dM@n

Well, I ordered my platinum 16GB (yes, platinum) from Zune Originals on 10/21/2009 and it arrived at my house on 10/29/2009. For those who are really curious about where the factory is located, it's located in Zhuhai, China.

Lemme start out with the specs...

• Battery: 3.7 V 660 mAh Internal rechargeable non-removable lithium-ion polymer battery
• CPU: NVIDIA Tegra (One ARM11 and one ARM7 general processing cores)
• Display: 480 x 272 px, 3.3 in, 16:9 aspect ratio, OLED display
• GPU: NVIDIA Tegra
• Input: Multi-touch touchscreen display, accelerometer, HD radio
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi (802.11b/g), USB 2.0 (with separate dock or included proprietary sync cable), HDMI (with separate dock)
• Online services: Zune Marketplace
• Storage: 16GB/32GB flash memory

Well, let's start off with the box.



As you can see, the box's design is a bit different from the original box's design.



Once you slide the top cover off, you get this. I was thinking of getting an engraved design, but they aren't free anymore... If you see a serial number, no point in using it because I already registered it XD



This is after you pull off the carboard/foam thing that holds the Zune in place. Just some booklets and guides.



And here's the little cover that separates the accessories from the other stuff.



This is pretty much what was inside. Crappy stock earbuds, colorful () foam earbud slip-on covers, the USB sync cable, and more booklets.



This would be the front of the Zune HD.



The back is just a brushed color-matched aluminum plate. There's no engraved Zune logo because I ordered from Zune Originals.



The power button is on the top.



This would be that button on the left side that opens up the volume control and play/pause menu (menu interface is shown later down)



Herro from Seattle!



This is what the lock screen looks like. Yes, you can change the lock screen's image to any custom image you want, I just happened to use a picture I found on DeviantArt (you Gundam people better know what that is )



This is what it looks like when you play a song. As you can see, there's a background image of Breaking Benjamin in the back. That's because the Zune downloads info of the artist after you sync a song(s).



By pressing the button on the left side of the Zune HD, you get this. This is a volume control and play/pause menu.


This is just a video showing the music playback interface of the Zune HD.



This is what the main menu looks like. I really do love the interface, clean and easy to use.



Slide your finger on the middle of the previous menu and you get this. This is a side menu that includes the currently playing songs, pins (which are bookmarks), history, and new media.



One of the key features of the Zune HD is the built in HD radio receiver. Sound quality is pretty clear and it works well most of the time.


This is just a video of how long the built-in web browser takes to load Overclock.net



The keyboard is actually pretty damn good. See how the letter pops up when your finger is on it?



Just an image of the loaded Overclock.net home page on the browser.



And Microsoft obviously had to include built-in Bing search into their browser.

I only have two apps at the moment: the calculator and MSN weather.



In portrait mode, the calculator is just some basic calculator...



...and you get this in landscape mode.



MSN weather is pretty much similar to any other weather app out there.

And for anyone who want to see some images of the new Audiosurf: Tilt and PGR: Ferrari Edition, go here.

Pros:

• OLED screen has vivid colors and the black levels are quite accurate
• The Zune software is a lot "lighter" than iTunes.
• The screen's glass layer is impervious to most impacts and scratches because it utilizes Corning's Gorilla Glass
• The sound quality is superb and it makes good use of my Audio-Technica ATH-A700
• The interface is very organized and moves fluidly
• It gets artist info (bio, images, etc) on itself after syncing a song.
• Built-in Marketplace function
• "Social" feature will be handy for sharing songs with friends
• Touch-screen and accelerometer is accurate and detects inputs quickly
• The construction is very solid and sleek

Cons:

• Playlist management is horrible
• The glass is a fingerprint magnet (like any other touch-screen PMPs)
• The web browser is too basic and gets beaten by the iPod touch/iPhone when it comes to features
• The Marketplace is sorta bland and there aren't a lot of apps out at the moment (because it only came out in September 2009 )
• Wi-Fi quickly kills the battery
• No Adobe Flash support (which is a common problem among most PMPs)
• Song title does not scroll when its too long to fit on the screen
• HDMI output requires the separate Zune Dock
• No 802.11n (which the 4th gen. iPod touch secretly has )
• Slow app loading time

...For anyone who are wondering why I purchased the Zune HD:



That broken PMP right there is the Creative Zen X-Fi that I only bought last summer.

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Reflux

Zune > iPod

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japan1

Agreed.


And thats a good song BB ftw!

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dM@n

/highfive

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dominique120

Nice!, I was planing on buying one myself what model is it and how much did it cost?

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OSDCrusher

Very nice. Good purchase. I'm happy with my iPod touch.

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We Are Gr33n Machine

Core i7 920@ 4 GHz
E8400@ 4.60 GHz
Opteron 185@ 3 GHz

mocha989

totally agree. i really feel with this zune HD it will really put microsoft on top. its amazing. now microsoft just needs to come up with something that will beat the Iphone.

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carl25

so what apps are there

bbaseballboy1234

this thing is so thin, i played with a teammate's zune and it was so thin i was impressed. Its deffiently a itouch killer

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PSN: BBaseballboy1234
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e_dogg

Damn you for making me want one of these!!!!

I really like my Zune a lot better than iPods. The Zune Marketplace is way better than iTunes and the device UI with the directional pad is way better than the silly little wheel that iPod uses. Granted, that's not a factor with these touch devices.

If it's uses the same Microsoft Marketplace that's available to Windows Mobile users, there's not a whole lot there. A bunch of the typical games, a couple of tweak apps, social networking apps, and some mapping apps.

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