Review: Zune HD

When did Microsoft start gaining sympathy from users? It seems to have taken us by surprise but Microsoft just is not up to the standards it used to be. Microsoft's search engine is not producing well, they do not have a strong hold in the market share regarding operating systems or browsers and even Microsoft Office has intense competition with applications from Google and Zoho.

Microsoft may be taking yet another hit with the release of the ZuneHD because we are approaching the 2 year anniversary of the iPod Touch. Today Microsoft finally released their version, a product meant to measure up to the iPod Touch.

The physical appearance of the ZuneHD leaves something to be desired. The ZuneHD is bronze, with the outside heavily creased; visible, angular screws on the back; it's wider and appears to be weightier than the iPod Touch. Microsoft is not always known for the appearance of their technological brainstorms; perhaps the ZuneHD is quite magnificent technologically; let's take a look and compare.

The ZuneHD screen dimensions are 480x272 pixels, a 16:9 aspect ratio. The iPod Touch's screen dimensions are 480x320; almost 60 lines higher than the new ZuneHD. The iPod Touch's screen is more equipped for things like browsing the web, emailing, and if you are a gamer you know the screen is going to be better for gaming.

The ZuneHD screen is an OLED version, and that can save on the life of the battery because it does not require back-lighting. The OLED version can also help even brightness and contrast. The first two iPods use back-lit LCD screens, so here the ZuneHD has a leg up. The ZuneHD also comes equipped with HD radio; the iPods do not, yet another point for ZuneHD. But, it boils down to the users' preference, this may or may not be something that people will like enough to switch.

Another feature of the ZuneHD is that it has the capability to play HD content with an HDTV dock. You can play SD videos with the iPod Touch but you have to supply the sync cable to do that, and the sync cable is pretty expensive. Of course, this could change in the future with iPod.

The iPod Touch is still the most impressive device of its kind because there are a multitude of users and of course a huge variety of accessories already manufactured.

Some of the new features with the iPod Touch, that the ZuneHD does not include, are Bluetooth with 3.0 software; A-GPS which is GPS with wifi; a camera and magnometer-compass that is supposed to be coming in the 2009 version of the iPod Touch; and the App store with 40,000 apps to choose from.

The ZuneHD will offer customers Windows Mobile Outlook and Mobile Explorer; however, Apple is offering Mail.app and iTunes/iPod and Maps. The Apple mobile device has better options at this time.

The iPod Touch came close to having some real competition but it looks like Microsoft just didn't quite bring it home; we will have to see what Archos products brings to the table.