UPDATE:This will be more of an advanced description than a review, so I have promptly renamed it “Zune HD ‘Deep Dive’”

Hardware

The Zune HD is a pretty thin device, with a measurement of 10.1 cm tall, 5.1 cm wide, and 8 mm thick. I was visibly surprised when the actual device was much smaller than the videos I had seen on the web. The Zune is not heavy in the pocket, but you can feel it there when carrying it. The back is of brushed aluminum with four tri-wing screws showing for design. The bottom is interrupted by a rubbery spot similar to the original iPhone to increase wireless performance. Designs can also be laser engraved with a variety of free and paid designs (70 at the time of writing. On top, there is a sleep/power button that is flush with the body. The front is adorned with an 8 mm bezel on top and bottom, and 5 mm on the sides. The screen is an Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) screen that draws less power as it operates without a backlight. At its time of release, this was an advanced technology, but was then quickly superseded by AMOLED and Super AMOLED displays which performed better in direct sunlight, one of OLED’s major weaknesses The bottom has a trapezoidal home button accompanied with a soft area, to serve as a thumb rest. The sides of the Zune are more interesting. the design incorporates a plastic like layer sandwiched between the aluminum of the main body (see pictures below). Although the right side has nothing, the left side has the media button, which brings up volume and music controls. I preferred having a rocker for volume, but can live with it. The bottom of the player has a headphone jack as well as the Zune connector port to sync with a computer.

On internals, the Zune is the first device to use the nVidia Tegra chip, specifically, the APX 2600 model. The Tegra chip has several cores to handle different tasks, such as 2D, rendering, 3D rendering, audio, etc. It also takes advantage of the headphone cable to receive HD radio signals.

Software

The Zune HD runs Windows CE 6.0 overlaid with the Zune UI, which would later become the Metro UI for Windows Phone 7.

The main screen is just a list, with all of the device’s “features” listed. Included options are Music (along with a play button for playing all music randomly), video, pictures, marketplace, social, apps internet, and settings. On the side, in the distance, is another menu accessible by swiping, tapping or pressing the home button again, lists the song that is playing, and provides a spot for users to pin almost anything to it, including but not limited to, albums, songs, pictures, etc. Underneath is a list of past accessed items, and further down, items newly synced to the device.

The music menu is pretty simple. You can view items from Album, Artist, Playlist, Song, and Genre. All list items include a play button to play the selected file(s). The standout of the music menu is the artist screen, where a list of albums and songs by the artist are listed, as well as a few marketplace recommendations. Other options include reading a bio and seeing photos of the artist (if they are in the marketplace database). The music player is fairly simple as well, with the song name and artist title at the top and the album art portrayed in the middle. Swiping left or right in this are changes the track to the adjacent song. Underneath is a shortcut to a list of all items in the now playing for easy jumping. Below are the shuffle, repeat, and favorite/hate button, respectively.

The video screen is mainly the same, though clicking on an item’s name will bring up a short description (if it has one) and a play button to jump in. The video player interface is blank, with controls coming up only if the media button or tapping the image. The controls are standard: play, volume up/down, and forward/reverse. On some videos, a button can be pressed to stretch the picture to fill the screen or return to the original size. The Zune HD supports the playing of HD content, but scales it down to play on its 480 by 272 screen, with 720p output restricted to the optional dock, which costs USD89.99.

Pictures is just a list of thumbnails representing the pictures, while folders have a number indicating the number of files inside. Tapping on a photo “flips the page” Metro Style. Obviously, pinch to zoom works here. Double tapping will zoom you in, while another two double taps will zoom you in more; a final two taps returns the photo to its original size. Tapping will bring up controls to exit, play an automatic slideshow, or apply the current image as the lock screen wallpaper.

The radio screen follows the same minimalist pattern as the whole system, starting at the top, which has a back button, a add/remove from presets options. The current station is displayed as a large number on a “tuning line”. If HD radio signals are found, an HD icon is appended to the station number. If the station has multiple HD substations, they are accessible by swiping under the tuning line. A final button at the bottom of the page shows presets.

The marketplace menu has four choices: music,  apps, search, and cart. Music has options for: (artist) Picks, Top Albums, Top Songs, and new releases. Tapping a song or album, brings up a rather unnecessary screen with options to play it (full length for Zune Pass customers, and 15 second demo for others) or add it to the cart. Tapping on an artist, however will bring up details very similar to the native music browser (pictures, bio, etc.) The apps menu has choices to view new apps, updates, or all of them. As of now, all apps are free. More on apps later. Easy enough, the last two options, search and cart do exactly what their purpose is for.

Note: The social menu does not apply to me, as I don’t use the social. If anyone is feeling friendly, they can send me their thoughts so I can post it

The podcasts menu displays a list of downloaded series, which, when clicked on, provide a list of items.

The web browser was a bit of a miss. IT was nice having one, but it could’ve been much better. The web browser is Internet Explorer (get ready for this…) 6 based. Seriously?! Wasn’t Microsoft wanting to kill IE6 for a long time now? I constantly get nags while browsing to upgrade, some websites don’t work and there is no tabbed browsing. Again, seriously? How hard is tabbed browsing to implement? I hope Microsoft back ports the Windows Phone 7 browser, which is IE7/8 based with tabbed browsing, to the Zune HD.

Apps…apps, this is where most people get all bugged up and slink away from the Zune HD. The Zune HD has 24 apps. 24…official apps. If you count all the 3rd party XNA and OpenZDK apps (see Zuneboards.com for info) created, then the list tops 100. Apps are written in C# using specially provided APIs. If written in OpenZDK, which allow access to private, Microsoft only APIs such as internet, the programs are written in C#. Since I can’t (and don’t want to) go through all 100+ apps, I’ll share my favorites.

