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Zune HD Hands on Demo and Impressions

Treq said:
Dude, you don't get my point. There are people on this thread writing "The screen looks amazing" Really? How would you know? That's my point. There are way too many MS fan-boys on here hyping this new zune. That is my point. How does this look any better than what's currently on the market? From this video, you can't tell.
Also, they never played video, so no people won't respond to that. And the photos? All you can tell is the interface is very similar to an iPod touch.
Click to expand...

There are photos of a movie playing that look like the contrast pops better than most on the market today (save for Omina HD and the like).

Seriously...its OLED....the quality is not worse than LCD and it shows here.
ballmer_zune20.jpg


PLUS both Engadget and Gizmodo said the screen was great.

It honestly seems you are trying harder to discredit it for some reason.
 
It's still a Zune. iPod touch has market share, iTunes, App Store, and the largest portable media player accessory market known to man. I recently bought a new car, and it had an "iPod-ready" dock-connector built in. Try going to the Audi dealership to get a "zune-ready" sound system.

I'm interested to see the OLED screen though, but I'm sure that Apple is in the process of integrating the OLED technology into their iPhones & touches.
 
Bodhi395 said:
More physically beautiful and a better UI than the ipod touch, GIVE ME A BREAK!!!
Click to expand...

Now I'm sure the OLED screen is nice obviously, but this guy is a &#$%* idiot. You call that cluttered confusing UI better than Apple's? You never even know where you are or where to go. Yes I have messed with Zune's and their navigation and UI and user experience is HORRIBLE!!!

For crying out loud the GD main menu has text cut off the screen on 'marketplace' LOL! WOW! :rolleyes:

Don't even get me started on the four mega bolt screws in the corners and the 90 year old geaser Buick champagne color. :rolleyes:

chriszzz said:
That UI just looks like a disorganized mess.

Also, the guy showing it was an idiot. "you can really see the high def there"...

...really?
Click to expand...

Haha, I know. When He said that I was like um really??? On a little picture on a screen that is 480x272??? :rolleyes: Moron!
 
DougB541 said:
There are photos of a movie playing that look like the contrast pops better than most on the market today (save for Omina HD and the like).

Seriously...its OLED....the quality is not worse than LCD and it shows here.

PLUS both Engadget and Gizmodo said the screen was great.

It honestly seems you are trying harder to discredit it for some reason.
Click to expand...

Never said the quality was worse than LCD. Just that, from the video, you couldn't tell how good the quality was. I'll have to check out engadget and gizmodo...
 
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The reason Apple is not already using OLED's is because of their short life span. Yes, they will work well in a Microsoft product as it will need to be replaced quite frequently ( come on, how many X-box's have you had? Replacing mine has become an annual event. I'm on my 4th. ) ... but, in an Apple product that will be used for years, OLED's are not yet a practical option.
 
DefiantSoul said:
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The reason Apple is not already using OLED's is because of their short life span. Yes, they will work well in a Microsoft product as it will need to be replaced quite frequently ( come on, how many X-box's have you had? Replacing mine has become an annual event. I'm on my 4th. ) ... but, in an Apple product that will be used for years, OLED's are not yet a practical option.
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I give up...there are actually people who just accept the spoon fed crap apple feeds them.


I am sure the iPhone will NEVER do multi-tasking simply cause it wastes too much battery too right?


(points to the plethora of phones that multi-task).
 
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Other phones do indeed multitask... and last a couple hours at max. I am much more in favor of the suspention of an app and simply returning to it in the form that I left it in as opposed to it running in the background sucking up battery and processor speed. How in the world is improving a devices battery life, and reducing it's proccessor load a bad thing?
 
Once again Microsoft take someone else's idea, put a clock in it and call it progress. The Bing search engine would be another example.

Boring
 
I love Apple etc and I think too that competition is a good thing. But UI in Zune is c**p and there is no way that iPod will feel any pressure from that department. However OLED and HD screen that maybe a factor for few when comes to decision what to buy. So Apple next iPhone with OLED and in HD please!!!:D
 
Its amazing how threatened the Apple fans are by this product.

I've read all kinds of nonsense made up by Apple fans that try to discount just how good it actually is.

Now you have someone saying OLED screens have short life spans? The average life span is about 50,000 hours. If you're watching the screen for 8 hours a day, that means it will be good for about 6,250 days. Divide that by 365 and that turns out to be well over 17 years.

Theres other things too. "It won't have an app store" First, how do you know? Second, who cares? As long as it has some decent games, it doesn't need the fart apps, period tracking apps, and other nonsense that plagues the iTunes App Store.

I even read someone saying that it will have less memory and cost more than an iPod touch. To someone like that I also say, how do you know?

So far the rumors of this running the nvidia Tegra chipset seems to be true. Combine the Tegra (with the GeForce ULV it sports) and the latest revision of Windows CE, and you've got Direct3D Mobile, DirectShow (hardware accelerated video!), OpenGL ES 2.0. The GeForce ULV also sports programmable shaders. You basically have a very small GeForce 3 packed into something slightly larger than the iPod touch.

