Zune HD Officially Goes Live, Already Considered a Hit On The Streets

It’s here! Microsoft officially rolls out its highly rated Zune HD media player, and boy this thing looks good. Yes, we know, most details are pretty much known at this point, but still deserve a round of applause, aren’t they? And just in case you missed the buzz, those fancy shcmancy specs we get, include a beautiful 3.3-inch Gorilla glass 480 x 272 OLED capacitive 16:9 aspect-ratio touchscreen, which hides underneath a built-in HD Radio receiver, seating along with a wireless WiFi antenna connection and a fine batch of accelerometer sensors for landscape use. Excited? We are, but that’s not all, since Redmond has wisely tossed in Nvidia’s mighty Tegra processor, which is technically constructed from eight different sub processors inside, that flawlessly handle their tasks at a time. Now that’s a real beast, isn’t it? OH Yeah. Storage wise, you get to choose between 16GB or 32GB flash capacities that fairly priced at $219.99 and $289.99, respectively.

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Update1: Looking for more flavors rather than Black or Platinum? It seems you can find engraving options of other colors, on Zune Original online stores or in the player’s software source files code, which apparently indicates additional Zune HD palettes, like pink, atomic, magenta, or purple. That said, Platinum remains our favorite.

Update2: As planned, the Zune 4.0 software is finally up and ready to download – well, that’s only in case you were lucky enough to nab a piece of ZHD over the night. But anyway, as you may expect, it’s fully compatible with Windows 7 OS , which means Jump Lists support, Taskbar Previews/control, and Aero Snap window resizing. Other than that, it also offers Smart DJ feature, which creates endless playlists, using any artist, album or song and combines them with Zune Marketplace music, for those who have a Zune Pass. The Quickplay menu that easily lets you access recently added, played and favorite content, located on the home screen. Mini Player Mode brings the playing feature on top of your apps. And last but not least, full movies/TV shows online renting store.

Update3: It’s not a launch without the iFixit guys, laying their hands on a sealed and closed audio device, tearing it down and pulling out the parts one-by-one. And once again, this time is no difference than others, as the group just finished their Zune HD dissecting process, unveiling NVIDIA Tegra SoC, placed together with Toshiba-sourced flash NAND, Wolfson MIcro WM8352 audio subsystem, SiPORT HD Radio module chip, and an interesting “for our princess” inscription line, dedicated to one of Zune team crew member who apparently died before release.

Update4: Both Anythingbutipod and Crunch Gear have managed to grab themselves a pre-launch Zune HD device and kindly shared their interesting impressions, which you can find after the break, with the first, featuring the hardware part, while the second, showing Zune’s UI in all its glory.

Update5: As expected, Microsoft starts rolling out the Zune HD commercial and a very colorful new one is waiting for you just after the break, featuring Redmond new player’s features such as HD radio, video playback, Wireless connection and even Games (!)

Update6: If you’re into Magenta or Purple flavors, December 1 (2009) is the day you should wait for, as Microsoft will presumably get to release those colors for its highly respected Zune HD player. Not sure which storage capacities will get these hues up on their sleeves, but this way or another, it definitely worth waiting a while.

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