The Zune HD is a

portable media player A portable media player (PMP) or digital audio player (DAP) is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. Normally they refer to small, Electric battery, batter ...

in the

Zune Zune was a brand of digital media products and services that was marketed by Microsoft from November 2006 until it was discontinued in June 2012. Zune consisted of a line of portable media players, a music subscription service known as Zune Music ...

product family released on September 15, 2009, by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

. It was a direct competitor with Apple's

iPod Touch The iPod Touch (stylized as iPod touch) is a discontinued line of iOS-based mobile devices designed and formerly marketed by Apple Inc. with a touchscreen-controlled user interface. As with other iPod models, the iPod Touch can be used as a po ...

series of mobile devices. It was initially released in 16 and 32 GB capacities. A 64 GB version was released on April 9, 2010. It has a

touchscreen A touchscreen (or touch screen) is a type of electronic visual display, display that can detect touch input from a user. It consists of both an input device (a touch panel) and an output device (a visual display). The touch panel is typically l ...

interface for navigation and included

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for Wireless LAN, local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by ...

for synchronization, access to the

Zune Marketplace Zune is a discontinued software program that was developed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows, Windows that functions as a full media player, library, media streaming server, mobile device management, and interface for the discontinued Zune Marke ...

and

Web browsing Web navigation refers to the process of navigating a Computer network, network of web resource, information resources in the International World Wide Web Conference, World Wide Web, which is organized as hypertext or hypermedia. The user interfac ...

. The Zune HD utilized the

Nvidia Tegra Tegra is a system on a chip (SoC) series developed by Nvidia for mobile devices such as smartphones, personal digital assistants, and mobile Internet devices. The Tegra integrates an ARM architecture central processing unit (CPU), graphics p ...

APX 2600 chip, allowing it to play

720p 720p (720 lines progressive) is a progressive HD signal format with 720 horizontal lines/1280 columns and an aspect ratio (AR) of 16:9, normally known as widescreen HD (1.78:1). All major HD broadcasting standards (such as SMPTE 292M) includ ...

video through the optional HDMI Zune dock on a high-definition television. Otherwise, content would be scaled down to 480×272 pixels on the player's

OLED An organic light-emitting diode (OLED), also known as organic electroluminescent (organic EL) diode, is a type of light-emitting diode (LED) in which the emissive electroluminescent layer is an organic compound film that emits light in respon ...

History

Soon after Apple released the

, Microsoft R&D department head,

Robbie Bach Robert J. Bach (born December 31, 1961), commonly known as Robbie Bach, is an American businessman. He was the President of Entertainment & Devices Division at Microsoft. He led the division that was responsible for the Xbox, Xbox 360, Zune, Gam ...

, began work on a touchscreen Zune player to combat it. The department started immediately on reworking the

Windows CE Windows CE, later known as Windows Embedded CE and Windows Embedded Compact, is a discontinued operating system developed by Microsoft for mobile and embedded devices. It was part of the Windows Embedded family and served as the software foun ...

–based OS of the older Zune to suit the new multitouch PMP. Astro Studios was contracted to design the Zune HD's aluminium casing. On June 19, 2009, Zune Insider host Matt Akers confirmed that the Zune HD would have an

Nvidia Nvidia Corporation ( ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and incorporated in Delaware. Founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang (president and CEO), Chris Malachowsky, and Curti ...

Tegra Tegra is a system on a chip (SoC) series developed by Nvidia for mobile devices such as smartphones, personal digital assistants, and mobile Internet devices. The Tegra integrates an ARM architecture central processing unit (CPU), graphics pr ...

APX 2600 chip and OLED touchscreen. The Zune HD was released on September 15, 2009 to retail markets in black and platinum colors and 16 or 32 GB capacities; additionally, red-, green-, and blue-colored models were available through the online Zune Originals store. Two months later, on November 6, 2009, firmware update 4.3 was released. The new firmware version improved the performance of the web browser, added support for the apps that were to be released in the days that followed, and fixed several notable bugs. On November 11, 2009, several new apps appeared on the

. The apps included ''

Project Gotham Racing ''Project Gotham Racing'' (''PGR'') is a series of racing video games published by Microsoft Studios, with four main titles all of which were developed by Bizarre Creations. It is the spiritual successor to Bizarre Creations' previous game ''Metr ...

