Microsoft has officially announced Zune Phone HD to be available this fall. The device looks gorgeous, and it looks to have decent specs. The biggest problem? It’s not a phone!

Zune-HD

Zune HD will compete directly with iPod Touch. It’s a souped up media player with web browsing capabilities. Like the iPod Touch, it will have multi-touch and full web browsing. Microsoft is upping the game by adding a beautiful 3.3” 480×272 OLED display and adding a built-in HD radio receiver (nice!). The device can also output HD video via a dock accessory.

Microsoft’s Zune HD looks to be better than the current iPod Touch, at least on paper. But we suspect that most people who are buying the iPod Touch today do not only expect to have a good media player and web browser, but also want to tap into the huge ecosystem of apps on the App Store. Without the same ecosystem of apps for the Zune HD, it’s a much more difficult sell. Ironically, Microsoft has been enjoying the advantage of having a huge ecosystem of applications on the desktop for years.

We will say this again – the biggest problem with the Zune HD is that it’s not a phone. We think portable media players will just die in several years as they get replaced by smartphones.

You can visit the official Zune HD page here, or check out CrunchGear’s reaction.

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