Click the image to zoom in, nice and big!

After weeks of rumours and leaked promotional materials, Microsoft has finally unveiled the Zune HD (and the Zune XBOX LIVE video service) ahead of their next weeks E3 press conference. Lets roll on the official specs:

• Built-in HD Radio receiver so users can listen to higher-quality sound than traditional radio on the go. Users also will have access to the additional song and artist data broadcast by HD Radio stations as well as additional channels from their favourite stations multicasting in HD.
• Super bright OLED touch screen interface allows users to flip through music, movies and other content with ease
• 16:9 widescreen format display (480×272 resolution)
• The HD-compatible output lets Zune HD customers playback supported HD video files from the device through a premium high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) audiovisual docking station (sold separately) direct to an HD TV in 720p.
• Full-screen Internet browser optimized for multitouch functionality.
• Wi-Fi enabled, allowing for instant streaming to the device from the more than 5 million-track Zune music store.

So far there is no word on the capacity of the device (though there are mumblings going around that this is the “flash model”, suggesting a different hard-drive model also due to come out), and also unfortunately no word on an international release of Zune either. Bugger.

Now lets take a look to see a few niggles with announcement:

HD Radio

Now, for American users this may be okay, though even over there, there is a general lack of support for it. No, this first niggle is mainly for us international users, see in Europe we use a radio broadcasting system known as DAB, quite different from HD radio, which are incompatible with each other, which makes this feature useless for us… unless they are intending not launching the device over here! Which again, would be a shame.

480×272 Screen Resolution

This right here is probably my biggest letdown with the device. For comparisons sake, lets look at both the PSP and iPod Touch. Straight off the bat, iPod Touch, 2 year old hardware, beats it instantly with its 480×320 screen resolution (just to give you an idea of the difference, iPod touch has 23,040 more pixels!). And the iPod touch has a bigger screen (3.5” compared to Zune HD’s 3.3”) It seems that, to make the Zune HD have a 16×9 resolution rather than a square 3×2 resolution, Microsoft simply cut the extra pixels off the top a bottom. Sure, it’ll look nice without the black borders on screen, but ultimately were losing screen size, and considering that we’re instead left with black borders around the screen, was it really necessary??

However, on a more positive note, consider this: it has as many pixels as your PSP. Now, most people think that is reasonably sharp, and that has a 4.3” screen. Now consider all those pixels squashed into an extra bright, 3.3” screen. Yep, at least it’ll be kinda sharp!

Although, that said, my 1 year old phone manages to squeeze an amazing 640×480 pixels into a meagre 2.8” screen. Now if my phone could do it over a year ago, why couldn’t Microsoft do it now, with less pixel density? Still, OLED. That’s something I guess

720p… with dock

Yeah, see the Zune HD can output 720p video (no word on the codecs, but definitely look forward to WMV). But only through a new premium Zune dock. Now, considering that previous generation of Zune dock was going for around $59.99 – $89.99, about £60, one can only imagine the price its going to cost us to get HD video out of this little machine. However, lets take solace in the fact that it may be possible to get HD video outputted ion your TV through your Xbox 360, if you own one,  using the standard charging cable. Technically USB can support it (the Xbox 360 HD-DVD player outputs full 1080p and True HD Dolby sound through and standard USB 2.0 connection), so its simply up to Microsoft to allow us to do it. They may to decide to close it off just to force us to buy the docks. Who knows.

Internet Browser

Lets hope to god this isn’t based on Pocket Internet Explorer, or at least not the shipping version in Windows Mobile 6.5. Being based on Windows CE, like Windows Mobile, its most probably likely that this will be the browser used. Now, unless they seriously upgrade the web standards support in PIE, this is going to be a serious let down for us (I’ll show you why in a later post). Needless to say, PIE was troubles rendering any page correctly.

Windows CE based

Now, this one is a bit odd. In the press release it doesn’t specify which version of Windows CE kernel the device is based on. Why is this a problem you ask? Well, simply put, screen colours. See, the version of Windows CE that current Zunes are based on, and Windows Mobile 6.0-6.5, only supports 65k colours. Now 65,000 colours may seem to a lot to, but try putting a smoothly gradiented picture on your Zune screen \You’ll notice very obvious colour banding, and it videos it’s even worse (it comes out looking like quite poor compression). However, newer Windows CE kernels alleviate this problem, allowing for a massive 16 million colours (conveniently, one of the great things about OLED’s is that they can display all of these colours). This Windows CE kernel is set to make it most public debut with Windows Mobile 7, however listening to the rumours you’ll be hearing that Zune HD will be based ff early code of Windows 7, which by my reckoning means it should be including the new WinCE (and hopefully something that isn’t PIE). If it doesn’t, then god help us. Lets just keep that under wraps. If Apple fans knew, we’d be screwed.

So, not quite worth the moniker of portable perfection then? Probably not, but still, definelty something to look forward to for Zune fans, and even digital music fans in general.

Also of note in the press release was the announcement of Zune services for Xbox Live (I’ve been mentioning this for a while now, but hey no-one else bothered to pick up on it)

Zune Service Expands to New Platform

Zune will be a premium partner in the Xbox LIVE Video Marketplace, bringing an exciting catalogue of TV and film to the platform. Zune will occupy the first slot within the Xbox user interface in the Xbox LIVE Video Marketplace, exposing the Zune brand experience to millions of new consumers for the first time. At the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) next week, attendees will see firsthand how Zune integrates into Xbox LIVE to create a game-changing entertainment experience.

Check back over the next week after Microsoft’s June 1st E3 press conference, where undoubtedly we’ll be hearing more about the new device(s?), and the new Zune service. Maybe we’ll even find out if it’s Tegra powered like rumours suggest?

[src: http://zune.net/en-us/press/2009/0526-zunehd.htm]