Ferrari Ferrari S.p.A. (; ) is an Italian luxury sports car manufacturer based in Maranello. Founded in 1939 by Enzo Ferrari (1898–1988), the company built Auto Avio Costruzioni 815, its first car in 1940, adopted its current name in 1945, and be ...

Edition'', '' Audiosurf: Tilt'', ''Lucky Lanes Bowling'', ''

Vans Vans (originally called the Van Doren Rubber Company) is an American apparel, accessories, and skateboarding shoes brand, established in Anaheim, California, and owned by VF Corporation. The company also sponsors surf, snowboarding, BMX, and ...

Sk8: Pool Service'', ''Checkers'', and ''Piano''. The Zune HD's

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

app was released on December 16, 2009 to the Zune Marketplace; however, it was soon noticed that the app was censoring tweets. Microsoft promptly fixed this following an outcry among Zune HD owners in version 1.1 of the app. After previously being promised before the end of 2009, the

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

app was made available on the Zune Marketplace on March 1, 2010. Initially, the app had some API issues in which it could not download most information from Facebook, but these issues were corrected 2 days later without a software update. On April 5, 2010, after being announced at

CES 2010 CES (; formerly an initialism for Consumer Electronics Show) is an annual trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). Held in January at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Winchester, Nevada, United States, the event typi ...

, firmware version 4.5 was released, bringing with it several new features, such as on-device Smart DJ (a feature that had been present in the PC software for some time), Xvid codec support, and Marketplace support through the optional dock. Less than one week later, on the 9th of April, a 64 GB capacity Zune HD went on sale; in addition, the 16 GB and 32 GB models released in September 2009 both had a price drop of US$20 on their

MSRP The list price, also known as the manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP), or the recommended retail price (RRP), or the suggested retail price (SRP) of a product is the price at which its manufacturer notionally recommends that a retailer ...

s. On October 3, 2011, Microsoft announced that it has discontinued all Zune hardware, encouraging users to transition to Windows Phone. While that announcement was initially removed as potentially erroneous, it was reposted permanently and confirmed by Microsoft soon thereafter. In 2012, Microsoft launched

Xbox Music Groove Music (formerly Xbox Music and Zune Marketplace) is a discontinued Audio player (software), audio player software application included with Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 and Windows 11. The app is also associated with a now-disco ...

, a successor to the Zune Marketplace. Leading up to the launch of that service, a number of features of Zune and the Zune Marketplace were discontinued. Zune HD apps were no longer available though the

Zune Software Zune is a discontinued software program that was developed by Microsoft for Windows that functions as a full media player, library, media streaming server, mobile device management, and interface for the discontinued Zune Marketplace. The softwa ...

, social components of Zune were deactivated, and limitations were placed on music video purchasing and viewing. As of late 2012, the ability to download songs from the marketplace directly to the Zune HD has been discontinued. According to the Zune Support Twitter feed, Microsoft will not be fixing it, instead announcing that it is part of the transition from Zune Music to Xbox Music.

Specifications

The specifications as listed by the official web site of the Zune HD, as well as reported by various sources: * 3.3-inch

glass Glass is an amorphous (non-crystalline solid, non-crystalline) solid. Because it is often transparency and translucency, transparent and chemically inert, glass has found widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in window pane ...

capacitive In electrical engineering, a capacitor is a device that stores electrical energy by accumulating electric charges on two closely spaced surfaces that are insulated from each other. The capacitor was originally known as the condenser, a term st ...

multi-touch In computing, multi-touch is technology that enables a surface (a touchpad or touchscreen) to recognize the presence of more than one somatosensory system, point of contact with the surface at the same time. The origins of multitouch began at CE ...

display with a 16:9 480x272 resolution * Built-in

accelerometer An accelerometer is a device that measures the proper acceleration of an object. Proper acceleration is the acceleration (the rate of change (mathematics), rate of change of velocity) of the object relative to an observer who is in free fall (tha ...

