[ChrisLJ]

"... HD Radio ... Tapioca HD ... coffee HD ..."

You'd be happier with some iRadio, iTapioca and iCoffee. Guaranteed.

[whitedog]

It is the first Zune to look halfway decent. Of course, what it will do for you will be the acid test. It has an increasingly steep hill to climb to compete with the iPod touch, given the cornucopia of content available at the iTunes Store. A radio receiver hardly makes much difference, unless you enjoy listening to commercials, which is about all that's on radio these days. Now, Internet radio might be a selling point (if it's available), if sound quality isn't important to you.

[Lisamacnewton]

"Slick" and four large screws don't mix.....sorry, it's angled and ugly. It's large and flat and doesn't look like it would sit in your hand well. No bezier curves, no chamfered edges. Cheap construction. YAWN....

[derkathon]

why do rumors always swirl?

[whitedog]

dammarin said:

Watch out, it'll be just like with Windows and Xbox - they come up with a product similar to someone else's, they learn from their mistakes, they update the product, they dominate the market.

They certainly can afford it.

I seriously doubt the "dominate the market" part. Sure they have plenty of money to blow on the Zune, but without superior content (and the iTunes Store will be hard to beat at any price), the Zune is just a snazzy looking paperweight.

[RobK]

No brown is going to be a deal-breaker for me.

[ChrisLJ]

"why do rumors always swirl?"

In order to sway opinions.

[Steve_S]

dammarin said:

Watch out, it'll be just like with Windows and Xbox - they come up with a product similar to someone else's, they learn from their mistakes, they update the product, they dominate the market.

Conventional wisdom would leave some to believe that. However, Microsoft hasn't really had that magic for some time. They are on the decline, albeit a gradual one. The Zune has been around for several years now and hasn't even made a dent on the iPod market. Even Windows Mobile is losing market share. MS has made it more difficult for non-iPod players, but that's not saying much. Not that we expected anything great, but the Zune HD, like all other Microsoft products is extremely derivative of other (even better) products. The silver and black color is a blatant rip-off of the iPhone design. Okay, Microsoft added hard angle edges to give it a slightly different look. Well, at least they learned from their turd-brown sense of style they tried before. Still, it's hard to get excited about a product that at best will be an imitation of the iPod Touch with an inferior browser and minus the 40,000+ available custom applications. YAWN!

[MorrisTheCat]

macless said:

Bet it has cut and paste and a flash player though !

Yeah, and the flash player will cause random crashes on the device, and the copy/paste implementation will require some insane level of finger gymnastics to implement it.

[hbobrien]

Yeah, but does it snow crash like a Mac Mini? Because that's my favorite feature on my Mini.
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=QxmMufSinGs

[alansky]

Actually, at first glance it reminds me of those el cheapo aluminum hard drive enclosures that sell for ten bucks on the internet. But hey, I'm forgetting myself. Microsoft means "quality", right?

[warlock7]

Wait!!!!
Hardware has never been Microsoft's problem?!?!!?!
Anybody notice the failure rate on the 360, their FIRST real foray into the world of hardware...
Yeah, sure no problems there.
Anybody see any of those Surface tables out in the wild? No problems with hardware there.
Oh yeah, let's not forget UltimateTV!!! No problems there either I suppose.
WTH is wrong with people?!?!?!

[derkathon]

warlock7 said:

Wait!!!!

Hardware has never been Microsoft's problem?!?!!?!

Anybody notice the failure rate on the 360, their FIRST real foray into the world of hardware...

Yeah, sure no problems there.

Anybody see any of those Surface tables out in the wild? No problems with hardware there.

Oh yeah, let's not forget UltimateTV!!! No problems there either I suppose.

WTH is wrong with people?!?!?!

From the context I think the author was talking about the physical appearance of the hardware, not necessarily the quality.

[blankbaby]

I did forget about the XBox Red Ring of death thing, but I still content that most of Microsoft's woes are traced to software issues, not hardware. Just because you don't see Surface computers everywhere doesn't mean they don't work well. I seem to recall the iPod was a rare sight when it first came out, and no one thought it was bad hardware (just targeted at a limited audience).