New: Netbook Tablet with touchscreenZune HD's Bing-powered Web browser
The Zune HD's mobile Web browser includes a search feature powered by Microsoft's Bing search engine.
(Credit: Donald Bell/CNET)Last Tuesday, I shared my positive impressions of the mobile Web browser Microsoft is including in its upcoming Zune HD portable media player. What I didn't share (not because I didn't want to) were the photos I took of the Zune HD browser in action.
The following photo gallery includes four shots of the Zune HD browser doing its thing. The first shot shows the browser in portrait mode, the second shot shows how bookmarking is handled, the third shot shows Facebook in landscape view, and the final shot demonstrates the keyboard in landscape mode.
That last shot shows off another feature Microsoft has been keeping under wraps--Bing. Yep, the Zune HD's Web browser includes a search button for instant queries using the Bing search engine. Granted, it's not an earth-shattering or completely unexpected announcement, but it's one more detail for all the Zune fans and haters to sink their teeth into.
Note: Tune in to CNET Live at noon Tuesday (August 11, 12 p.m. Pacific/3 p.m. Eastern) to watch a live episode of CNET's MP3 Insider podcast, with special guest Brian Seitz from Microsoft's Zune team and Zune Insider blog. He'll be bringing along a Zune HD and taking a few questions from the CNET Live chat room.
On Sale Now: $249.99 - $289.99
View the latest prices for Zune HD (32GB - platinum)
Donald Bell is CNET Reviews' senior editor for MP3 players and portable audio, and one half of the MP3 Insider blog and weekly podcast. He also likes getting his hands dirty with digital audio tools for musicians and DJs. 
Donald Bell is an electronic musician, a veteran record store employee, and a fearless hardware hacker. He's also CNET's Senior Editor for MP3 and digital audio.
Jasmine France is CNET's resident digital audio doyenne, writing and editing product reviews, crave blogs, and feature stories on all things MP3. And if you need advice on headphones, she's your girl.
Bring on the apps MS.
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/08/price-tag-leak-zune-hd-16gb-for-220-32gb-for-290.ars
its also on zuneboards.com...check it out!!!
I haven't yet own any of these devices (Ipod touch or Zune HD) and am looking to get one next Summer.
I own a Mac though :( cmon MS, show some Mac love..
I guess there are only a DOZEN people that know a better product with more features for a better price. If you want to really get a full music experience which includes exploring and listening to new music, you buy a Zune and get a ZunePass. If you are just interested in getting ripped off by Apple and using bloated iTunes and playing crappy free games (monkey peeing in toilets or waste basket-ball) then go enjoy your iPod Touch.
No evernote, no deal
Sure, these functions would be better on a phone, but why pay for that every month when I am surrounded by ubiquitous free wifi? I have a cheap-as-dirt PAYG flip-phone, on the off chance that any of my friends or business clients think to phone me before emailing, which is rare.
So I guess what I was trying to say in my original post is, as a person who could be swayed into an upgrade at this point, I need my iPod Touch Alternative to have a lot of functionality beyond games, music and web surfing.
So that's why I ask, can I at least get Evernote for it? Or is there some chance of that in the future? I'll consider my alternatives, but I'm not switching until I see some apps, and somebody shows me how this thing can effectively replace the Touch. It's not all about music, video, games, and web surfing.
Makes sense. Although I think that your usage is a pretty fringe case, so they may not win you over right away. But I bet they will have increased "apps" or an apps marketplace down the road, just not during launch (just like the iPod Touches). I think that this device and the Zunes before it are the best "music" devices around, and the fact that they add new functionality like web browsing, hd video, and I'm sure "apps" in the future only make it more attractive.
> 16gb for $220 and 32gb for $290, that is amazingly cheap for those sizes
> and for this kind of device. do you think apple will be able to catch up with
> that? (i don't think so)
Here's the timeline:
- June 2009: iPhone 32GB ($299)
- September 2009: iPod touch 64GB
- October 2009: Zune HD 32GB
So what were you saying about catching up?
> the browser is pretty amazing with these pics.
Internet Explorer 6? That is being actively blocked by major websites right now, and Zune HD does not even ship until October, right? So you buy one in October 2009 and it comes with a 2001 browser that not only can't see the modern Web, parts of the Web are now completely dark to it. Websites are competing right now for who can have the cutest no-IE6 page and you're going to buy IE6 from Microsoft? Where is IE8 for this device?