Windows Embedded CE 6.0 Windows Embedded CE 6.0 (codenamed "''Yamazaki''") is the sixth major release of the Microsoft Windows embedded operating system targeted to enterprise-specific tools such as industrial controllers and consumer electronics devices like digital ...

operating system * 16, 32, and 64 GB flash memory options * CPU and GPU:

APX with one ARM11 and one ARM7 processor cores, plus 6 other dedicated cores *

RAM Ram, ram, or RAM most commonly refers to: * A male sheep * Random-access memory, computer memory * Ram Trucks, US, since 2009 ** List of vehicles named Dodge Ram, trucks and vans ** Ram Pickup, produced by Ram Trucks Ram, ram, or RAM may also ref ...

: 128 MB Hynix SDRAM * 802.11b/g

with open, WEP, WPA, and

WPA2 Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) (Wireless Protected Access), Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2), and Wi-Fi Protected Access 3 (WPA3) are the three security certification programs developed after 2000 by the Wi-Fi Alliance to secure wireless computer n ...

authentication modes and WEP 64-bit and 128-bit, TKIP, and

AES encryption The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), also known by its original name Rijndael (), is a specification for the encryption of electronic data established by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in 2001. AES is a variant ...

modes * Built-in rechargeable 3.7V 660mAh

lithium-ion polymer battery A lithium polymer battery, or more correctly, lithium-ion polymer battery (abbreviated as LiPo, LIP, Li-poly, lithium-poly, and others), is a rechargeable battery derived from lithium-ion and lithium-metal battery technology. The primary differe ...

with up to 33 hours of audio playback (wireless off) and 8.5 hours of video * Size: 52.7x102.1x8.9 mm (2.07x4.08x0.35 in) * Weight: 74g (2.6 oz) * FM/

HD Radio HD Radio (HDR) is a trademark for in-band on-channel (IBOC) digital radio broadcast technology. HD radio generally simulcast, simulcasts an existing analog radio station in digital format with less noise and with additional text information. HD R ...

tuner * Equalizer * Web browser (based on

Internet Explorer Mobile Internet Explorer Mobile (formerly named Pocket Internet Explorer; later called IE Mobile) was a mobile version of Internet Explorer developed by Microsoft, based on versions of the MSHTML (Trident) layout engine. IE Mobile comes loaded by defa ...

6 for

) * Support for apps built with Microsoft's XNA platform The Zune restarts however every time XNA apps exit. * Audio output: Analog

RCA RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded in 1919 as the Radio Corporation of America. It was initially a patent pool, patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Westinghou ...

and Optical Digital out (additional dock required) * Audio support: * CBR and VBR audio, up to 48 kHz

sample rate In signal processing, sampling is the reduction of a continuous-time signal to a discrete-time signal. A common example is the conversion of a sound wave to a sequence of "samples". A sample is a value of the signal at a point in time and/or ...

, for: * WMA Standard up to 384 kbit/s (DRM protected files can be played only if purchased from the Zune Marketplace) *

WMA Pro Windows Media Audio (WMA) is a series of audio codecs and their corresponding audio coding formats developed by Microsoft. It is a proprietary technology that forms part of the Windows Media framework. Audio encoded in WMA is stored in a digital c ...

stereo up to 768 kbit/s *

WMA Lossless Windows Media Audio (WMA) is a series of audio codecs and their corresponding audio coding formats developed by Microsoft. It is a proprietary technology that forms part of the Windows Media framework. Audio encoded in WMA is stored in a digi ...

stereo up to 768 kbit/s * Unprotected

AAC AAC may refer to: Aviation * Advanced Aircraft, a company from Carlsbad, California * Airborne aircraft carrier, a type of aircraft * Alaskan Air Command, a radar network * American Aeronautical Corporation, a company from Port Washington, New ...

- LC (.mp4/.m4b) up to 320 kbit/s *

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany under the lead of Karlheinz Brandenburg. It was designed to greatly reduce the amount ...

up to 320 kbit/s * Video support: *

WMV Windows Media Video (WMV) is a series of video codecs and their corresponding video coding formats developed by Microsoft. It is part of the Windows Media framework. WMV consists of three distinct codecs: the original video compression technolog ...