PGR: Ferrari Edition; this racing game from MS is right on. The graphics are smooth as silk, and a news site claimed it to have “PSP-level graphics”

Acceleroid: This is an Arkanoid/Space Invaders mashup, with high quality graphics and easily the best non-official app to date.

Labyrinth by Microsoft: This is a maze style game where you guide a ball using tilt to a goal. Very good time-killer.

A Beanstalk Tale: a climbing game where you use leaves to jump and try not to die by dropping off screen or getting mugged by an enemy.

Settings contain standard configurations; a notable setting is the return of an equalizer, which has been absent since the first generation Zune 30.

Leave feedback in the comments!

We played outside for a while, then decided to go for a walk around the block…then it started to rain.

Here’s some pics:

The FOOD!!

MOONCAKES!!!

All the food in their glory.

You can get it here!
XP 32bit and Vista/7 32 and 64-bit are supported.
Comment on whether you like it not!

this 15% off coupon code lowers the 16 gig Zune HD price to $186.99 and the 32 gig Zune HD price to $249.49!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!,

use it here: http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?sku=A2994569&cs=19&c=us&l=en&dgc=CJ&cid=24471&lid=566643&acd=10550055-1727683- THE OFFER ENDS ON 9/15/ just incase you can’t access the site, the code is: 6FWJ247J1P44CK it works for both the 32 and 16 gig models

For a full comparison, Zune HD vs. iTouch 3RD GENERATION visit: http://zunited.net/index.php?page=comparison though now the Zune HD wins the iPod 3Gen in price by almost $100 again.

So Flash sites like Youtube and Pandora are out.

But it is still as good looking, but I think there should be more colors.

(Video courtesy of CNET.com)

Partition disk and dual boot Win7

Do HW(but of course!)

Do project bleh.

And my beloved Big Sister who is my bestest friend is coming back on Saturday!!

The lyrics to Mathmaticious are below(note: I DIDNOT DO THIS! ALL CREDIT GOES TO SUMERSET INC):

Four, three, two, one
Listen up, ya’ll, ’cause this is it
The numbers we’re making are so vicious
Mathmaticious expeditious can be kind of scary
I hope my answers aren’t radical or imaginary
I convert percents to fractions, it brings me some satisfaction
Like scientific notation and order of operations
Mathmaticious (repetitious)
Gets me expeditious
My answers may get vicious
My eraser’s left in stitches
I make wishes (woo-ah)
I get the answer right, right
And I’ll be staying up all night just to check what I write
Mathmaticious (The Pythagorean Theory)
Mathmaticious (Finds the hypotenuse for me)
Mathmaticious (Or I’ll use trigonometry)
I’m Mathmaticious (d-d-d-d-d-decimal, decimal)
Locus of the points
Locus of the points
Locus of the points (points is echoing)
I’m up about figuring out greatest common factors
And when I make a pie chart I’m in need of a protractor
The angle of elevation, thanks to my calculations
Turns out to be 43, a prime number
I’m Mathmaticious (repetitious)
It makes me so ambitious
My answers are judicious
Calculator never glitches
It’s my mission (deh deh deh den)
I get the answer right, right
And I’ll be staying up all night just to check what I write
Mathmaticious (What’s the probability?)
Mathmaticious (Of me not labeling my axis)
Mathmaticious (When graphing inequalities)
Mathmaticious (hold, hold, hold, hold, hold up, check your work)
Computing areas
Quadratic formula
Graphing parabolas
I think they’re all so cool
It’s my soul commitment
That I ace the Regents
Sine, cosine and tangent
Are my favorite tools
I divide, multiply, add, subtract, round off and simplify
I divide, multiply, add, subtract, round off and simplify
Is it whole? Rational? Factor out, substitute, solve for x
Is it whole? Rational? Factor, factor, factor, hit the pi key
3.14159, 26535, 89793238, 462
6433832, 7950288419, 716, 939937,
510582, 097494, 459230, 78164,
062, 86208998628, 0348
Mathmaticious (repetitious)
Gets me expeditious
My answers may get vicious
My eraser’s left in stitches
I make wishes (woo-ah)
I get the answer right, right
And I’ll be staying up all night just to check what I write (write, write, write)
Four, three, two, one
It makes me so ambitious
My answers are judicious
Calculator never glitches
It’s my mission (deh deh deh den)
I get the answer right, right
And I’ll be staying up all night just to check what I write
Mathmaticious (pi, pi, pi, pi)
Mathmaticious (pi, pi, pi, pi)
Mathmaticious (pi, pi, pi, pi)
I’m Mathmaticious (d-d-d-d-d-decimal, decimal)
It’s Mathmaticious (pi, pi, pi, pi)
Mathmaticious (pi, pi, pi, pi)
Mathmaticious (pi, pi, pi, pi)
I’m Mathmaticious, d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d (pi, pi, pi, pi)
I divide, multiply, add, subtract, round off and simplify
I divide, multiply, add, subtract, round off and simplify
I divide, multiply, add, subtract, round off and simplify
I divide, multiply, add, sub (four, three, two, one)
Is it whole? Rational? Factor out, substitute, solve for x
Is it whole? Rational? Factor out, substitute, solve for x
Is it whole? Rational? Factor out, substitute, solve for x
Is it whole? Rational? Factor, factor, factor (four, three, two, one)
I divide, multiply, add, subtract, round off and simplify
I divide, multiply, add, subtract, round off and simplify
I divide, multiply, add, subtract, round off and simplify
I divide, multiply, add, sub (four, three, two, one)
Is it whole? Rational? Factor out, substitute, solve for x
Is it whole? Rational? Factor out, substitute, solve for x
Is it whole? Rational? Factor out, substitute, solve for x
Is it whole? Rational? Factor, factor, factor, factor, factor…