Official Zune HD Thread!

[erwos]

16GB variant is $220
32GB variant is $290

Both will be out on September 15. IIRC, Best Buy is taking pre-orders for $25 pretty soon.

*fanboy* Am I the only one who's pumped? The hardware seems amazing, the software is feature-filled, and the Zune Pass is great! *end fanboy*

I'm still undecided about where I'm going to buy it... Best Buy has the instant gratification factor, but it also has sales tax. Amazon will probably get it to me cheaper and reasonably fast, but maybe there's some cheaper online vendor? Decisions, decisions...

I'm going to hold on the AV dock until the price comes down a bit - $90 is just too much, especially when I've got my computer streaming to my 360 anyways... (albeit, the Zune HD will probably provide a MUCH better interface.)

 

[Deeko]

Wow, that's pretty cheap actually. I figured the prices would be close to the ipod touch - maybe 250 and 350 or so. I've played with the ZuneHD and I like it, but I don't know that I will buy one. My Zune16 isn't even a year old at this point, and the idea of not having buttons bothers me...

 

[Chrono]

Wait, isn't there one home button? haha.

 

[Bacstar]

I just got the pre-order email from zune.net, but I'll probably wait til the 64g version comes out. I already have a Zune 80. I'm soooo tempted though. My co-worker did pre-order the 32g for his daughter from the Microsoft Store. Kinda weird it's not available from the Zune store.

 

[destrekor]

argh. Nice pricing from Microsoft, really seems they are out to put more effort into competing with Apple now.
However, 32gb top really saddens me. I have a Zune 120gb and Zune Pass. And while at this point I'm just under 32gb with just music, with the better screen I'd probably use video a little bit more (especially with flash, means better battery life, of which the Zune 120gb already has great battery, destroys the Zune 30 which pissed me off like no other). But I rarely watch video unless I'm on a long trip, and not driving... which doesn't happen often.

It'll be tough to tell myself I don't want the Zune HD 32gb, because I really do, if storage was better. Microsoft really needs to bring out an affordable 64gb model, and I'd jump on it. I don't want to have to select which music I do and don't want on my player, because I enjoy putting my Zune on shuffle in my car and stumbling on songs I haven't listened to in years.

edit:
that, and I'm pissed the solid black color scheme is limited to the 16gb model. I'd rather an all black player, the platinum model looks "cheap" to me. My all black 120gb looks great, especially with the gloss.

 

[Fingolfin269]

Anyone know if a single Zune pass will serve two devices? I've got a 120gb but want an hd as well. Also, due to the size differences of the devices, will there be a way to selective sync? (This may already exist)

Now if only ms would come out with a zune hd phone that syncs with the zune pass...

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: Fingolfin269
Anyone know if a single Zune pass will serve two devices? I've got a 120gb but want an hd as well. Also, due to the size differences of the devices, will there be a way to selective sync? (This may already exist)

If I'm recalling this correctly, a single Zune pass will work on three Zunes AND three computers. If you've got two people using Zunes in your house, this makes it an insanely great deal.

Now if only ms would come out with a zune hd phone that syncs with the zune pass...

I have _heard_ that you can actually load Zune music files, DRM-ed, onto Windows Mobile phones using Windows Media Player. Never tried it on my HTC Apache yet, but I'll give it a try one of these days...

There are also persistent rumors of a Zune software application for Windows Mobile being in development - I guess I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[Deeko]

Originally posted by: Fingolfin269
Anyone know if a single Zune pass will serve two devices? I've got a 120gb but want an hd as well. Also, due to the size differences of the devices, will there be a way to selective sync? (This may already exist)

Now if only ms would come out with a zune hd phone that syncs with the zune pass...

Yea that would be fantastic. I'm considering the Touch Pro 2, if that could be upgrade to Windows Mobile 6.5 and ran zune pass songs, I'd be sold.

 

[QueBert]

if it's hacked so I could install whatever apps I want and use 3rd party software to sync it I might consider. Seeing how the original Zune's firmware still hasn't been broken I won't hold my breath.

 

[idiotekniQues]

erwos is deadon. zunepass will let you sync 3 zunes and also 3 computers

 

[nycxandy]

Time to move on from my original 30GB Zune.

