It was only a couple of days ago that we were talking about leaked pricing for the new Zune HD. Today, Microsoft has gone ahead and not just confirmed the recent slew of rumors but also began accepting preorders for its next-gen media player at Amazon.com, Best Buy, Walmart and its own Microsoft Store. As previously reported, the 16GB Zune HD Black and 32GB Platinum model will be available for $220 and $290 respectively.

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Even though the retail price of the Zune is going to be lower than the iPod, you can always find online stores that are discounting the iPod, however, i don't see this as much with the Zune. Hopefully if this starts getting put on sale around the holidays i might give it a try.

Well, I may finally get around to replacing my PSP-1000 with something like this around the corner. Depends on the overall "usability" of the device, because that is what turned me off the last Zune, simply too much for something that can only store and play music/video.

how does the Zune sound quality compare with the iPod?

I'm not an audiophile and I don't own an iPod to really compare with. But I can tell you that my 4GB Zune sounds great to me. It sounds better than any CD player I had in the past at least. I know the Zune HD is going to support some very high quality sound formats.

I own a 4th gen iPod and I recently gave a Zune 8gb to my daughter for a present. I can tell you that the Zune sounded as good as iPod. Granted the iPod is about 5 years old. ( However, I had it replaced under warranty a couple of years ago).

I also have a Sandisk View 16gb and the Zune sounded as good as that one also.

I also liked the on-line interface for the Zune.

If my View ever quits, I plan on upgrading to a Zune.