Windows CE + Direct3D Mobile + GeForce ULV + integration with the Xbox360 = a device that could very well take the iPod touches position in mobile gaming. At the very least it will have better games and graphics.

Come on Apple fans, don't be so threatened by this device. Competition is good. Don't be upset just because Apple will have to port iPhone OS to another platform to be able to catch up and it could take them a couple of years to do it.

Don't be loyal to one company. Enjoy ALL good products. Brand loyalty only limits you in the long run and makes you miss out on some great things.
 
Looks nice and all, and I'm all for some competition for Apple, but when was the last time Microsoft did anything original? I'm seriously curious how Microsoft got all the market share with Windows since it seems all they do lately is copy Apple. I'm only a recent switcher, and not a long time Mac user, but was Apple seriously that far behind back in the 80's and 90's? How did Windows get all the market share (sorry I know this isn't a Windows/Mac thread).
 
ipoppy said:
I love Apple etc and I think too that competition is a good thing. But UI in Zune is c**p and there is no way that iPod will feel any pressure from that department. However OLED and HD screen that maybe a factor for few when comes to decision what to buy. So Apple next iPhone with OLED and in HD please!!!:D
Click to expand...
The screen isn't in HD only 480x272. Ipod touch: 480x320 (but still LCD)

mosx said:
Don't be loyal to one company. Enjoy ALL good products. Brand loyalty only limits you in the long run and makes you miss out on some great things.
Click to expand...

As soon as MS comes out with a good product, I'll buy one. Until then I'll buy the fine, reliable, products that Apple offers.
 
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I still get a kick out of remembering Ballmers, now embarrasing, rant when the iPhone was first announced. Made such fun of it and, among other things, said that an all-in-one device couldn't really be made to work well. Well here we are, with the iPhone/itouch revolutionizing the industry, and now Ballmer has to eat his words and fall in line.. The only reason the Zune HD isn't moving toward including phone funcionality is because MS knows that between the iPhone and the upcoming Pre, it just doesn't stand a chance.
 
Nice Carpet

At least the carpet is in focus. Would be good to see a video that actually shows the OLED screen.
 
Treq said:
The screen isn't in HD only 480x272. Ipod touch: 480x320 (but still LCD)
Click to expand...

Zune = 18% less game surface
Zune = 18% smaller video size
Zune = 18% less text area
Zune = 18% less space to fit a virtual keyboard
Zune = World's largest font size knows to mankind.
 
OMG, how can anyone says thats nice looking??, its one of the ugliest devices I have ever seen in my life even more so than that god awful Sony Bean thing.

Better U.I than the iPod touch, yeah I doubt it LOL, Apple are visionaries when it comes to stuff like this and Microsoft are well err Microsoft doing everything badly.

I think its time Microsoft to scrap the whole Zune project, the iPod is already an established name and has been since 2001, your not really going to catch up now are you LOL
 
First of all, it's a very good thing for customers, like us, to have multiple vendors fighting over the same area. For this, GO GO Microsoft, Smartdevices and others, the more the better.

It's way better the screen on Zune then Ipod, for sure, but it's smaller, if i were Microsoft id get to the table with a 4.3", THAT would be impressive.

Radio HD at Zune? Top notch, Apple is not even close. AND it is impressive.

But behind all the glamour of the hardware, all that matters is the software.

At this point Apple kicks the Zune out of the water. App Store is great, the oncoming OS3 will be the beginning of a new, major wave of awesome apps, they will hit 2 billion downloads by the time ZuneHD comes to the shelves.

Hell, even i bought one app (StoneLoops at .99c) and i still have no toy to play it on ( i hope to get one Ipod Touch this summer)!
Good thing is that the operating system behind it is Unix and i'm a big fan of it, the jailbreaking is a must and without it i wouldn't buy the thing..


I also like the Smartdevices Q7 ( http://www.eletroworld.cn/nb/SmartQ_7.htm ), Ubuntu rocks, the bad part is that the drivers for touch and the operating system itself is not fully optimized on this system. BUT it has a lot of potential and i love that 7" screen (good for electronic books and the best web browsing off all Apple&Microsoft at this point)


Well, time will tell..
 
Fact is, this thing could turn lead to gold and resurrect the dead, and half of this forum would still hate it for not having an Apple stamp on the back.

I'm comparing this to my touch atm....the scrolling looks alot smoother, and less piece-by-piece. The lag opening the radio was slightly dissapointing, but the device is gen 1 and probably still alpha, and the iTouch has plenty of lag on its own when opening apps.

Microsoft, wanna convert me, and countless other geeks back from Apple to you? Simple checklist:

1: Keep this thing fast! Every portable device with some portable Windows OS on it is laggy. People do not like waiting for lag. You've made a great start, but those pictures did not load very fast. Fix that.

2: Use a bare-bones version of Internet Explorer, optimized to run quickly on the device, but showing the real internet, not mobile internet. Think minimalizism, like Google Chrome. THE FASTER, THE BETTER. This is a mobile device, intended for internet surfing on-the-go people with busy lives.

