it sounds amazing compare
What is the quality of the headphones?
As an all out Zune owner, I have always enjoyed the devices and how they would update their devices with all the new features every year, including the old brick zunes. Since they weren't going to do it this time, I knew it was time to upgrade. I got a 32gb HD with no hesitation, there are a couple of things that you need to know about if you really want this compared to the Apple Ipod Touch.What I think is the best part about the Zune HD is its beautiful OLED screen. You don't know how beautiful a video or picture can look on a small device until you look at it on the Zune HD. The black quality on the screen is amazing and the colors are so vivid. Some of the features on the device is really helped out by the beautiful screen that this device possesses.Graphics: With a stripped down version of the nVidia Tegra chip inside the device, you can not go wrong. It has 8 processors making the device working at its best. It will definitely help once 3D games come to the device. Can't wait for that to happen!!!Software and Marketplace: The Zune software is...nice, could be better, could be worse. I like that it is customizable unlike Itunes. The marketplace is pretty, it could definitely have more videos and movies, but lets not forget that they just started with movies when the Zune HD came out. Still, many of the TV shows that I have like watching on CBS and FOX are NOT on the Zune Marketplace, which disappoints me. This can be apart of the review because this is the only software that the Zune is compatible with. Yes, its only on PC, its so sad that people with Macs can't use it, that 5-10% that can just use boot camp to use it. I mean seriously Mac users, get over it, YOU CAN USE IT!!! I have always like the wireless sync feature just in case I just don't want to find my sync cord you can just bring up the software and on the device just click wireless sync. Podcasts are handled on the Zune software. The catalog of podcasts are not as big on Itunes, but that is not such a big deal. What is great about it is that you can choose how many that you want to keep on your computer, so it automatically deletes on the ones that get old or outdated. You can also choose which ones to automatically sync to the device. Whether it be all of them, or just the ones that haven't been played yet and the ones that get played on the device get deleted after you watch.Apps: No store here. People who want a device for apps, its not here. The Zune HD has a very few simple games and only 2 applications. Microsoft has promised that they will be adding more to the catalog eventually, but its not here. The games and apps that they already for the device are nice to have. I always the Texas Hold 'Em game, simple but nice. The newest update allows 3D gaming which is great. Audiosurf Tilt is simply amazing with the screen. They are all free, thats a plus, but the catch is there are short advertisements before the games come up. Thats not such a big deal if you can get all of their stuff for free. I would much rather, though, pay for a valuable app from other developers. Microsoft has to keep with the times and allow other developers to create their own apps. Once Microsoft actually reads something from their reviewers and listens to them, they might get somewhere even further.UI: Beautiful, Microsoft was really working to create an interface for a touch device. They did a beautiful job at doing so. The searching for media on the device is so easy and very quick to learn. I absolutely LOVE the sidebar on the main screen. You just click on the left side of the main screen and this other screen comes up with "Pins", which are basically songs, pics, or videos that you like you can pin to the side bar so you can quickly access that when you turn it on. The next feature on that screen is history, which shows everything that you have been doing on the device like songs that you just recently listened to, podcasts, or websites that you view on the web browser. The last feature on that screen is "New" which shows the newest things that you recently added to the device so if you just added a song to the device, just go to the history screen and you can easily play the song without going through any menus. You can also delete ANYTHING that you want off your device by just clicking on the item. I know that the Ipod Touch does this, just not with everything.Music and features: Sound playback has always been the best on the Zune. They decided to bring the basic EQ back to the device, which is nice...just not nice enough. A customizable EQ would be great. You don't even need an EQ if you have the Zune premium headphones, with both of them together, it sounds amazing, Bose headphones, get out of the way (seriously)! I love the new music menu features on the Zune HD. First off, the artist menu is amazing. It starts off with the artists picture in the background and it has the basic albums and songs side menues, then theres artists pictures, which you can use as your background by the way, it also has a full bio of the artist on another side menu which is awesome, who wouldn't love to get a background of the artist. With the new firmware update now also there is underlined part in the bio which allows you to click on them, which is normally artists or other albums, and you can use the