Hasta La Gadget!

If you’re one of the few Earthlings with a Zune HD sold ahead of its US street date… and still awake, consider yourself obsessive. And lucky: the Zune 4.0 software just popped and is ready to download for the newest must-have portable media player. Our full review is on the way, ’till then check our hands-on and official launch-day press release just beyond the read link.

P.S. Looks like older Zunes are getting a version 3.2 update — screengrab after the break.

Update: The new Zune software is fully Windows 7 optimized as you’d expect. That means it supports Windows 7 Jump Lists (for quick access to your music controls and playlists from the Taskbar), Previews letting you glimpse and control media by hovering your mouse over the Zune button on the Taskbar, and Aero Snap auto-resizing of the Zune software window. Here’s a quick overview of what else is new:

• Quickplay menu: quick access from your Zune HD to your favorite media including those you most recently added or played
• Smart DJ: Like Apple’s Genius, Smart DJ creates like-minded music mixes. It also adds music from the Zune Marketplace if you have a Zune Pass.
• Mini Player Mode: Keeps a mini version of the player on top of your PC apps
• Download to own: For the first time you can download-to-own or rent full movies and TV shows in SD or HD formats.

Surprisingly, CNET says that Microsoft has killed the ability to “squirt” DRM-crippled music directly between Zune users. Not that it will be missed.

[Thanks to Mario H., Travis, and everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading Zune 4.0 software is out, ready to fulfill your dreams (update: kills “squirting”)

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Zune 4.0 software is out, ready to fulfill your dreams (update: kills “squirting”) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Sep 2009 03:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

You may not have realized it, but all of the cellphone calls you’ve been making have totally not been HD. While we may still be stuck with our old standard def calls for a while yet over here, it looks like the good citizens of Moldova have now finally vaulted into the future courtesy of Orange, which recently made the very first “HD Voice” call in the country (on 09/09/09, of course). Overused acronyms aside, the calls do indeed appear to be of noticeably better quality (at least if the web demo is any indication), which is mostly due to their use of the new Adaptive Multi Rate – Wide Band (or AMR-WB) codec that takes advantage of the greater bandwidth afforded by 3G. Unfortunately, it looks like the HD Voice-ready handset options are a bit limited to start with (just an Orange Moldova-exclusive version of the Nokia 6720), but it looks like more phones are expected to become available as Orange expands the service throughout Europe over the course of 2010.

[Via GSM Arena, thanks Sathish]

Filed under: Cellphones

Orange introduces ‘HD Voice’ calls — 3G, Moldovian citizenship required originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Sep 2009 18:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Fanboys the world over swooned over the HTC Touch HD when it launched last year, but word is that HTC’s planning on making a major change to its high-res handset for the sequel: it’s switching to Android. That’s at least the hot whisper ’round the tubes this afternoon, and while that would ordinarily be enough to make the ‘droidboys to go crazy, there’s even more — the CPU is reportedly a 628MHz Qualcomm chip, not the slightly overtaxed 528MHz number we’ve seen in every other Android handset to date. Sure, it’s just a measly 100MHz, but if that’s enough to make Sense and HD video on the 3.8-inch 480 x 800 display run smoothly we’ll be all grins. If any of this is true, that is.

[Via BGR]

Filed under: Cellphones

HTC Touch HD2 to be an Android set? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 05 Sep 2009 21:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

If we recall, the previous Vado HD could at one point hold its own against pocket camcorders, but times have changed and new challengers have entered the competition. So how does Creative‘s second generation Vado HD keep up? We actually don’t know — the press release is sparse on details, except to say the 4GB / 60-minute white-and-green model will cost $180 and the 8GB / 120-minute black-and-red one is $200. Also on the horizon early this month is Vado Central software for OS X machines. It’ll be compatible with all Vado models, and features easy import to iMovie for quick-and-dirty editing projects. Pre-order listings for the camcorders are supposed to pop up on Amazon and Creative’s any time now, so hopefully there’ll be some more data to shed light on things — image stabilization would be a nice touch, but we’re not getting our hopes up.

Filed under: Digital Cameras, Handhelds, Portable Video

Creative unveils Vado HD pocket camcorder, OS X-compatible Vado Central originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Sep 2009 23:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

With TV shows, music video, and video podcasts already proliferating the Zune marketplace, it was really only a matter of time before Microsoft dipped its toes into HD movies — not to mention kind of a logical step since Xbox Live was getting its movie section Zune-branded. BostonPocketPC writer Steven Hughes has uploaded pictures of an alleged pamphlet handed out at Best Buy’s Zune HD showings that, among other things, make reference to finding Zune Marketplace content including HD movies. Ban on HDTV Media Center recordings notwithstanding, things are looking up for Zune 4.0 software. And here we thought Apple was late to the party with its movie service.

[Via Zunited]
Read – Pamphlet pics
Read – BostonPocketPC

Filed under: Handhelds, Portable Video

Zune HD pamphlet discloses HD movies coming to Zune marketplace originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 Aug 2009 20:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments