tayb
04-10-2009, 07:06 PM
So there are some pictures from a supposed Microsoft television Ad depicting what appears to be a brand new Zune media player. Now I am not a fan of the current Zune player but a huge fan of the service mainly because of the "all you can eat" music service. I think the current Zune hardware is ugly, outdated, a tad quirky to operate, and heavy. The new Zune, however, looks to be taking the iPod Touch head on with the design and implementation.
Judging by the pictures and the title (Zune HD) I would have to guess there is some sort of touch screen (more than likely multi-touch) and an HD display. (Please spare me all the "oooooh m$ copying Apple garbage) The HD in the title is up for debate because it can mean any number of things. 1280x720 display (720p), high definition radio, high definition video output, HD video recording (doubtful), etc. You can bet there will at least be one of those four but I think the least likely would be the 720p display. Cramming that many pixels into a display that small has never been done before (or even close) and would cause normal text on the screen to be very very small and hard to read.
There is a lot of talk that Microsoft is integrating the Zune player into their Windows Mobile 7.0 that is slated to be released second half of 2009 but I would think they will include a lot of the technology into this device to make it more of an "all around" machine. Unlike most of Microsoft's endeavors they don't have to worry about competing with their customers in the MP3 market so they can pretty much throw whatever they want into the device. It would be great to see them include a lot of the features they announced for WinMo but we'll see.
This is all speculation at this point because the only thing I've seen is a picture but if it works like I hope it will, and let's face it with Microsoft that usually isn't the case, I will definitely be buying one of these.
What do you guys think about the design?
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2009/04/zunehd_big_engadget_1.jpg
Judging by the pictures and the title (Zune HD) I would have to guess there is some sort of touch screen (more than likely multi-touch) and an HD display. (Please spare me all the "oooooh m$ copying Apple garbage) The HD in the title is up for debate because it can mean any number of things. 1280x720 display (720p), high definition radio, high definition video output, HD video recording (doubtful), etc. You can bet there will at least be one of those four but I think the least likely would be the 720p display. Cramming that many pixels into a display that small has never been done before (or even close) and would cause normal text on the screen to be very very small and hard to read.
There is a lot of talk that Microsoft is integrating the Zune player into their Windows Mobile 7.0 that is slated to be released second half of 2009 but I would think they will include a lot of the technology into this device to make it more of an "all around" machine. Unlike most of Microsoft's endeavors they don't have to worry about competing with their customers in the MP3 market so they can pretty much throw whatever they want into the device. It would be great to see them include a lot of the features they announced for WinMo but we'll see.
This is all speculation at this point because the only thing I've seen is a picture but if it works like I hope it will, and let's face it with Microsoft that usually isn't the case, I will definitely be buying one of these.
What do you guys think about the design?
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2009/04/zunehd_big_engadget_1.jpg