What makes it worse is that the browser engine from the iPhone, iPod, Pre, Storm, S60, Android, and Chrome is free and open source and runs on every CPU. If little broken down Palm can put it into Pre, Microsoft can manage to put it into Zune. It's a crime that they're going to sell you IE6 instead. It's a crime that anyone who reads a technology website would not know better than to buy IE6 in late 2009!
> I bought [iPod touch] as an email device, but it pretty quickly turned into a pretty
> versatile netbook/tablet alternative for me, one which also happens to have some
> games and music on it. Evernote and NetNewsWire keep me synced back to my
> main computer without having to plug in.
> I think that your usage is a pretty fringe case
No, he's not a fringe case. For 2 years now you got a whole computer for free if you bought an iPod for $229. The iPod touch is considered to be a netbook by the people who own them. You can type faster than on a netbook.
> I think that this device and the Zunes before it are the best "music" devices around,
That's great, but if all you want is music, you can get a player that is 1/10th the size of Zune HD.
To buy a 3.5-inch touchscreen computer and say "well it's just a music player" because Microsoft left off all the other software you could be using is pretty sad, actually. Microsoft is actually a software company. There is no reason they couldn't launch Zune HD with 50 awesome apps and make the device a real mobile computer from day one and then if 3rd party development happens that is a nice bonus.
And even if you are only into music, the iPod has like 500 Internet radio apps and some like Pandora have a personalized component.
Not to mention that you can make music on an iPod now. I write songs with an app called FourTrack on iPhone (runs on iPod also) that is a full-fledged 4-track recorder and costs $9.99 and installs and updates itself. There's a sequencer called BeatMaker, a great app for guitarists called GuitarToolkit, and many, many DJ apps.
So even in just a music device context, the built-in computer platform of the iPod and iPhone add tremendous value to the device.
> But I bet [Microsoft] will have increased "apps" or an apps marketplace down the road
When? This device has a 2 year lifespan, tops. When will there be enough of these in the wild that 3rd party development becomes practical? You need like 5 or 10 million out there before even an indie developer can make a practical business plan. That is more Zunes than have ever been sold, ever.
> just not during launch (just like the iPod Touches)
Zune HD and iPod touch app platforms are night and day, apples and oranges, nothing in common. Because of the iPhone, and secondarily because of the Mac. Zune HD has neither advantage.
When iPod touch launched, there were already 5 million iPhones sold and in use, which run the same apps, and thousands of developers were howling and screaming for a 3rd party SDK. So even before an iPod touch was sold, there was already a critical mass of developers for iPod apps. The SDK arrived a few months after iPod touch, and since it was based on the Mac SDK, it was years ahead of what people expected from a mobile SDK, and many developers basically already knew how to use it. Before iPod touch was a year old, the App Store launched, and a few months later had 10,000 apps and a year after that had 50,000 apps.
The first iPod touch was something like the 40 millionth OS X device. The first Zune HD will be the very first Zune HD device, incompatible with everything else in the world.
> Bing
There's an iPod app for that, called Search Bing.
After you declared this device 2 years old, you began to attack Internet Explorer 6? If you don't know what you are talking about, shoot yourself here. This isn't IE6, this is IE Mobile 6 an unreleased browser that you don't know anything about. I'm not going to claim it's better than Apple's browser and I'm not going to say it's worse because I haven't used it yet and very few people have.
I'm not in the market for a computer, I'm in the market for a portable media player something that the Zune HD does better than the competition, and I'm not saying that because Microsoft "left out" the other capabilities, I'm saying that because that's what I want.
OS X, 40 million devices, no way! Ever heard of Windows CE? Keep trolling.
- by Horseshooves August 15, 2009 9:10 AM PDT
- Hamranhansenhansen is right. Nobody in their right mind would buy yet another Microsoft failed copy of an iPod Touch / iPhone. Swallow your pride and do yourself a favour and get one of those. You'll be happier for it.
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
-
- by JWolford September 16, 2009 8:35 PM PDT
- Yeah, cause I'd like to buy all of my music over again, not to mention have a horribly bloated (and stale looking) iTunes on my computer. Seriously, it's called choice. We all enjoy it every day. And "pride"? Really? What, are you going to come to my house and mock me for my purchase? If you do I'll be more than happy to beat your Apple fanboy a$$ down, but that's your call. It would be good stress relief for me at least.
- Like this
-
Showing 1 of 2 pages (35 Comments)Oh, and FYI, I read this all from my iPhone.