Until now, if you wanted to get HD Radio in a portable, handheld you had to buy a Zune HD. But Gigaware is leveling the playing field by opening up HD Radio to every iPod touch and iPhone user in the US.

The adapter allows any iPhone or iPod touch with iPhone OS 3.0 or greater the ability to listen to HD Radio and local FM stations. It’s available now for $79.99 exclusively at RadioShack. The accompanying app has a manual tune wheel or auto-seek, social network integration, bookmarks and iTunes Tagging and can be downloaded for free.

The European Commission has set volume limits for MP3 players in all European Union member states. This means that your Zune HD or other mp3 player will not be allowed to output anything louder than 80 decibels under the default settings.

Officials argue that the limits are necessary since devices can play music at levels loud enough to cause permanent hearing damage and they do so without warning listeners. The EU mandate will still allow users to override the settings as long as they’re informed about the possible consequences.

I am not sure how I feel about the companies that tear up perfectly good gadgets to show us what’s inside the shiny case. I guess it’s much better than me having to tear into my own gadget out of morbid curiosity.

The gang over at Rapid Repair has torn their shiny new Zune HD asunder for your viewing pleaser, or displeasure depending on how gadget squeamish you are. It appears that that teardown is relatively easy to accomplish and you are sure to void your warranty if you open your own up.

The new Zune HD arrives on Tuesday in the U.S., and if you haven’t already pre-ordered from Amazon, just enter the right coupon codes at Dell and you can save $43 on the 32GB model and $33 on the 16GB model.

That’s 15% off with free two-day shipping. It probably won’t arrive by Tuesday, but you’re getting a great deal. So grab your credit card, or fire up your PayPal account and check out LogicBUY for the code.

Archos’s 4.8-inch A5 series has already passed the FCC, and now we have price and capacity info on the device which will launch on September 15th. The A5 will come in two flash and two hard drive capacities, featuring a 16/32GB SSD or a 160/500GB HDD.

It will cost you $294 for the 16GB version, $370 for the 32GB, $320 for the 160GB and $420 for the 500GB version. Rumor is that the A5 will have 720p video output, but like the Zune HD, you’ll need to buy a dock. The dock for the A5 with DVR functionality is $130.

Leaked images and all sorts of rumors have run rampant about Microsoft’s Zune HD. The device is the latest Zune PMP from Microsoft to try to combat the Apple iPod. The Zune HD is aimed directly at the iPod touch.

Microsoft announced today that the player is set to hit store shelves on September 15 and is available for pre-order today. The HD will be offered in 16GB and 32GB capacities and is the first touch screen Zune player.

Gizmodo has some screenshots from Best Buy’s inventory system showing the 16GB and 32GB Zune HD models going on sale September 8th for $220 and $290. Those prices are pretty cheap compared to the current iPod touch pricing, so the Zune HD is looking super competitive.

Of course the touch’s prices are likely to get adjusted sometime after the Zune HD’s launch. We’ll see what happens. The Zune HD is looking better and better. Are you sold yet?

Over at CNET, they had a look at a recent build of the Zune HD. Apparently the device is getting close to a final product. The hardware received some praise as well as video playback and a the music player, which has been refined. They really liked the Zune HD’s browser and found it to be excellent.

It was built by the IE team, which is good news for prospective Windows Mobile 6.5 users, and it’s comparable to the iPhone in features as well as speed. You get pinch to zoom, accelerometer-based reorientation, and a decent onscreen keyboard. No Flash though. All in all it sounds fairly awesome.

We’ve seen plenty of Microsoft’s Zune HD, but the company just shared some awesome images of the new PMP, which show off black and silver versions of the device, both of which are things of beauty.

Just pictures. Nothing too spectacular, but they give you a good idea of the design and what the UI looks like. If nothing else, they will let you drool and anticipate the device even more than you thought possible.

With Microsoft nearly ready to unleash the Zune HD on the masses, now Dell is working on a device to compete with the iPod Touch, according to reports. The device will play music and videos just like the iPod Touch, but will be based on the Google Android mobile OS and also function as a MID.

In size it will likely be slightly larger than the Touch. The device needs to compete with not only the Touch, but also with the Zune HD. It will be interesting to see what features end up in the device and whether it ends up being a true competitor or falls short.

According to an alleged “software engineer” on the Zune team, the 16GB Zune HD should cost between $249 and $280 this September (a date that lines up with previous rumors.)

There are a lot of interesting rumors in the interview, like the fact that Microsoft is thinking about not only 16/32GB models but a 64GB Zune HD too. We have no idea what the price would be for that one.

The guys over at Gizmodo got a tip about the ZuneHD. “Internal Microsoft docs” point to a September 8 launch of the Zune HD. Their tipster also says that the device will be available in 16GB and 32GB versions.

One thing we don’t have is a price. We do know that the HD has Nvidia’s Tegra inside, so it’s a high powered, high performance device with HD output. How all of that affects the final price remains to be seen.

It’s official. Zune HD will be powered by NVIDIA’s Tegra processor, making it the first PMP in the world that can claim that honor. NVIDIA confirmed it themselves. The all-in-one processor offers hardware acceleration of video and can consume just 150mW of power at full speed, giving it a battery life like a regular media player in spite of the demands of 720p video playback.

The new Zune is likely using an APX 2500 or 2600 processor, which combines an ARM11 processor with a GeForce-based graphics core and controllers for memory and output. It has just enough performance to display 720p at full resolution when using HDMI and also supports 3D rendering performance much faster than most handheld devices.

According to Microsoft “guru” Paul Thurott, the Zune HD launches on September 5. You should keep in mind that this info is coming from the Zune forums, so take it with a huge grain of salt. We think that the launch window sounds about right, but there’s nothing official. That is all.

Almost true to rumors, along with the press release from Microsoft late Tuesday about the new Zune HD release, the company announced they will be extending the Zune video service into Xbox LIVE this fall as well.

“The Zune music player is an integral part of the overall Zune experience, and we’re proud to be growing and extending our offering beyond the device,” said Enrique Rodriguez in the Microsoft press release on Tuesday. Rodriguez is the corporate vice president of the Microsoft TV, Video and Music Business Group.