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With the holidays coming up and holiday gift cash coming in, is the 16gb Zune HD worth the price? Some of you who've had it for a while could you please tell me how you're enjoying it so far? Thanks.

How's the web browsing? I've heard it's alright but nowhere near as good as the iPhone or iPod Touch.

I suppose it's good for quickly looking things up when not near a pc?

I think it's well worth the price, considering the price of the competition :P

The ZuneHD is by far the best media player I have ever owned. The UI is elegant, and intuitive. Apps are sparse, but more are coming, and they are free! (well ad based, but that's no big deal for me) They recently said on the zune insider podcast that twitter and facebook aps are coming soon, so that's cool if you're into that sort of thing. The screen is simply amazing. It looks great from all angles, and is very vibrant.

All this is good, but when paired with the Zune Pass and the Social, it becomes the ultimate music listening and discovery device.

I hate to admit it, but this thing has made a fanboy out of me.

If you are using the Zune HD primarily for music, then you will be very satisfied. If you want to be able to do other things equally, get an I touch because the app store, and everything else is just better. Hopefully there will start to be more apps for the zune, but not much yet. For music the Zune Pass is a must have. All of the music that you could ever want!

Sounds like a solid device. I'll be picking one up. Thanks guys.

From my own experiences (as gadget collector and sampler), Zune HD is very interesting and unique device. The compact size makes you happier than other devices in terms of capacity and pocketability. Only bad things are prices on accessories. Compared to iPod or iPhone, accessories are limited and 3rd party ones are not up-to-par quality. Sound quality is 4/5, build quality is 5/5, touch sensitivity 5/5, user interface (usability) 4/5, graphic 5/5, Wi-Fi/Store 3/5 from my book.

I guess this will be my first post / review. But I cant live without my Zune. I have the 8gig version and take it everywhere I go. Like everyone says, the music features of it are the best I have ever used. Intuitive navigation, great interface, and all of the 'little things' just fall into place.

As far as the other features on the Zune, without being the fanboy that am, I will say they are good for the things I needed it for. I needed a small player that could handle my day to day commute, possibly put some videos on it, and would seamlessly work with my PC. At first I was saddened by how small it was. I was thinking it would be comparable to the size of an I-Touch / I-Phone but it was considerably smaller. The deciding factors on picking it up was the screen (which looks beautiful) and the fact i dont use I-Tunes, nor do I want to. My other options were the an Archos 5 player (which had great space, but a little big and the UI / Featured apps weren't great after playing with it) and the I-Touch (which I touched on earlier, no pun intended)

Going down the main menu, The Music music player is great. compared to my last Mp3 player, a 4gig Creative Zen, it made me realize how in the past I was living. I dont have any videos on my Zune right now, but I have watched a movie or 2 as well as some online shows (The Guild) on there and it plays beyond my expectation with the OLED Screen, I honestly cant get enough of it. I recently put pictures on it, just for the sake of putting them there. But it sorts them very well, and the multi-touch zoom is great for high res images.

I rarely use the radio, even though the HD Radio was a feature I initially was anticipating. Its's nice, but it quickly lost its glory. the Marketplace and social section i rarely go into (I have no friends on social.. pretty depressing. add me: JayAntwan ) but by playing with the marketplace right now over Wifi, I think you can stream music from the marketplace (i have a zune pass), but dont quote me on it. Its rather slow for me (I think its a Verizon Fios Issue).

What I have fallen in love with is the podcasts. I admit, I am a late comer to the podcasting world. But having TWIT, GDGT and various Revision 3 and Current Video / Audio Podcast on my Zune has really changed my commute. After a week of using my 8 gig, I had it filled to the max and 90% of it was from podcasts. I was about to return it for the 16gig but decided not to for financial reasons, even though I still wish I did. Though the Zune software is great and let me set up syncing so that they would take up less space.

The Internet is very slow on it (Verizon Issue again) so I rarely use the browser as well. but its size definitely makes going to sites a hassle for me thanks to the on screen keyboard which is nice, but not great for long use IMO. Finally the apps, they had great launch apps and recently released new ones that show what this machine can do. nothing too useful, but all of the basic games and feature driven apps are here. It shows great potential of what can be made.


To sum it all up, It's really is a great device and I would definitely recommend it if you need to upgrade your current media player. I think it all comes down to what you need it for. As with all of my electronic purchases, I have a list of things I needed it for and a list of features I needed. From there I had to compromise a little, but got some pleasant surprises in return. If you are trying to decide whether to get the 8 or 16 gig versions, then excuse my whole review, and just go for the 16. You will be happy you did.

for broswing, I noticed it's best to do the mobile sites, as the full sites aren't guaranteed to 100% work, especially websites with frames in them or flash-base. I know twitter and facebook site works in case you can't wait for the apps to arrive on the Zune HD.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned (or I missed it) is the fantastic software and podcast support. It's years ahead of itunes in terms of speed, simplicity, features, syncing, and more. It is a bit hefty though, I wouldn't recommend running it on older generation hardware.

I pretty much agree with other replies re: zune hardware. Fantastic music player and discovery device, decent browser, pretty good games, lackluster apps. If you know why you're buying the HD, you'll love it. If you buy it to run some random recipe or stock market app or something, you'll be disappointed.

I very much prefer the Zune HD over say the iPhone or iPod Touch, the UI is very simple and I love it! But by far the OLED screen is what sets the Zune HD apart from all others! Rather it be watching movies, listening to music, viewing photos, or enjoying the apps (more and more coming) the screen is the best I have ever seen on a mobile device!

However, it all comes down to your personal taste, some do and some don't like the zune or ipod touch for whatever reason. So i would say, try before you buy, and see which one you like more -- the software however on the zune side is much much better, (i find).

ummm......
the hd has better pixel density/ more accurate colors and the video would be same size if 16x9, which most videos are. zune wins unless its bright out and you cant clean the screen.

ipod touch's browser loads slightly faster (not really noticeable) and has tabs


better sound card on the zune. and better music experience all around, including cheaper single download prices and the subscription option.

zune is easier to pocket.

ipod has volume rocker/ external speaker (although i like that side button on my zune now that im used to it).

WAY more apps for ipod, but pretty much all you gain are faster ways to use some things on the internet (myspace, etc), access to youtube (cool), precious few good games and even less free good games, and a legion of shovelware.

The hd has more almost as many good free games (only about 5 really good ones in the app store), with more coming. both have facebook/ twitter and a few other apps.

both software is resource intensive and all around "meh"

you can change songs/ listen to music in apps with zune.