Microsoft has now more or less given out every possible detail of its next-generation portable media player, the Zune HD. The really interesting part of this device is not the software or its competitiveness with the iPod Touch – no, it’s the hardware inside it. This is the first mass-market NVIDIA Tegra-based device.
Jon Stokes at Ars Technica has all the details regarding the hardware inside the Zune HD.The HD is powered by the Tegra APX2600 processor, which is an ARM11-based system-on-chip design capable of some pretty neat things. This chip consists of the following blocks: HD encode, HD decode, 2D engine, GPU, Imaging, Audio, ARM11 core, and an ARM7 core. These blocks can be powered on or off as needed; for instance, if you’re listening to an MP3, the audio block will be powered on, with the rest of the blocks asleep. Pretty nifty.
NVIDIA’s Tegra product family consists of two main lines, the Tegra 600 line and the APX line. The Tegra APX line is geared towards phones and portable multimedia players, and the APX2600 in the Zune HD is the top-of-the-line variant. The Tegra 600 line, however, is geared towards netbooks and MIDs, which should appear early next year, according to NVIDIA.
As for the rest of the device, the HD contains some interesting features. It has a 3.3″ multitouch glass OLED screen, with a resolution of 480×272, a 16:9 aspect ratio. You can connect the Zune HD to your HDTV via the device’s HDMI-out, enabling you to play 720p content from yout Zune HD. It has built-in WiFi, and a browser optimised for multitouch and the like.
As was to be expected, the format support is rather disappointing. It will do various forms of WMA, AAC, and MP3, so your bases are pretty much covered there. Video-wise, it’s limited to variants of WMV, MPEG-4, H.264, and DVR-MS4. As for images, it’s all JPEG.
Battery life should be 33 hours of music, and 8.5 hours of video, with WiFi turned off. The 16GB version will sell for 220 USD and the 32GB version for 290 USD.
I used to program Zunes for a bit, but we were restricted to simple 2D graphics so we didn’t overload it. I predict that with these capabilities, the 3D subset of XNA will be supported on Zune HD. That’s pretty cool.
I’m not a fan of media players in general because I don’t listen to very much music, but this may convince me to buy one.
-No USB port means no cookie for me.
-Proprietary sync software means no cookie for me.
…Not capable to rate anything else of the device as it was already made useless by these to items…
i seriously doubt it would lack usb support just because of wifi. Not everyone has wifi after all.
He probaply means it doesn’t have standard usb input (in zune side). Well it’s same with iPod and lot other player, not huge issue.
Also I was hoping WMP support but looks like you are stuck with Zune player, again not huge issue. Rather it than iTunes.
I’m bit more worried on international release. Microsoft drummed loudly about Zune coming to europe but unfortunatly it looks like EU bureaucracy is hindering effort. For ones I would hope EU would have centeralized administration of copyrights but no, all countries have own, it’s shite.
the zune software is a thousand times better than WMP.
No those are all huge issues for me.
I already have a brick of mp3 player from creative that had those same issues ( customer loading software, custom music player). I don’t want to repeat that mistake again. I understand Apple gets away with it. I don’t like them either. I would consider a zune, if it were not for those facts. I also know from talking with less technical frieds, that Apple’s walled garden around ipod does cause them issues.
They’d like to be able to remove songs from it and onto their other computers or their friends (legality aside).
if you use MP3s or unDRMed music files of any kind there is no problem.
Who says it has no USB? I’d be very, very surprised if it did not charge and sync through USB. WiFi is OK, but do you know how long it takes to push 5GB through the airwaves? Well, it is VERY long (20 to 30 minutes). USB is way, way faster and it is the standard for charging nowadays.
As for the proprietary sync, I’m totally with you. No way I will spend a penny on a device that is forever tied to a single proprietary Windows and OSX program to work.
And while the specs are technically impressive, they are not much better than an iPod Touch, and in some areas they are worse (screen). And it comes laden with Windows CE, which stinks fetidly (at least in all of it’s Windows Mobile editions). I think they will fail again.
The Zune and its software, over all, are better than the ipod and its software. over coming momentum of the market killed more better tech than anything else.
Momentums have little to do here. Microsoft got focused on the technical side so much, that they forgot the “cool” factor at play. The whole thing looks and feels uncool.
maybe the first gen Zune, but the current 3rd gen stuff is sweet.
Unless Microsoft get off their fat backside and start selling it outside the US.
Then those of us in Europe (& elsewhere) can really see how it stands up against the iPod.
IMHO, the time of the dedicated music/video player is dimishing. Devices like the iPhone will in all likelyhood replace many of the current generation.
I’ll stick with my Vosonic VP8360 though. It has CF support so I can upload to it all the pictures from my Digital Camera (D700).
Awesome hardware held back by closed software.
Maybe i am spoiled with my Nokia XM 5800 having 640×360 but for this ‘HD’ device the resolution isn’t all that impressive, 480×272 on a screen thats alot bigger than the nokia. It’s even less than the iPhone has.
The Tegra chip on the other hand, especially the desktop version, is a breath of fresh air on the 3d/hd-video scene.
Edited 2009-08-14 11:59 UTC
Perhaps…
I wonder why we’re not seeing more of the OMAP35xx series out there yet. Maybe it is. Tegra cpu wise is very weak. I just has a very very specialized co processor with it. Same could be said about OMAP with the neon simd unit, though.
Well, it’s quite expensive, isn’t it? I’ve seen many hobbyist projects using this processor, though.
Edit: I’m talking of the OMAP3530/25!
Edited 2009-08-14 17:39 UTC
Tegra looks like a very conservative practical thing. I personally wish to see some interesting developments from the Creative with zii.com
This is not entirely on topic, and I am not permitted to say much about this, but I have seen a forthcoming Samsung mobile phone playing 720p H.264 with HDMI output. And when I say “seen” I mean actually playing on a big ass plasma panel with a file I encoded. It probably uses an asic or new dsp instead of Tegra. Anyways, freakin’ awesome to see these small devices doing some serious heavy lifting!
Edited 2009-08-14 18:02 UTC