Zune shares general internal circuitry and the 3-inch LCD with the Gigabeat, but sports new exterior design, user interface, and WiFi. Aesthetically, the Zune team did a good job in departing from the general iPod-wannabe styling of also-ran mp3 players.
Rather than shining polycarbonate plastic and chrome, Zunes are encased in very pleasant feeling hard-rubberized plastic. The inside of the case is painted a different color than the external surface, which gives the edges of the player a two-toned glowing look that Microsoft is calling the "doubleshot effect. After days of use we can't see a scratch on our unprotected! Zune, as opposed to our 5. Color options include white rather iPod-y , black with a blue glow , and brown with a green glow.
Brown was a dodgy choice for Microsoft, but we think it's by far the most attractive of the lot. The Zune team also put a lot of effort into the packaging to ensure that it would be as slick as Apple's famous box designs, and we'd say they succeeded peep our ritual un-boxing pictorial here.
There's no denying that the Zune is significantly larger that the 5G iPod video. For all its aesthetic charm, it's still heavier than even the 80GB iPod, and much too heavy to strap on one's arm for jogging or working out.
Athletes would likely prefer the new iPod shuffle over either the 5G pod of the Zune, however, so we can't say the size is an absolutely deal-breaker for the Zune. The 3-inch LCD dominates the face of the Zune. Below a circular 4-way selection pad with center selection button pays homage to the iPod, but is not touch sensitive like Apple's scroll wheel.
A Zune logo stands in the middle of the back panel, and the only reference to Microsoft on the Zune's case is a small "Hello from Seattle" message in tiny print among the serial numbers on the back. Once powered on the Zune continues to impress. The menu system is bright, colorful, and full of animations as a user cycles through selections.
The layout is visually massively superior to the iPod's and, in our opinion, easier to use. A good example is the general process of selecting a track to listen to. Selecting music from the front menu opens a single selection menu.
Pressing left or fight on the circular d-pad cycles between vertical listings of Artists, Albums, Playlists, Songs, and Genres. An iPod requires such selection to be made before browsing the listenable options, whereas the Zune allows for much more intuitive browsing.
Other visual niceties include the Albums view, which shows small Album art icons in front of the textual listings. The Songs view shows individual tracks in alphabetical order.
Holding down the d-pad scrolls through the list quickly, and in this mode, a large letter appears onscreen to show where in the alphabet the list is currently scrolling through, a nice touch that makes it much easier to move through a long list while trying to do something else, like driving not that that's a very smart idea, but whatever.
While playing a song the Zune shows a large version of the album art about the size of the full iPod screen as well as the requisite track info. Users are able to enter a submenu while playing that offers options for on-the-fly rating via iTunes-esque stars , repeat, shuffle, send more on that shortly , and a uniquely Zune feature, Flag. The flag option allows a user to mark specific songs in a long playlist or new album, which is cool if you want to easily remember a song for inclusion in a playlist in future.
There are some things that are easier to accomplish on an iPod, like getting into shuffle mode, and at times the Zune requires more button presses for selections than the iPod. Maybe it's because we're gamers here at IGN, but we'll trade better graphics and more immediately available options for a few extra thumb-presses without much complaint. The Zune's most unique feature is undoubtedly the addition of WiFi. Key to the Zune's marketing slogan of "Welcome to the Social," the WiFi capabilities of the Zune allow users to transfer music, pictures, and videos to other Zunes in the general vicinity.
In every media selection menu, a "Send" option is prominent, the selection of which will allow the sender to browse nearby Zunes and transmit content. Transferred songs, whether DRMed or not, can reside on the receiving Zune for three days, or until the track has been played three times, whichever comes first.
Received songs are stored in an Inbox so as not to become lost among the general library, which is a nice touch. The system, however, is not without its flaws. Transferring multiple songs at a time isn't exactly fast, and Zune WiFi, as it stands, is restricted completely to Zune-to-Zune.
