Zune HD – One Month Later: Device Experience

I’m going to side-step the Zune HD’s audio quality because, like all devices, it depends on what kind of headphones you have. My headphones are nothing to tell your momma about, but having said that, my sound experience has been pretty good while listening to music and watching videos.

Device Experience

The beauty of the Zune HD is its graphical user interface (GUI). It’s all sorts of deliciousness; eat it with a spoon and savor it. I’m not going to touch on every feature because that would make this review a bit too long.

The main interface is pretty simple: Music, Video, Pictures, Social, Apps, Settings, and other items such as Podcasts and Audiobooks if you have any on the device. Then, there’s a sidebar/background list that is visible from the main GUI. This sidebar contains any media that is currently playing or paused, content that you’ve pinned (“pin” is another term for “adding as a favorite”), a history of content that you’ve recently played, and a list of content that you’ve recently added to your device. It’s all about ease of use, and I think the Zune HD really excels here.

When listening to a song, you can click on the center area of the screen and a layer pops up that lets you pause or play and change the volume by pressing the plus or minus button, or sliding your finger vertically between the two. On the same layer, you can change songs by pressing the forward or backward button, or you can press and hold either of those buttons and fast-forward or rewind the song.

From the device, you can delete songs, video, pictures, podcasts, and favorite web sites. This is a pretty big deal for me. I hate having to wait until I sync my Zune HD with my computer to delete songs.

If an artist has a bio and pictures in the All Music Guide on allmusic.com, then that content will be added to the Zune HD. Plus, the Zune Marketplace brings in related artists and, when you’re connected to a wireless network, marketplace discography. From the device, you can read about your favorite artists. This helps me pass the time on road trips or when I get bored of looking up stuff on my cell phone. This might be one of the top three reasons why I bought the device.

The web browser is pretty basic, which really isn’t a bad thing. Connecting to a wireless network is pretty automatic if you have access to a free network or one at your house or a friend’s house. Web sites containing Flash components don’t work, so for now, you won’t be able to watch videos or play games made in Flash. Web pages look great, but when you rotate the device to view them in landscape mode, some images are noticeably grainy. Text looks fine, though, in portrait and landscape mode. The browser lacks advanced features, but I haven’t found myself wishing for them yet. When you close out of the browser and start it again later, you start on the same site that you left off on.

The on-screen keyboard works pretty darn well. Characters bubble up when you press them, giving you better visibility into what you’re pressing on. There’s no predicative text, but I don’t think it’s all that necessary when typing in URLs or updating your status on Facebook or doing a search on Bing.

The apps and games available for the Zune HD are limited, but there’s been  talk of more becoming available in November, most notably for Facebook and Twitter. Looks like we’ll find out what will be available in the next couple weeks. The games and apps available now, like Texas Hold’ Em, Space Battle II, and MSN Weather are fun and useful for downtimes. And just knowing that more good things are in the works tides me over until more app and game releases. However, the one downer when exiting games, apps, and even the web browser, is that the screen turns black for a few seconds. I would’ve hoped that there wouldn’t be such a lag with the superb technology in the device, but maybe there’s a reasoning on the software development side of it.

And finally, multitouch. Multitouch on the Zune HD is super responsive. I’m able to zoom in on pictures and web pages with just by lightly touching the screen; I have yet to experience a frustrating, finger-pressing experience. You can either pinch to zoom in, use your thumbs to do a “spread-in” zoom, or any other creative way you can think of to zoom by using multitouch. I prefer the spread-in zoom because then I can avoid accidentally scraping my fingernails on the screen. It’s a fun experience any way you do it.

Pros

• Ease of use and ability to interact in different ways with the GUI.
• Ability to delete content from the device.
• Artist content, such as bios; pictures; related artists; and, when connected to a wireless network, discography available in the Zune Marketplace.
• Easy-to-use, accurate keyboard.
• Simple, straight-forward web browser that renders web sites and mobile web sites quickly and effectively.
• Great multitouch experience; responds quickly to touches and zooms in on the appropriate areas.

Cons

• Web browser doesn’t support Flash and some images look pixelated in landscape view.
• Lack of apps and games on release day.
• Noticeable lag when exiting the web browser, apps, and games.

 

Miss my Zune HD hardware review? Check it out!

On the Zune Social? Add me as a friend!

The device that I never leave home without: An intimate introduction

Other than the obligatory necessities that one can never manage without having when venturing out into the public, such as a wallet; keys; purse, backpack, manbag, or fanny pack; and the occasional jacket, I’d like to focus on my cell phone.

