Zune HD
Hit
the road with this MS friendly package
Microsoft’s Steve Balmer recently
suggested he may be ready to throw in the towel on the Zune line of
music players. Not so fast there, pal – it takes more than 6 months
to launch a fantastic product and make it stick - just ask Bill
Gates.
The Zune HD made its debut in September of
2009. It was head and shoulders beyond the previous Zune models,
which were all discontinued upon the Zune HD’s release. Microsoft
has come up with more than just an MP3 player.
For motorcyclists it’s one of the
lightest, smallest and most advanced devices for listening to music
on the road and here are five reasons why.
HD Radio: The obvious competitor to
the Zune HD is the Apple iPod Touch. But you can’t get any radio
stations on it. Too bad, it’s fun to listen to radio broadcasts
in other towns as you tour. With the Zune you get all the FM
channels, as well as all the HD radio broadcasts. I don’t know about
you, but when I’m staying in an area for a few days, I like to dial
into the local radio stations and enjoy that part of the community
fabric. I’ve enjoyed the Native American station that broadcasts
from the Kah-Nee-Ta reservation near Redmond, OR; grooved to the
late night jazz broadcasts out of the Tri-Cities and cried the blues
while I wrenched on my bikes in the garage here in Seattle listening
to the HD broadcast sent out by KMTT (blues
format, different programming from their standard format).
Channels: There’s more than 100
channels of music you can dig into. As part of a $15 monthly Zune
Pass subscription you can synch those channels to your player and
carry the tunes around with you. You don’t own them, but you get to
listen to them for a week and can buy the tracks you want later.
Smart DJ: This is a very cool
feature. Once you set
up the Zune HD software, it scans your media
drives and logs the inventory (just like Windows Media Player). But
as part of the monthly subscription,
you get access to plenty of
other tunes you don’t even own. Using the Smart DJ option, simply
type in a favorite artist and Zune HD puts together a lengthy
playlist from your collection, and if you opt to, from their overall
content as well. You can save the playlist and synch it to the Zune
HD unit. It’s a fantastic way to discover new music.
Cost less than an iPod Touch, but it
does a lot more - better!: It has a web browser, a place to
store and run apps, lets you surf the web from anywhere there’s a WiFi connection. The Zune HD’s battery life is longer, charging time
is shorter, screen is brighter and the unit is
lighter.
Uses both MP3 and the superior WMA
format:
I’ve been ripping my CD collection to my PC's
media drive for about 6 years now. I have a ton of
tunes saved in the WMA format. Why? It has
better fidelity than the ancient MP3 format -
a compressed format that has been around for more than a decade. If
you like higher quality recordings, rip your files to the top grade
setting in WMA and enjoy them in higher fidelity on your Zune HD
player.
If there’s one downfall,
it’s the choice of apps. Since I’ll be spending my time riding a
motorcycle, futzing around with apps is the last of my worries. I
did pull in the weather app which works just fine.
So,
Mr. Balmer, take a deep breath and keep
forging on with the Zune HD. You’ve got something here. Rome wasn’t
built in a day and attempting to take over the market share that
Apple owns will take a lot of time, marketing and convincing, but
I’m convinced and looking forward to exploring hours of great music
with my Zune HD. This is truly the first time Microsoft has come out
of the gate ahead of what Apple is offering in this arena. I’d like
to see MS make a commitment to staying ahead with every Zune release
from here on out.
See you on the road!
PT/Spring 10
As this story went to press Microsoft
announced a firmware upgrade and five additional new features for
the player will be included in that upgrade. Obviously, Balmer knows
what he's got here and isn't throwing in the towel.
For more information, visit the
Zune website.
