Seitz. Writes.

Sub-recommendations: Bison B.C., Shure SHR840s, cheap furniture

I made some misguided decision that I wasn’t going to use this space to review things. But clearly I’ve enjoyed writing about the things I love (or the case of Peter Travers, hate) so I might as well get around to doing a post about my single favorite gadget. I bought this sweet little drop of awesome way back in September and the intervening months have been enough to convince me that Imade the right decision. Enough so to enforce my opinions in blog form at least.

What you need to know about the Zune HD as far as statistics and specifications are concerned can be found on the Zune website. I’ve got the 32GB model, because the 64GB wasn’t out at the time and they don’t make 128GB. Thoughts follow:

By means of background, I’ll have you know that I once owned this thing:

The Diamond Rio PMP300: It’s the “fake Holy Grail from Last Crusade
that killed a guy” of MP3 players.

I had this bad boy back in the sixth grade (1999 for those unfamiliar with my biography). It could fit ten songs, provided they all held their breath and behaved themselves in the back seat. The display only told you the song number. It connected to the computer via a parallel port. It was bigger than an iPod. I loved it to death.

I went on to own an iRiver, a Rio Volt MP3CD player, a Creative Zen Touch, and finally an iPod (Video, maybe?). So I’ve seen the lows and supposed highs of the portable media player market. I also have a music collection that, as of this writing, is just about to hit 120GB, a surprisingly large portion of which came from legitimate sources.

So after all that, I can say unequivocally that the Zune HD is the best music player I’ve ever used.

Now I stress “music player” because while the Zune HD also does video, pictures, radio, podcasts, internet and apps, 95 percent of my usage is music and music is what it does best. The reason it does music best is because it has the Zune Pass, and that’s the sort of “Game, Bitches!” feature that Microsoft should be pushing front and center of any marketing campaign involving the entire range of Zune products. Because it isn’t, let me explain:

For $15 a month, I get unlimited music.

Before I bought it my inner naysayer assumed that I would never be able to find the music I wanted (Metal) on the service. I told myself that I’d return it and buy an iPod Touch the next day if they didn’t have any good metal available. They did, so I didn’t.

(A shortlist of bands I’ve found and fallen in love with since September: Between the Buried and Me, Pig Destroyer, Arsis, Keelhaul, Nachtmystium, Katatonia, the aforementioned/pictured Bison B.C., Woe of Tyrants, and whatever else Decibel features each month.)

I say this not to label it as a satanic hellforge from which spews forth the rumblings of the dark one unto this mortal plane (feel free to use that though Microsoft!), but to illuminate that if I could find all the metal I wanted on there, imagine how much of whatever lame bullshit you listen to that you can find. That $15 also gets you 10 downloads that you can keep forever each month. I assume that this is how the Zune Pass has always worked but again, Microsoft never pushed the Zune strongly enough as an infinite music box from the get go, relying instead on a brown finish that they’ll never live down and a “Hey guys, us too!” social feature.

Part of that could also be that until the Zune HD, it wasn’t an “infinite music box.” Because until the HD came out, you could not, in fact, download infinite music from the box. And that’s called a transition, which I’ll use to brings us to the Wi-Fi.

With Wi-Fi, you can connect to a network and search through the marketplace from the player.  Which means you don’t need to sync the player to add music. Which means I’ll be able to download Nachtmystium’s new album Addicts: Black Meddle Part 2 (June 8th) and listen to it while taking a shit. Technology rules.

In addition, whenever you download any music, it automatically pulls in artist photos that show up as backgrounds, as well as a biography (usually from allmusic.com), both of which you can view offline. That sounds lamer than it actually is, but trust me that it does improve the overall experience.

You can also download apps straight to the player. And for those of you who couldn’t see the dismissive wanking motion I was making as I typed that, let me explain: The Zune apps feature is a joke. I don’t even want to count, but I think there’s 12. Twelve Apps. That’s more than the number of wins Jamarcus Russell got as a starter in Oakland, it’s also less than the number of donuts he ate in the time it took me to come up with this joke.