When the capability was first announced, the tech community imagined a future of wireless syncing to the home PC, WiFi broadcasting of music to WiFi networks, and WiFi purchasing of content. While Microsoft has stated that such features may arrive in future via firmware updates, at launch the Zune's WiFi feels very limited.
The WiFi issue also has an impact upon the Zune's battery life. Measuring a slight 3. In the overcrowded marketplace of flash-based MP3 players, however, the dimensions of the Zune 4 and 8 are hardly noteworthy.
That said, the Zune 4 and Zune 8 have a nice shape, which feels reminiscent of the first-generation iPod Nano. One design feature that distinguishes the Zune 4 and Zune 8 from the competition is Microsoft's decision to use a glass-covered LCD instead of plastic. The 1. Although the 1. Another unique design feature is a completely new navigation control that Microsoft dubs the Zune Pad.
Think of the Zune Pad as a cross between a standard four-direction navigation pad and a laptop's touchpad. With the Zune Pad, users can navigate menus by either pressing or sliding their finger in four directions and select items by clicking the middle of the pad. We were initially skeptical about the Zune Pad's usability compared to the tried-and-true click pad of the first-generation Zune, but after just a few minutes we found the Zune's old interface to be positively archaic.
Navigating lengthy song lists is a breeze, especially with an accelerated scroll kicking in when the pad is held down. The new Zune Pad interface also lets you skip through songs, photos, and radio stations with just a light brush of the finger. It's hard to say whether the Zune Pad interface is actually better than Apple's patented iPod wheel navigation, but it is certainly comparable. We found the Zune Pad made scrolling long lists of artists much easier than using a scroll wheel, but the iPod's center select button is more reliable than the ambiguously defined button found on the Zune.
The entire Zune product line uses a new graphic user interface that no longer looks like a rehash of the Portable Media Center operating system found on the Toshiba Gigabeat S. While the critically beloved "twist" interface of first-generation Zune remains, the main menu has been replaced with stunning, oversized text that takes readability to the next level. You can customize this same main menu with a background image from your digital photo collection.
Existing Zune loyalists will be happy to know that Microsoft is offering the new Zune operating system as a free upgrade to all first-generation Zune owners. We're also happy to see that the back of the Zune covered with rugged, matte-finished aluminum, etched with the Zune logo. Microsoft has also partnered with a handful of graphic artists to create custom-etched versions of the 4, 8, and 80GB Zunes, which can be ordered directly from Microsoft at ZuneOriginals. Features With subscription music support, video playback, Wi-Fi music sharing, a high-quality photo viewer, an RBDS-enabled FM radio, and composite video output, the features on the first-generation Zune were already impressive.
The second-generation Zunes maintain all of the compelling features of the original and also includes new features such as audio and video podcast support and a unique ability to automatically sync content over a home's wireless network. Ever since Apple rolled podcast support into its iPod and iTunes products back in , no one has been able to match their seamless integration of audio and video podcast discovery, subscription, and management tools although Creative's Zencast alternative gets close.
With the latest refresh of the Zune PC software, first- and second-generation Zune owners can now enjoy audio and video podcasts with the same ease as their iPod contemporaries. Podcasts now have their own directory within the main menu of the Zune, which is subdivided between audio and video podcasts.
The Zune PC software also includes a new podcast tab that allows users to browse through a growing library of podcasts. If your favorite podcast can't be found in the directory, the software lets you both recommend the podcast for inclusion and lets you add the podcast manually by copying and pasting its URL into the Zune software. In the end, podcast downloads, auto-sync preferences, and subscription management match that of iTunes.
In fact, Microsoft takes podcast integration a step further by allowing users to unsubscribe from podcasts directly on their Zune--a great feature for podcast junkies who want to tidy up their subscriptions on the go. Editors' note: Microsoft removed the podcast unsubscribe feature from the Zune's initial firmware release due to instability.
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