Zune HD 16GB video MP3 player

With the 2010 version the Zune family from Microsoft finally seem to have come of age against the intense competition from the iPod. At last an item you will be proud to hold – it looks great. Place it alongside the iPod touch and it is clear to see that it is smaller and lighter. But not fragile. It’s big glass front and wrap around aluminum body give it a solid feel. The 16GB memory version has capacity for up to 4,000 songs, 25,000 pictures, 24 hours of standard video or 5 hours of HD.

Like many modern devices hardware buttons are minimized, in this case to three - Power, Home and screen access for playback and volume. A bit odd that last one.

The user interface maintains a distance from the Apple style, being individual but still very functional. If you love the iPod interface it may take a short while to get used to the differences, but the underlying principles are the same. It feels a bit more fun to use.

A great feature that is available to you is the Quick Play List. It pulls together your latest downloads, recent play history and anything you’ve ‘pinned’ there. It gives you great access to the stuff that’s of greatest interest to you right now. Build your own playlists in a few screen taps. Magic stuff!

As a music player the Zune is well featured. It copes with MP3 (obviously), AAC, WMA (standard and lossless) and a couple of audio book formats. It provides the expected sorting capabilities (artist, genre etc.) But zoom down further to the artist and Zune can pull down web based information about other albums by the artist or band, and related artists work as well (plus a load of other stuff).

Microsoft’s answer to the iTunes is a Zune Pass subscription service which gives you unlimited downloads for a modest flat monthly fee; but you can also opt for a one by one download as well.

The earphones supplied can be judged to be disappointing compared to an otherwise excellent device and, some feel, do not make the best of the Zune’s audio output. You may seek an upgrade here if you are fussy about sound quality.

So much for the music capabilities, but the Zune has more to offer in both radio and video capabilities.

The radio support and integration has always been one of Zune’s strong points. And the innovative song tagging capability is still here driven from the RDSS FM radio. A new addition is HD broadcast support, which brings improved broadcast related data compared to the simple RDS system. An almost unbeatable combination in a unit like this.

For video the story is not quite so great. Its 3.3 inch OLED screen at 480 x 272 px resolution with excellent color rendition and contrast stands out from the crowd. Like all other players, however, the range of formats supported is limited. It copes well with MP4/ H264 and WMV but other formats will require conversion.

The video replay can also deliver to an HD TV through the added cost AV Dock. This provides both an HDMI and composite signal for your TV allowing full definition replay of those Zune Marketplace videos. This emphasises the sheer quality of the Zune’s video playback. The on device scheed playback looks great, and the processor has no trouble producing the required definition for the big screen via the docking station.

The internet connection requires a WiFi connection, so the Zune has its own variant of Internet Explorer. And a good version it is too. Still missing support for Flash there are limits to its capabilities. It’s a website browsing platform, not an internet communicator, but with a great multi touch control and excellent on screen keyboard.

One final point – it requires MS windows on the computer when it is interfacing there, it won’t work with Macs.

The Zune is available in three different storage capacities, 16GB, 32GB and 64GB.