Since early July, I’ve had an HTC Touch Dual. I went all out and bought it straight up without any AT&T branding, which is nice if I want to switch over to T-Mobile or if I want to use it overseas with a prepaid SIM card. I had to get an unlimited data plan because I knew I’d use the bananas out of it—and I have. Since January 2, I’ve used 557.61 MB of data for uploading and downloading. I guess streaming live video gets pretty intensive.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do for my next mobile device, though. I’d like to stick with Windows Mobile because it syncs with my computer really easily. Android looks neat, but I don’t use any Google products, except for Gmail, so I’m not sure how useful it’d be to me. I’m not an Apple or iPhone guy and have no need for a farting application. The Palm Pre is pretty intriguing, especially since the mobile operating system is based on HTML and CSS, making in fairly easy to develop programs for that mobile platform.

I’m really digging phones like the HTC Touch HD and the HTC Touch Diamond, but I just dropped three three-and-a-half-Thursdays worth of pay before taxes to buy the phone I have now, which is still pretty top-of-the-line. It’s set up pretty nicely, too. Some mobile applications include:

• Bluehoo for social Bluetooth networking.
• Fring for messaging and as a Skype alternative because Skype only works when I use the speakerphone.
• Google Maps to find directions, specifically to find directions by bus.
• Iris Browser just because Skyfire doesn’t work for me sometimes.
• Japanese Pocket Dictionary for those Japanese words that I don’t understand.
• Kinoma Play for superb quality of YouTube videos and Internet radio.
• Live Search to find places and directions.
• Microsoft Tag Reader for when/if Microsoft Tags become widely used.
• NetFront Browser, which is one of the best mobile browsers out there. It even shows Japanese characters! W00T!
• Qik for shooting live streaming video.
• QuickMark for reading QR Codes.
• Resco Explorer for document management and FTP access (to post or delete content from my Web site)
• Skyfire Beta Browser for a complete, desktop browser experience.
• Skype for hoping that one day, it’ll support Bluetooth headsets on my phone.
• TinyTwitter for my ColumnBreak Twitter feeds.
• Viigo for RSS feeds.
• TV Guide for when I actually want to watch other TV shows besides MSNBC, The History Channel, Food Network, VH1, and Comedy Central.

Well, that was pretty exhaustive. I don’t want to run into any legal issues with posting downloadable links as a middle man, so you’ll have to get them yourself (if they’re available) on the product pages provided above.

Making the gradual transition back to Firefox

As you may have read on one of my recent Twitter updates, I’m having difficulty with Windows Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) Beta 2. When I open a new tab, it loads slowly even when I’m just opening a new tab for the heck of it. Also, IE8 Beta 2 crashes regardless of how many tabs I have open or how intensive the page loading is. Below is a picture of when I tried to open a single tab for Facebook and then tried to close it. It’s difficult to tell, but the popup menu window at the bottom is frozen on the screen. Bummer…

Lately, I found out that my friends and family are having the same issues with IE8 Beta 2. Quite frustrating, especially for those who aren’t computer savvy and don’t know that there are other Internet-browsing options such as Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome.

I hope the IE team at Microsoft has gotten word of this issue. I’d really rather use IE8 than Firefox 3, but if Firefox consistently gives me a better experience, I might end up sticking with it. In turn, that might make me abandon the Microsoft Silverlight components of my Web site, since Firefox 3 and Silverlight aren’t playing nicely. Oh, if only I could get those development hours back… I suppose learning Adobe Flash a little more in depth wouldn’t be so bad, seeing as how probably 90 percent of Web sites choose that as the platform for delivering an interactive Web experience.

Anybody else out there having trouble with IE8 Beta 2? Is moving to Firefox 3 a bad idea? Comments welcome!

A mobile application for you and even you over there

I'm building a mobile application in Flash Lite that is aimed at Windows Mobile devices, but it will also work on Symbian phones and, eventually, the iPhone and Android—once those two platforms get Flash Lite support.

Flash Lite is an interesting alternative to mobile development, especially for those who just can't figure out conventional application development methods... *cough* me! *cough*

(To give myself at least a little credit on behalf of my efforts, I do know enough coding to give a user the ability to close a program.)

The application, which will also work on Windows and Mac PCs, is a short, but detailed, guide on Japan and covers topics from sightseeing, restaurants, accommodations, and even music and videos.

I'm hoping for a mid-February release, but it all depends on if Adobe releases the Adobe Mobile Packager in mid-January as planned.

I think having it available before May—the cherry blossom season in Japan—would be really neat and produce some decent downloads. Hm, maybe I should come up with a mini marketing scheme for it...

Stay tuned!