* Main and Simple Profile, CBR or VBR * 720 x 480 pixels with a

bit rate In telecommunications and computing, bit rate (bitrate or as a variable ''R'') is the number of bits that are conveyed or processed per unit of time. The bit rate is expressed in the unit bit per second (symbol: bit/s), often in conjunction ...

of up to 10.0 Mbit/s and a framerate of up to 30 frames per second. * 720 x 576 pixels with a

of up to 10.0 Mbit/s and a framerate of up to 25 frames per second. * Advanced profile up to L2, CBR or VBR * 1280 x 720 pixels with a

of up to 14.0 Mbit/s, and a framerate of up to 30 frames per second. * Up to

resolution and 14 Mbit/s

, CBR or VBR for: *

H.264 Advanced Video Coding (AVC), also referred to as H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 10, is a video compression standard based on block-oriented, motion-compensated coding. It is by far the most commonly used format for the recording, compression, and d ...

, Baseline Profile up to Level 3.1 support *

VC-1 SMPTE 421, informally known as VC-1, is a video coding format. Most of it was initially developed as Microsoft's proprietary video format Windows Media Video 9 in 2003. With some enhancements including the development of a new Advanced Profile, ...

Main and Simple Profile, Advanced profile up to Level 2. * MPEG-4 Part 2 Advanced Simple Profile up to 4.0 Mbit/s bit rate *

high definition video output using

HDMI High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary digital interface used to transmit high-quality video and audio signals between devices. It is commonly used to connect devices such as televisions, computer monitors, projectors, gam ...

composite Composite or compositing may refer to: Materials * Composite material, a material that is made from several different substances ** Metal matrix composite, composed of metal and other parts ** Cermet, a composite of ceramic and metallic material ...

connections (additional dock required for both)

Features

Apps

As of August 2011, the Zune Marketplace has 62 apps for Zune HD, of which 42 are games. All of the apps and games are free. Apps available excluding games are Calendar, Fingerpaint, Stopwatch, Alarm Clock, Chord Finder, Facebook, Twitter, MSN Money, MSN Weather, Calculator, Piano, Metronome, Level, Drum Machine, Fan Prediction, Shuffle by Album, Windows Live Messenger, Notes, Email and Zune Reader. An extension to the

Microsoft XNA Microsoft XNA (a recursive acronym for XNA's not acronymed) is a freeware set of tools with a Managed code, managed Runtime system, runtime environment that Microsoft Gaming developed to facilitate video game game development, development. XNA is ...

framework providing development support for the Zune HD was released on September 16, 2009. The Zune PC Software can be used for adding apps to the Zune HD. The

Windows Live Messenger MSN Messenger (also known colloquially simply as MSN), later rebranded as Windows Live Messenger, was a Cross-platform software, cross-platform instant messaging client, instant-messaging client developed by Microsoft. It connected to the now-di ...

app for the Zune HD was released on October 1, 2010, making Messenger available for all major mobile platforms. The email app was released for the Zune HD in April 2011 allowing users to sync with their email accounts and download folders and emails. The app is similar to the email interface on the

Windows Phone Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued mobile operating system developed by Microsoft Mobile for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design languag ...

. No new apps have been released for Zune HD after August 2011.

Games

Several games have been released for the Zune HD, including portable versions of ''

Audiosurf ''Audiosurf'' is a 2008 music-based puzzle video game created by Invisible Handlebar, a company founded by Dylan Fitterer. Its track-style stages visually mimic the music the player chooses, while the player races across several lanes collecting ...

'', ''

Hexic ''Hexic'' is a 2003 Tile-matching video game, tile-matching Puzzle video game, puzzle video game developed by Carbonated Games for various platforms. In Hexic, the player tries to rotate hexagonal tiles to create certain patterns. The game is a ...

