Zune HD vs iPod touch 3G, which one will you buy?

Microsoft wants its Zune HD to go head to head with the iPod Touch. Is that really possible? Let’s take a look at each specification.

The display
Zune HD: Beautiful, large (3.3 inch diagonal), 272*480 touch screen.
iPod Touch: beautiful, large (3.5 inch diagonal), 320*480 multi-touch, the screen is a little bigger then Zune HD.

The Internet Browsing and Connectivity
The Zune HD is coming with its Internet Browser. At this point, Apple's Safari Mobile is already well known for speedy page rendering and hands-on test with the Zune HD have yet to prove the new player's capabilities.

The multimedia and FM radio
Zune HD is aming to design a great music player to override iPod touch. So, the latest Zune HD is going support playing HD videos and also output HD videos. Moreover, with a dock (sold separately), we can easily connect Zune HD with HDTV and then watch HD videos on it. On the other side, iPod touch did nothing on HD videos. Even it also let customers receive FM radio, Zune HD has done its best to built-in HD radio tuner.

However both Zune HD and iPod touch can only play limited videos and audios. Zune HD plays MPEG-4, WMV, H.264 videos and MP3, WMA audio files. While iPod Touch plays MPEG-4, H.264 video files and AAC, WMV, MP3 audio files. What if you have large music or video collections you want to carry around with you on your player? I have got third party software to do this admire job: use iSkysoft DVD Ripper to convert DVD collections and iSkysoft Video Converter to convert video or music collections for both Zune HD and iPod touch.

The game and application
Zune Marketplace is the online store for Zune HD where we can buy, rent music, video and podcasts. Zune Marketplace uses a subscription model for music downloads while Apple sells songs individually.

Installing new applications on the iPod is a complete joy. It’s ultra simple and quick – an absolutely superb experience than virtually nobody has matched today. It’s still unknown whether Zune HD will enlarge its applications, but one thing we can expect is that Microsoft is not going to expand its applications as large as Apple does, at least on Zune HD.

Games for iPod touch are made to take advantage of its built-in technologies such as the accelerometer, Multi-Touch, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. The result is truly immersive gameplay — whether you’re playing alone or with others in multiplayer mode. And with an App Store that offers thousands of games ready to download and play, the fun of iPod touch never ends.

The price
The price for 16G Zune HD is $219.99, 32GB Zune HD sells for $289.99. In contrast, iPod touch 16GB sells for $299 and 32GB for $399. The apparent price difference seems to put the advantage over the new Zune.

Conclusion
So there you have it. Both products are released almost at the same time and both are great music player while ipod still supports playing games. At this coming fall, we have so many choices, so which one will you buy?