There are a couple of apps worth having. Audiosurf Tilt is a fun one that generates a tilt-sensitive game that’s a cross between Rainbow Road and Guitar Hero out of any song (which is especially fun with Napalm Death’s “You Suffer.”) There’s also a bowling game, and Project Gotham Ferrari. And a calculator that does standard and scientific modes! (Seriously, my forearm is killing me.) The Twitter, Facebook and Weather apps are ok if you have wi-fi available, but useless without.

Oddly, while you can download apps and music straight to the player, you can’t download podcasts or videos. I can kind of understand the video, because you actually have to pay for those. But the podcasts I don’t understand. There is sort of a workaround, in that you can wirelessly sync the player with your computer over wi-fi (not bluetooth), but you have to be on the same network to do it. So if you were, say, at work or on vacation you wouldn’t be able to do it.

And last of the media components is that most cutting-edge of technologies, Radio! Yes, Radio: You too can hear voices beamed over the airwaves without any wires. Boy that President Roosevelt sure is swell, isn’t he? But seriously, it does pick up HD radio stations, which means you can double or triple the sadness of a dying medium on a single spectrum. And since Boston has two NPR news stations now, I can get a double dose of liberal entitlement on a daily basis (the two phrases I hate myself most for ever saying are 1.) “I heard a story on NPR this morning about …”  and 2.) “There was an article in the New Yorker about …”).

There’s also an Internet browser, and it does what it does. Occasionally I’ll use it to look up album release dates.

But enough with all that, let’s talk software, and show you all what you really came here to see: Hardware nudity!

First up, this is the homescreen. It really doesn’t come across in the pictures how amazing the OLED screen is. The blacks are blacker than the blackest blacks you’ve ever seen on a device, and the colors come across brilliantly. The font for all of the options is a generous enough that you can read it clearly and tap on the option you want cleanly.

The Homescreen.

Next, one of my favorite features is the music navigation screen. When you go into the music screen you get a list of artists, and you can tap on the heading letters to get to this screen. Tap on any of these letters, and go to that section. It’s so stupidly simple that it’s brilliant, and it works better than the usual “scroll through the letters” functionality of other players.

I don’t know why, but I love the look of this navigation system.

I showed this same screen back at the top, but this version gives you a better sense of the size of the player in reference to my ape mitts.

The “currently playing” screen.

You can see two of the hardware buttons in this one. On the face of the player is the Home button, which takes you back to the homescreen that I showed earlier. On the left side, near my thumb, is the media button, which brings up the screen showed here. This is where you can change the volume, or skip forward/back, and play/pause. I think it’d be nice to have a hardware volume rocker at least, but this isn’t bad at all. (There’s also a power button up top.)

On-screen volume and playback controls.

Another shot of the “Now Playing” screen, this time with the player looking a little more modest in a DLO Action Jacket silicone case. I was a little bothered that the 32GB player only came in silver (unless you want to custom order it) but this renders the point moot. I also picked up a screen protector, as much to improve traction as to protect the screen.

Action Jacket silicone cover.

And modesty is out the window with this shot of the player’s naked backside. You can see the Zune insignia, along with the industrial-looking screws. You can’t see it too well, but the back is all brushed aluminum.

The backside, with Zune insignia.

And finally is a shot of the player in the desktop dock. They do make a dock that will let you play 720p video through a TV, but this is the basic one that just hooks up to my stereo. It also charges the player.

The Dock.

So I think I’ve covered this thing as well as I can for what I use it for. I’d love to talk more about the video playback, but I don’t watch videos on it (I need the space for music). I’ve also said nothing about the social feature, but that’s already more than I want to say about it. Point being: For me it’s perfect. If you’re looking for an amazing music player with some other extra features, it’ll be perfect for you too. If apps are more important, get an iPod Touch. I hate to make it sound that simple, but it really is.

Programming Note: Yes, the previous post wound up being a little too ambitious. I do have a few more gadgets that I’ll be writing about, and we’ll see where it goes from there.

Tags: Bison B.C., hardware nudity, I'm a huge nerd, look at that bokeh, Microsoft, Music, Napalm Death, Zune HD
Filed under: Music