Howie Chang’s Neighborhood

(Photo Courtesy of Nokia)

Have you heard the news? Nokia's N-Gage is officially biting the dust. After an initial hardware release, which flopped, followed by an updated model, which also flopped, followed by a much better revision into a software-only take of the gaming concept (which apparently also flopped), N-Gage services will be transferred to Nokia's OVI store. From what I've read, it seems like the service is going to be taking down the online-multiplayer component which made certain games such a hit, however in honesty I can't say it will be too missed. If Nokia had only made the N-Gage platform available for more handsets, they might have had a winner on their hands. But in the light of the iPhone's radical success, and the iTouch's surprising gaming popularity, I can easily understand the reason for the system dying off. After all, N-Gage games were of the quality that one would want to play them on their televisions, not on the little screens built into their cell phones. And with the rather short A/V cable given to only a few high-end handsets (and not even the N86!), it's really no surprises there.

What is a surprise, is the development of games for the Zune HD! Released today are a few very detail-intensive 3D games for the device. They supposedly take advantage of the built-in Tegra chip to extents I can't even begin to imagine, and I honestly cannot wait to give them a shot! From what I've read, these games give the iTouch/iPhone a real run for their money, something which I feel I need to see to believe. I can tell you one thing, though... side-by-side, the Zune HD makes my iPod look like a piece of junk. It really does.

Why is there a giant-font link to ZOMG its Cj at the top of this post? Well, because I owe them a bit of an apology. I used a photo I found via Google Images search, and theirs popped up. Needless to say, I couldn't pinpoint the owner and so I just went forward and used the image anyways. Thankfully, the sharp eyes at ZOMG its Cj spotted the image and, instead of getting mad about it, gave me a (very friendly) little nudge to let me know it belonged to them.

So, without further wordiness, I'd just like to say, "Sorry guys, my bad. Always been a big fan of your reviews, and I owe you a big apology for ripping you off. Thanks for not yelling at me!"

I got the chance to play with a friend's Zune HD for a while... and so I naturally snagged the opportunity to give the thing a go. I won't lie, I'm still having trouble grasping exactly what the thing is... I mean, I'd used touchscreen MP3 players before the iTouch and never really liked them. The iTouch was the first that I liked, but even then there was a bit of a learning curve. But with the Zune HD, the entire experience has been something else entirely.

My first reaction to the device was something along the lines of, "Dang... can they possibly make this thing any lighter?" Seriously, when someone tells you that the Zune HD is light because of it's aluminum chassis, believe them. This thing is light like an iPod Nano, not very wide like an iPod Nano (current generation, of course), and thin like an iPod Nano. Next to my iPod Touch, it feels inferior, as it's smaller and lighter. (To give you an idea, my iPod Touch feels like it's a slab of glass or basically just very dense. The Zune HD feels disconcertingly hollow and yet also very strong.)

Once powered on, I was a bit confused. The interface is simple enough, and I would go so far as to say it's more simple than an iTouch, the only exception being that the Zune is limited to media playback (there are some apps...) for the most part. The display comes right up to the borders of the unit, and reminds me of my first impression of the original iTouch when it first came out: "...there's no way this is real." Only difference being that I believe the Zune HD is real, so it's not really a shocker.

The display itself is quite vivid... I feel like the demo video was created specifically with extra vivid colors to try and help up-sell the unit. It's a bit corny, but hey, it works. Without getting into details, web browsing could use a lot of help. It's a lot better than Windows Mobile from what I remember (although a lot of the feel is the same), and at first I thought it was displaying things wrong when I noticed that no, the edge of the AMOLED is actually that close to the end of the actual device and the lack of a status bar at the top had caught me by surprise. I hope Microsoft has a firmware in the works that will get this thing an iPod Touch-worthy web browser... or better yet, a Nokia S60 one..

That all said, I've barely held this thing in my hand for 30 minutes. Time to dig deeper!