I've blogged before about MP3 players (or PMPs as the more technical term), but my 30GB Zune is having hard drive problems and barely runs for 5-10 minutes without crashing. I definitely think Apple makes better players, but I'm too cheap to pay top dollar for them. So I'm eyeballing the landscape to see what choices are out there.
Obviously, Apple dominates the player market, but I really like the Zune's software and integration with their players.
The game just got interesting - Microsoft just announced their new Zune HD player which is scheduled to go on sale sometime in the fall. The reviews for it are based of pre-production units, but even in beta, the Zune HD looks solid. Consider me impressed and seriously looking that way.
For any geeks who read this, this thing is smaller than the iPhone, has an OLED display (read: better than iPod Touch/iPhone, has built-in HD radio, finally has a web browser to go along with the wi-fi that Zunes have always had)
My only gripe is that this thing doesn't have GPS on it, and Microsoft has generally stayed out of the GPS market despite producing several excellent software packages on the web and for purchase. Only the iPhone has all the features I want, but you can only get the phone if you sign up for the data plans - and I'm not into that...
The photo above is from Gizmodo, but be sure to check out this link for more photos and videos.