'', and ''

''. Independent titles written with XNA are also available from multiple sources. On April 20, 2010, an independent app developer released a port of ''

Doom Doom is another name for damnation. Doom may also refer to: People * Doom (professional wrestling), the tag team of Ron Simmons and Butch Reed * Daniel Doom (1934–2020), Belgian cyclist * Debbie Doom (born 1963), American softball pitche ...

'', one of the first independent 3D games to be developed for the Zune HD, using OpenZDK.

Web browser

The browser features

favorites In the context of the World Wide Web, a bookmark is a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) that is stored for later retrieval in any of various storage formats. All modern web browsers include bookmark features. Bookmarks are called favorites or In ...

and

Bing Bing most often refers to: * Bing Crosby (1903–1977), American singer * Microsoft Bing, a web search engine Bing may also refer to: Food and drink * Bing (bread), a Chinese flatbread * Bing (soft drink), a UK brand * Bing cherry, a varie ...

search. The keyboard can be accessed by touching a text box, swiping up from the bottom bar of the browser and touching the address bar, or touching the magnifying glass (search) icon on the bottom bar of the browser. The keyboard has portrait orientation, with the keys bulging around the user's finger when touched. The web browser has pinch and stretch for zooming and page reorientation due to the built in accelerometer. The Zune HD web browser scores 5/100 in the

Acid3 The Acid3 test is a web test page from the Web Standards Project that checks a web browser's compliance with elements of various web standards, particularly the Document Object Model (DOM) and JavaScript. If the test is successful, the results ...

test. As of the launch, the Zune HD's web browser does not support

Adobe Flash Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a mostly discontinuedAlthough it is discontinued by Adobe Inc., for the Chinese market it is developed by Zhongcheng and for the international enterprise market it is developed by Ha ...

applications, such as video playback on YouTube, and no plans have been made to bring Flash support to the device. With the 4.3 firmware update, browsing performance was improved, and users can change the Internet settings to display the browser optimized for a Mobile device or for a PC experience. In addition, users can now enable "auto correct" and "auto capitalize" when using the keyboard to enter information, making it easier to type content into the browser. With the 4.5 firmware update, browsing performance was further improved. In addition, Smart DJ playlists, Picks, expanded video codec support, and the ability to download photos and sort favorites by name and date were included in the update.

Metro

The Zune HD was the forebear of Microsoft's typography-based

design language A design language or design vocabulary is an overarching scheme or style that guides the design of a complement of products or architectural settings, creating a coherent design system for styling. Objectives Designers wishing to give their su ...

Metro Metro may refer to: Geography * Metro City (Indonesia), a city in Indonesia * A metropolitan area, the populated region including and surrounding an urban center Public transport * Rapid transit, a passenger railway in an urban area with high ...

which ultimately came to fruition with

. The short-lived

Kin Kin usually refers to kinship and family. Kin or KIN may also refer to: Places * Kin empires and dynasties of China, now romanized as ''Jin'' *Kin, Okinawa, a town in Okinawa, Japan * Kin, Pakistan, a village along the Indus in Pakistan * Kin ...

phones also share a similar typography focused design. It uses a font family called "Zegoe", which is a modified version of Microsoft's font family,

Segoe Segoe ( ) is a typeface, or family of fonts, that is best known for its use by Microsoft. The company uses Segoe in its online and printed marketing materials, including recent logos for a number of products. Additionally, the Segoe UI font su ...

. Technology news website Gizmodo labeled the Zune HD's UI as "an evolution of the PMP—not a devolution of some smartphone model. Every new feature it has is used to expand the way you absorb media, from the HD video output to the HD radio to the redesigned UI."

OpenZDK

Prior to the release of the OpenZDK development kit, writing applications for the Zune required the use of Microsoft's XNA development environment. Instead of using XNA, developers can now write apps in C++ that run natively on the Zune, without the overhead of the XNA library. Developers can also access APIs previously used only by Microsoft, such as the 3D graphics and Internet APIs.

References

External links

Zune Official Website

Zune Originals

OpenZDK
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zune Hd Products introduced in 2009 Products and services discontinued in 2012 Portable media players Touchscreen portable media players Zune Defunct consumer brands Discontinued Microsoft products