For the first time in about 2 years, I charged up my Zune HD and started listening to some music on it. I first got it when I was a freshman in high school, which was 2010. And I am amazed how well this thing has held up over the years. I was able to get through about a week without charging it when it was new, and still can to this day.
I chose the Zune HD over an iPod touch because I read that it had better audio quality… And it was less expensive with twice the storage (it had more to do with that, actually). I got comments on it, and everything that you would expect from just about anyone that saw it. But it did all of the things I needed it to do at the time. My music collection fit on to it, had a few lack-luster apps such as a metronome and solitaire, web browsing on plain html websites (most of the mobile versions of sites worked just fine for the better part of the first 2 or 3 years of using it).
The interface may not have been the best thought out, but it tried. The music browser is extremely clean assuming you have the metadata correct (if it’s not, it becomes messy really quickly) the ease to change playlists or songs is quick and doesn’t need much attention to the screen. The rest of the interface was to be desired, but from what changed between the Zune HD and Windows Phone 7 does show that what was good about the Zune’s interface was good… And last I checked, is still present in Windows Phone today.
Rant warning
I know this isn’t 4chan, but I can’t help myself…
>inb4 muh appps!
I never truly understood the whole app craze. App for this, app for that… The mobile version of most sites work fine! Even on Windows or OSX, there is absolutely no reason to install the twitter app. I’m not saying that anything and everything is fine and makes more sense to just use through a web browser, there are just some things that it does not make sense why time is being wasted on developing an app for. Unless there are features missing or advantages offered through having closer access to hardware there isn’t much use for the app to exist… for example I have the client for a music streaming service installed because it can take advantage of the media keys on my keyboard. The most confusing part of some of these apps is that they have features missing compared to their web-based counterparts.
Enough ranting
Since getting a “smart” phone I’ve began using my Zune less and less. Carrying one device that can do it all is more sensible after all. I still kept my Zune in my vehicle because running the battery on that made more sense than my phone’s on long drives, and storage was becoming an issue as my music collection had grown to the point where I just couldn’t fit it all on a single device. Streaming on the road wasn’t and still isn’t a great option because I live in a mountainous region, so I will often find myself without service for miles at a time.
After getting my hands on my current phone (Nexus 6) nearly 2 years ago (the worst day of battery usage on this is what the best day of usage on my Galaxy S4 was), I haven’t really touched my Zune much if at all until today. Throughout the time it took to write this post, I’ve switched between my Nexus 6 and Zune HD listening to the same track on one device then the other, same file same headphones. And I am pretty sure that the Zune sounds better, as it seems to have a much tighter wrap on the lows, and the Nexus 6 just seemed to let the mids get washed out by the highs. I know it’s a bit of a stretch to compare a phone to a music player, but that’s what I had on hand to compare it to.