 

[gorcorps]

Just to warn everybody who might be looking at this for video: The released specs confirm that the Zune HD won't have divx/xvid support, at least initially.

 

[lupi]

Looks very interesting. Seems it doesn't have a camera so I could take it to work, and my phone router has a wi-fi access point so I'd have relatively fast net access with it at home.

If I could insert my phone sim in it for away from home net access at no extra cost it would be a dream machine

 

[JDub02]

i think i may have to abandon the ipod for this one. i really like what i've seen so far.

 

[YoungGun21]

Looks great. Hopefully the HD radio is amazing, not sure I want to pay $15/mo for ZunePass. For $219 this is a steal.

 

[boomhower]

My wife is going to have to have one. She has the original and loves. Makes my Christmas shopping easy.

 

[Fingolfin269]

Originally posted by: YoungGun21
Looks great. Hopefully the HD radio is amazing, not sure I want to pay $15/mo for ZunePass. For $219 this is a steal.

Zune Pass is a steal now. For $15/mo you get to "rent" a ton of music but you also get to "buy" 10 tracks a month that you keep regardless of whether you continue with the pass or not.

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: YoungGun21
Looks great. Hopefully the HD radio is amazing

I had an HD radio receiver for a while, and I'll just put it like this: I'd rather have HD radio than FM radio, but not enough to spend more than $20-$30 extra on the receiver (over FM). It didn't really revolutionize my life. Then again, I'm not much of a radio guy, either - I bought a Zune so I _wouldn't_ have to listen to the idiot shock jock in the morning.

I do, however, think that effective tagging and cataloging might go some ways in making this feature more useful to me.

Anyways, some more scuttlebutt from the Internets: apparently, the Zune HD is using the Tegra 650 chip, or so claims nVidia. The Tegra 650 is _considerably_ more powerful than the APX 2600 everyone thought they were using. In fact, the Tegra 650 can theoretically decode 1080p content and display it in that resolution on the HDMI output.

The question then becomes, why no 1080p output? Is this a limitation of their hardware design, or something brought on by software and/or power considerations? If it's the latter, might we see a firmware update to enable 1080p output in the future, possibly only when charging? This seems far-fetched, I admit, but then again, Microsoft did _exactly_ that with the Xbox 360.

 

[zolo]

What bothers me is the lack of microSD, I mean WTF!!

I'd rather have that than HDMI port.

 

[MrUniq]

That's basically like buying a standard price CD per month with 10 tracks. But atleast u get to virtually sample an unlimited amount of mp3's. I saw the ZuneHD in person today (suprisingly my town was on the preview list)..and it was a very well designed device. The touch interface response is flawless. It's probably thinner than most people expect. I know it's far more advanced than the old zunes but right now it only has a few features above the zune 120 (which is what I was looking at).

It's portable media center like ability is impressive but the lack of codec support seems to cripple it's appeal as a video player. But I have a simple Sansa View...no doubt the HD would be an upgrade..issue is when the IPOD touch gets cheaper, the choice will get much harder for me because I'm primarily interested in music listening and the occassional app.

Originally posted by: Fingolfin269

Originally posted by: YoungGun21
Looks great. Hopefully the HD radio is amazing, not sure I want to pay $15/mo for ZunePass. For $219 this is a steal.

Zune Pass is a steal now. For $15/mo you get to "rent" a ton of music but you also get to "buy" 10 tracks a month that you keep regardless of whether you continue with the pass or not.

 

[slayer202]

this might be the first MP3 player I ever buy...

 

[Rhonda the Sly]

Mmmm...

"Zune: Who needs to be portable?"

 

[Sheep]

My Zune 120 is only a year old and still absolutely flawless due to having been kept in a plastic hardshell, but I'm having a really hard time avoiding the temptation to get the HD. The only thing holding me back is the max size of 32GB which seems a bit small considering they're pushing the HD angle.

 

[erwos]

The only thing I'm concerned about are the constant refrains of "it's not finished yet" with regards to games and an app store, as well as the ten foot interface. The thing is coming out in less than a month, it's time to get stuff finalized.

 

[tdawg]

So far this is looking quite nice. Depending on reviews and some hands on time, this may supplant my iPhone for pretty much everything except interpersonal communication. Right now I'm completely sick of iTunes restrictions and am looking at moving far away from it.