3: Don't waste time focusing on sexiness. You are not going to win the apple converts back focusing on sexiness, because to some of the brainwashed masses, any non-Apple device is not sexy. Why do they think that? They associate Windows with glitches, lagginess, and headaches. Is this your fault? No, because you have to create an OS that has to work on EVERY model of PC, not just 6 models. But now you're designing an OS for a device that will have the exact same specifications from unit to unit. There are no excuses. Function must prevail over form.

4: You know that extra space inside the unit you got from step 3? Use it to put in a better battery and a stronger wifi antenna. Plenty of iTouch owners are frustrated by the poor quality antenna, so this alone could hook 'em.

5: Don't bother with a camera. Anyone who buys a Zune HD will already have a cell phone with a ****** camera. We don't need another ****** camera. We have met the ****** camera quotient. Any camera you put into this thing will have to be ****** to keep it from being enormous, so it's not worth it.

6: Open this thing up! You're Microsoft, and you have alot of fanboys, who will design apps for this for nothing better than the enjoyment. An "app store" is not necessary, because anyone geeky enough to buy a Microsoft product knows how to use Google.
 
Treq said:
The screen isn't in HD only 480x272. Ipod touch: 480x320 (but still LCD)
Click to expand...

Yea, my bad. I have read something about it and:

"Supported 720p HD video files play on the device, downscaled to fit the screen at 480 x 272 - not HD resolution"

But its got HD radio!!!:eek: But wait:

"Here in Europe we don't have iBiquity HD radio, for a start. Also, in the US, Microsoft sells music downloads via Wi-Fi and offers ZunePass as a subscription music service. We don't have those in Europe either.
It would be somewhat hard to offer a Zune HD-equivalent in Europe, because we don't have a pan-European digital radio network. Microsoft could add DAB for the UK and a few other countries, but UK coverage is patchy and the sound quality is generally worse than FM (particularly the stereo)."

So I don't really understand how the hell the came up with the name Zune HD now. There is almost no HD as we know it. That may cause more bad publicity for them than they think.

Hmm...I think it comes to my signature below again ^^
 
Treq said:
As soon as MS comes out with a good product, I'll buy one. Until then I'll buy the fine, reliable, products that Apple offers.
Click to expand...

Not to be a jerk, but you're kidding yourself if you think nothing Microsoft has done has been good. Don't forget that Windows had multi-processor/SMP support, pre-emptive multi-tasking, and full hardware video decoding well before, sometimes years before Mac OS. Apple's role as leader stopped when it took it 5 years to get basic features in OS X that Windows 95 had, and more than 10 years for Snow Leopard to finally get video playback that Windows 98 had.

SandynJosh said:
Zune = 18% less game surface
Zune = 18% smaller video size
Zune = 18% less text area
Zune = 18% less space to fit a virtual keyboard
Zune = World's largest font size knows to mankind.
Click to expand...

You're forgetting one crucial point. The iPhone/iPod touch display has an aspect ratio of 1.5:1. The Zune has a 1.78:1 aspect ratio, meaning its a standard 16x9 screen. On the iPod touch and iPhone you lose that "extra" vertical resolution to black bars because of the improper aspect ratio.

Edit: also want to point out something about the Zune HD's ability to play HD video. Yes video on the screen is downsampled. But it can output 720p video over HDMI. HDMI being a feature that only one Apple product has, the Apple TV ;)
 
Macminiintel said:
OMG, how can anyone says thats nice looking??, its one of the ugliest devices I have ever seen in my life even more so than that god awful Sony Bean thing.

Better U.I than the iPod touch, yeah I doubt it LOL, Apple are visionaries when it comes to stuff like this and Microsoft are well err Microsoft doing everything badly.

I think its time Microsoft to scrap the whole Zune project, the iPod is already an established name and has been since 2001, your not really going to catch up now are you LOL
Click to expand...

wow, time to slow down with that kool-aid... you can seriously read that back and keep a straight face?
 
ha ha lol the touch screen looks a bit rubbish, the iPhone & iTouch, touch screens are far greater

mosx said:
Not to be a jerk, but you're kidding yourself if you think nothing Microsoft has done has been good. Don't forget that Windows had multi-processor/SMP support, pre-emptive multi-tasking, and full hardware video decoding well before, sometimes years before Mac OS. Apple's role as leader stopped when it took it 5 years to get basic features in OS X that Windows 95 had, and more than 10 years for Snow Leopard to finally get video playback that Windows 98 had.



You're forgetting one crucial point. The iPhone/iPod touch display has an aspect ratio of 1.5:1. The Zune has a 1.78:1 aspect ratio, meaning its a standard 16x9 screen. On the iPod touch and iPhone you lose that "extra" vertical resolution to black bars because of the improper aspect ratio.

Edit: also want to point out something about the Zune HD's ability to play HD video. Yes video on the screen is downsampled. But it can output 720p video over HDMI. HDMI being a feature that only one Apple product has, the Apple TV ;)
Click to expand...

and Apple's cinema HD displays and the new 24'' LED Display ;)

trekkie604 said:
wow, time to slow down with that kool-aid... you can seriously read that back and keep a straight face?
Click to expand...

what do you mean like?
 
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