Long time ago, in the 1980’s actually, Walkman was considered the best portable media player. In those days, walkman owners were carrying audio cassettes and AA batteries along. In those days, we expected from our audio player to play audio cassettes, while these days things are drastically different. First of all, dimensions of audio players are getting smaller every day, while even touch screens, wireless connections and similar technologies are not enough anymore. After all kinds of media players that have passed through out test lab, finally, we got one that should be very good media player and at the same time does not have lower case “i” as first letter of its name.
New model, Zune HD media player, came from Microsoft and it is obvious in which direction it was developed: good video media reproduction with lot of improvements in all other areas (battery, sound and additional software). Box is rather small and still, someone managed to pack inside of it player itself, headphones, USB cable and manual (last item can be very useful if this will be your first contact with Zune player). Device that we got is made, predominately, in grey color, although there is also black variant. Capacity can be either 16 or 32BG, which is more than enough, even for very demanding users.
The moment we took the player out of the box, it was clear that this device is not made in a hurry, while huge 3.3-inch display with 480x272-pixel resolution really looks impressive. Of course, there are no squeaky plastic parts here. Backside is made out of brushed aluminum, which gives this device kind of an urban look while at the same time, makes it resistible to finger prints and scratches.
Front side is dominated completely by already mentioned display with exception of only one button. On the upper side is located power button, on left side volume control (about that little bit later) while on the bottom side are located, traditionally, 3.5mm audio output for headphones and USB connector.
As we already mentioned, this media player really has a lot of advanced features. Most of them are already seen on iPod Touch, but Zune HD is significantly smaller than direct competitor is, but at the same time, it has smaller display. Despite its relatively small size of 3.3-inches, display is really great and absolutely enough for day-to-day exploitation. Zune HD is based on Tegra APX2600 chipset with HD encoders and decoders, ARM11 CPU at 600MHz and support for 3D acceleration. Tegra platform had long and pompous announcements from NVIDIA, and finally we have a chance to play with it in Zune HD. Microsoft claims that this hardware combination can even play 720p videos. Why is this important when display does not support that resolution? There is one very interesting additional gadget for Zune HD, called HD-AV Dock that can put to good use that feature. With this dock station, you will get all cables, remote control and radio antenna, which can transform Zune HD into Home Media Center system.
