Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: ZuneHD, Microsoft, Touch | Themes: Audio/Video Players
4. New Ways To Play Music
The original Zune was made to share music between Zunes, but that never caught on because for every Zune owner there were at least 100 people with an iPod instead. Even today, you’d be lucky to find a fellow Zune owner in the wild unless you work in Redmond. Microsoft’s initial failure seems to have inspired its developers to give new Zune owners the best possible music experience without actual music ownership. Just stay with us, it’ll all be clear soon.
First among the Zune’s music sources is the HD radio, an excellent addition not only because few personal media players come with it, but because this HD Radio comes with many layers of content, meaning local radio stations can broadcast multiple stations over the same signal. For example, in Los Angeles we have 95.5 KLOS, which appears in HD1 and HD2, where HD2 is actually the company’s AM station KFI 640. Whether a frequency has multiple channels depends on the radio station and the maximum is three different channels per frequency.
The radio app is innovative, but a little slow to start and reception gets weak. Driving around the LA area, several radio stations, which played clear in the car radio didn’t work at all on the Zune, which uses the headphones as an antenna, though they aren’t required to use the radio. Of course, this practice limits the radio’s use when using speakers, which do not make a good antennae.
If the reception is clear, HD radio shows the music playing and Zune owners can click to bookmark songs for later purchase from the store, which is a very handy add-on. Controlling the radio is a hassle, though, both because it’s slow and because preset stations can only be accessed by going back and forth between the preset button on the bottom left of the screen. There is no option to add preset hotlinks to the screen. Once a radio station is visited, its information will be saved if it’s a preset. The radio also works in Japan and Europe.
Besides the radio, Microsoft wanted people to get away from listening to just the music they own and to try out new tunes that they may like. The company made a Pandora-like algorithm (Pandora is a popular Internet radio service featuring "stations" based on your likes and dislikes), which determines what type of music you like based on your music collection. There’s also an option to download “channels” from other users or companies, like KROQ or other radio stations. If you’re a Zunepass subscriber, which is $15 a month (we discuss exactly how Zunepass works on page 8), you can download these channels as play lists associated with specific types of music. We set one up and were immediately pleased with the music selection it gave based.
The most convenient part of all this is that while you don’t own those songs, they are still on your Zune to listen to at your leisure, until you sync and change the mix or delete it altogether. Of course, if you don’t like the song (or if you love it), you can rate it and when you next sync, it’ll upload that data to Zune and it’ll remember what you liked and didn’t like.
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Good article! Brought some of the lesser known features out and reviewed them thoroughly!
Excellent article! Wow, I wanted one before, but thought it might be best to wait and see if the price comes down. Now I'm thinking, where's my wallet?
Ouch. That's kind of a big thing to leave out.
Just a little info: the "Easter Egg" you found (Hello From Seattle) was also on the back of the original Zune.
More on topic, can't wait to purchase one of these! Great review!
"hello from seattle" has been on every single Zune since it's creation. Dont assume you're 'that' special.
Quick Question:
Do I NEED the dock to plug the zune HD to my hdtv or is it optional?
Slow Question:
Can I browse regular webpages with it?
Quick Question
1) Yes, you do. It's 80$ from what I've heard.
2) Yes, but you have to click on the non-mobile button after the page loads (shouldn't take more than a second) and then it will load the full version. It's like the PSP browser.
Quick Question
You can use the old dock that sells for $20 but it won't play HD.
1) Yes, you do. It's 80$ from what I've heard. 2) Yes, but you have to click on the non-mobile button after the page loads (shouldn't take more than a second) and then it will load the full version. It's like the PSP browser.
You can use the old dock that sells for $20 but it won't play HD.
Thanks for the quick (and slow xD) answers.
The dock thing is kinda a bummer though.
amazon has the HD dock for $62 as of RIGHT now
480x320 resolution of the iPhone has an aspect ratio of....4:3?
... 320 / 160 = 2...
... 480 / 160 = 3...
...Am I doing my maths right?
Any word on last.fm scrobbling?
@manjyomethunder
It's possible the iPhone doesn't have square pixels, either that or they've made a mistake with the figures.
Wow...
$80 for the dock, damn.
Just sounds like a really portable video player to me. It would make it easier to play my downloaded films on my TV. All I need is a Zune HD, Zune HD HDMI dock, and a HDMI cable... not sounding all to great any more ($$$)...
i don't live in America so i cant get it, otherwise i would have pre-ordered it. with the dock. imagine using the dock controller to play actual 3d games on tv, taking tegra and arm 11 to the limits.
argh why the hell dont they sell this thing in the UK.. id buy one in a flash if they did
You didn't go into my favorite feature, wireless sync. I love leaving my zune in my car in the garage, and finding new podcasts every morning when I drive to work.
Something neat, when tied to a comp via USB it will run through the PCs network (I was pulling up web-pages with wifi off and did a double take yesterday). Makes web-pages a bit faster but doesn't do much else. Suppose its an easy way to download if ones wifi is odd, but you have the zune software already to do this... so... redundant?
A few notes. First, thanks for all the comments, it was very helpful for the update.
manjyomethunder, your math is correct. The Touch has a 3:2 screen ratio. I'd love to say it was a typo, but it was just wrong information. I myself checked the numbers before, but saw what I thought was concrete info about it being 4:3. Obviously, a poor source we won't be using anymore.
fartblossom, we didn't go into wireless sync too much (did more in the update) because it's not a new feature. I like it very much, but I don't like how it only works on one network. In my house, we've got 3 wi-fi networks on the same router, so unless I'm in the vicinity of my home office, I can't sync wirelessly.
One thing we're not sure about, and waiting for more feedback on, is whether the Zune HD supports ad-hoc networking. Our tests show that it does not, but it could be a problem with our device, since realistically it should be identical to making your laptop into a wi-fi hotspot.
What do you guys think of it so far?
Great article, but I disagree on two fronts. First I think apps work fine - the poker is quite enjoyable to play. Second and more important, is it seems that you are familiar with typing on the iphone. I just recently started testing an iphone app and haven't used the keyboard before and had had horrible time typing on it. keypresses are noted on initial touch where with the zune they are enacted upon release and you have some room to adjust prior to selecting the key. I thought I was going to have problems with the zune given my iphone experience and it works phenomenal for me. Actually, really like it and had to double check my first URL was i typed into it was 100% correct. (and this was in before i realized i could type in landscape mode).