[quote name='Freeisgood']Bought a platinum 32 HD the other week at best buy. $317.00 with tax. Returned it after 2 days and bought a black 120 zune off craigslist for $110.00. I love the 120 "wayyy" more. 16 and 32 is a joke these days, especially at the outlandish price. I feel the same way about the touch too. The 120 zune is way better. So it doesnt have the internet, who cares..it sucked on the zune hd anyhow. I had a itouch before a got on an apple ban, but thought the zhd was pathetic for its internet, apps,etc. The sound quality on the zhd is no better than the 120 zune. Yes the screen is better but its too small and narrow for my tastes and the unit as a whole is too small and fragile. I love the 120. Plently of space to allow for many more choices of media than any paltry 16 or 32 can offer. Once the hd gets 120gbs I will pick one up-by then they will have improved the internet and the other issues which normally plague a 1st gen.[/QUOTE]
The price has to do with the cost of the memory type. A 64Gb flash drive is pretty expensive. For it's price point per megabyte it's on par with iPods if not a better deal. The older iPods and Zunes have bigger drives but they're far less durable and more susceptible to damage from vibration and simple drops. For a portable device flash is the preferred route because it will last you much longer. I've only several hard drive based media players and they all tend to die around the 3-4 year mark. I probably won't be for another couple of years until flash drive sizes start picking up, they're stuck at the 64Gb mark at the moment. iPod has a 64Gb Touch but it's almost $400.
But in your case a larger harddrive is definitely more of what you need since you have a pretty big collection of music. I tend to just put specific songs on my Zune rather than my whole collection.
Personally I wish manufacturers would shy away from touch screen stuff at least for PMP. Or at the very least continue using buttons for basic features like volume, changing tracks/albums. Because it's just another hassle for me if I want to change volume, or tracks while I'm running or working out. Instead of just pushing a button to do it, I know have to take it out of my pocket, look at the screen, swipe all over the place.
The Zune HD is small but it's far from fragile. The screen is made from Gorilla glass which is far more durable than the glass found on the old Zunes and all iPod models. They have videos on Youtube of guys trying to scratch the screen using screwdrivers, xacto knives, coins.
I agree with you the app selection from the Zune is rather poor. But they did come out with an update that released some pretty sweet games Audiosurf and Project Gotham Racing. Both are very high quality games that then really show off what the Zune HD can do with it's hardware. I'm kind of on the fence with Apps they're nice to have but I don't consider them to be the end all simply because I've seen what Apple has done with their app store and it's garbage. I don't need 4000 fart applications because seriously that's what the app store is. It's like 5% original applications, 80% copycats and then 5% of just garbage. The Zune just came out so obviously the App store isn't as developed. Apple had 4 years to create a Appstore and then destroy it through bad policies and management. Give it some time.
My only gripe is that there's ads with the applications which sucks but they are free. I just wish they gave you an option to get rid of the ads like if you're a member of Zunepass.
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