devices wi-fi directly from the bio and go to the artist or other album and download it with the on-device marketplace. Whats also included is related artists, which has a picture list of all the related artists which you can click on to either access their artist menu, or go to the on-device marketplace and download their stuff. What I think is the best is the screensaver mode when you are listening to songs. It really takes advantage of the screen. It starts after around 15 seconds on not touching the screen. The artist picture is in the background and the information from the screen is scrolling around the screen in all different directions, if you have used the Zune software, you might have seen this feature. Its just the icing on the cake. Microsoft really did try to get the music exploration aspect in Zune and they did a very good job.Videos: Simple enough...with the screen all the videos look beautiful. You can either choose since the device is widescreen to either keep the video at its full screen and have black sides or zoom in and make the video full screen. I love that you have the choice to do that. Colors really show up on this device so if you plan to watch an animated tv show like Family Guy, you can actually tell what color the wall in the background is.Zune Pass: Genius...$15 a month for unlimited streaming of songs and you get to keep 10 of those songs each month. So if you compare it to Itunes...10 songs for $1.29, you spend $13 on 10 songs that you get to keep and that means you get unlimited streaming to millions of songs for just $2 a month. What a bargain!!! You also get the the Zune Pass with the On-device marketplace. You can download songs to the device right from the online device marketplace and even when you get offline, you can still continue listening to it. I love the zune pass and its definitely worth it if you love music.On-Device Markeplace - Very nice to have, especially if you have the Zune Pass. They also have the very few apps on the marketplace and you can download updates right from the marketplace, but there hasn't been any updates to the 7 games that Microsoft supplies.Pictures: Beautiful, scrolling to the next picture and rendering the picture from horizontal to landscape takes not time. It uses the same multi-touch feature to zoom and is quite useful. Overall...nice.Radio: This is one of Microsoft's selling points. This radio is FM AND HD radio. Too bad I don't live near any main radio station that include HD radio stations. I don't really see any improvements in the radio either. When I go to the city, I will let you guys know. What I have always loved about the radio is the tag to FM feature, which is when you get a clear enough reception, it will show the title of the radio station and the song that is playing currently. You can tag that song and add it to your cart which you can download with the marketplace. That is a great way to get introduced and familiar with new music.Social: Still evolving...not there yet. I am so sad that they took away the song and podcast sharing from zune to zune wirelessly. Its gone, now there is a way to send songs with an email address or zune tag (or xbox live gamertag) when you plug your zune back into the computer. What they did do is add your zune inbox if your account is synced with your device, and it displays on your device...which is nice. But it is still sad that they took away the wireless song sharing feature. (It still works with the older models if you still have one!)Internet browser: OK...not as good as the Ipod Touch safari browser. There is no flash...yet. But you get the choice to either use the internet browser as a mobile browser or you can view sites in their desktop format, its a choice in the internet settings menu. The keyboard is small, but isn't every PMP keyboard? The added auto-correct features with the new firmware update, but it is still not as good as safari.This was a complete and honest review. I love Zune and I have always thought about going back to Ipod, but Zune keeps coming out with new devices that can not be refused. Music and video playback and exploration...Zune is the one and only way to go. No other device does it as good as Zune. Applications and web browsing are better for the Ipod people. Unlimited streaming of music and keeping 10 songs a month, go Zune. Paying individual songs at $1.29 a month to keep forever, go with Ipod. There are so many things that I listed on here and probably a couple of other things that would affect your decision. But I hope that this helped.5/17 update...1. the newest zune update got rid of all of the advertisements before the apps started2. There are now around 20 apps for the HD including facebook and twitter...still nothing special. Let's just hope the the Windows 7 series phones apps will be compatible.3. CBS and FOX have both been added to the Zune Marketplace4. They have added the Smart DJ feature to the HD device (like Genius on the ipod, but actually gets better results)5. Direct Xvid compatibility...you don't know how much better that made this thing. Makes the Zune way more compatible that now you can directly add .avi files without converting first.6. Internet browser got better, faster tilt sensitivity and faster overall experience. You can take snapshots of what is on the screen while surfing and save it to the device in pictures. 