Zune HD announced. Compares well to a (two year old) iPod Touch

I'm not sure exactly when it first happened but I now find myself feeling sorry for Microsoft on a somewhat regular basis.  Their search engine is going nowhere fast and they are having trouble holding onto market share in both operating systems and browsers.  Even the venerable  Microsoft Office is taking some hits from Google Apps and Zoho.

Today's release of the ZuneHD is another one of those moments.  We are coming up on two years after the release of the iPod touch.  Microsoft today unveiled a product that matches up with it.

First, let's look at the aesthetics.  It is bronze with hard creases on the outside and large, angular screws emanating from the back. It is thicker and looks heavier (but it might not be) than the first generation iPod touch.

Looks have never been Microsoft's strong point.  So perhaps it has some features under the hood that could impress.  Microsoft was short on specs but they did give out some noteworthy ones. 

The screen dimensions are 480x272 pixels, which represents a 16:9 aspect ratio. That will be nice for miniature letterbox films.  The problem is that the resolution is almost 60 lines less than the iPod touch's 480x320 for other important things like web browsing, email, and even gaming. 

The screen is an OLED variety which could help with battery life (requires no back-lighting) and even brightness/contrast. That trumps the first two generation iPods which use back-lit LCD screens.  The Zune will also have another feature that the iPod does not (yet) have:  HD radio.  This could be something interesting for a few, but I personally don't think it is worth changing platforms for.  Nor is it an exuse for missing out on all of the advantages that the iPod touch has.

The Zune will also be able to play HD content to an HDTV via a dock.  The iPod touch can only play SD videos via an expensive sync cable.   Again, this is all subjust to change in upcoming iPod announcements.

What does the iPod touch have going for it?  It is the most popular device of its kind, meaning there is a huge base of users as well a big accessories market already established.  It is also a smaller, rounded package.

The newer models continue to bring new features that the ZunHD doesn't have, including:

• Bluetooth (enabled with 3.0 software)
• A-GPS (GPS using wifi)
• Camera and magnometer-compass (expected in 2009 version).
• The App store with 40,000 apps.

Apple's offering also has great standard software including Mail.app and iTunes/iPod and Maps.  The Zune? It will have Windows Mobile Outlook and Mobile Explorer which aren't yet quite as good at Apple's offerings on mobile devices.

While I've been hoping for a while that the iPod touch would get some competition, I'm sorry to report that this isn't it.  I'm banking on the new Archos products.