Zune HD (16GB, black)

Pros: OLED Screen
Thin
Light
Fun to use
Well thought out

Cons: No video playlist
No Amazon Unbox Support
Ear Buds poor look
Video file support lacking

Summary: I have spent 2 days working with the Zune HD

16gigs unit. Here is my impressions. THis unit

is a good starting point. THere is a lot to love

about the unit and some things that make you

think why? The feel of the unit is amazing it is

very thin and light it makes you wonder is this

really going to play everything I throw at it?

Well truning it on for the first time you look

at it and go "WOW" what a screen. I have owed a

long list of mps players including Zen vision W

Ipood touch (1G) Iphone (1g) and the Archos 5

tablet. Until this point the Archos had the best

looking screen. Now the Zune HD takes first

place.

Touch response was great at times I felt is was

a bit too touchy but I am getting use to it. To

me the touch is read faster then on apple

players not saying everything launches faster.

Apps do take a long load time and they almost

feel like and after thought they just do not

seem to blend in as well as on the touch. Music

play back is great. I am a bit disapointed with

the ear buds included I think MS could have

steped it up and give a better classyer pair

they seem like a let down compared to the

player. And why no cleaning cloth? This should

have been included in the packageing.

Video playback is where I spent a lot of time

here was a mixed bag of success and failure.

Having owned several other players 1 being the

Zen Vision W I have a nice collection of

video's. Must of these came from Amazon Unbox

and I have yet to get them on to the unit. This

I feel is hurting the ZUNE Hd compared to the

video offerings from apple I would think being

able to use Amazon Unbox right away would be a

very impotant thing. MS market place has a very

poor offering of videos both movies and TV Shows

and MS can use the Amazon site to show off thier

units. Along with the weak video offerings I am

wondering why on the Zune HD can you not make a

video playlist this hurts big time. Now you can

not do it on the Zen Vision W and it took an

upgrade to do it on the Touch but now it is

something expaected out of the box why wait for

an update this makes no sense.

Continue with video problems it is know that

Apple has removed DRM from a lot of the music

videos on thier site and since I owned a touch I

wanted to wathc these on my Zune HD. Now they

will play in the Zune HD Software on your

computer but try to transfer them to the unit

and you hit a wall. I had to come up with a work

around that required me to convert all my DRM

free videos with the use of my Creative Zen

software this took time and there is no reason

as to why. Once converted they do look great.

Ok now let's look at the browser. It is a bit

weak could be alot better. I am not sure if it

is my home network or the unit but it kept

loosing connection when loading pages. This adds

to the load time which is slower then on the

Touch. I still plan on doing more work with the

browser right now I would say it is ok.

My review title says it all this is a good

starting point for MS something I think should

have been done before it was shipped (Amazon

Unbox, Video playlist) and a better use of the

App store. It is great everything is free but

there is no killer app in the store yet. I would

like to see MS to quickly add a few things one

being a PIM app after all they are the makers

outlook so I would like to carry my contacts and

stuff right on my Zune HD.

Should you buy it that is a tough call if yuo

want to get in on the ground floor of a new hot

product and can accept that growth may or may

not come quickly then you will love playing with

it. If you want a more finshed product that has

a base in placed then you must go to Apple just

be warned you are tradeing in tommrow tech for

yesterdays tech if you do so.