Zune 2.0 and flash Zune details leaked?

The fine folks over at Zune Scene are claiming an unwitting Microsoft employee bared it all to them, not even realizing who, in fact they were. What was supposedly learned from this fortuitous encounter? Well, the second full-sized Zune and its flash counterpart will both be out this year. The full-size Zune will look aesthetically similar and have the doubleshot plastics, but will be a bit thinner. The flash device will be video capable and have a large display that "covers about 75% of the [face]", while staying about 3 x 1.25 x 0.25-inches in size. Even though the flash-based device will have the same (lame) WiFi, Microsoft's expecting to pump out 2.4 million next-gen Zune devices before holidays 2007. Believe it? Sure, we'd like to think some design-envelope-pushing devices are en route, but the Zune's faults aren't about to be resolved by a thin n' sexy flash version, we can tell you that much.

[Image from our Design-a-Zune contest]

[Jake @ Apr 10th 2007 10:45PM]

Cool beans!!

[Mario @ Apr 10th 2007 10:54PM]

Sweet! I hope it has a 199.99 price tag.. is that really too much to ask. Price it lower than the competition. Right now MS is right at the competition, in order for me to give them my money, i want to get a product thats ahead of the competition in BOTH price and features (obviously the zune is ahead of the competition as far as features go, but it still has more road to go.)

[Steve @ Apr 10th 2007 10:54PM]

Must you link to the Zune fault article in every Zune post?

It's getting rather old.

[Uno @ Apr 10th 2007 10:56PM]

wow, maybe i should wait and not get one this summer.

[dick buttkiss @ Apr 10th 2007 10:57PM]

I've been wanting a zune and frankly now that everyone has a nano, I don't want to seen with mine in public. A zune would be a nice change of pace, and hopefully flash would be similar pricing to the nano line. besides everyone who complains about the wifi has a more than valid point and yet no one has hacked it. but for my since I have 50 minute classes i could just send entire playlists to friends and that way they would burn through the 3 songs slower.

[Mike Street @ Apr 10th 2007 11:04PM]

Why doesn't microsoft smarten up and let their customers re-design the Zune to actually work. The Zune was a waste of money, flawed in all areas, and really just made you want to go buy an iPod even more.

[kingofwale @ Apr 10th 2007 11:07PM]

2.4 million next gen Zune??? When the current gen Zune hasn't even sold 1 million yet.

big mistake Microsoft. Unless this new Zune address some of the short-falls of last Zune, it will fail AGAIN.

[anonymouspimp @ Apr 11th 2007 2:02PM]

wingofwale: "2.4 million next gen Zune??? When the current gen Zune hasn't even sold 1 million yet."

I think they are pretty close to (if not over) a million sold by now. I remember reading an article that said they are on pace to sell a million by spring of 07 a while back.

And I hate to point out the obvious, but smaller, inexpensive, flash players will always out-sell the larger, more expensive, hard drive players. So for Microsoft to estimate 2.4 million units (probably estimating around 800k-1million HDD players and 1.4-1.6million flash players) doesn't seem that far out of reach for Microsoft.

Especially since the biggest problem they had was the size/bulkiness/weight of the current Zune and brand awareness. The Zune will most likely be iPod sized now (fixing that problem), and more people are aware of the Zune/Microsoft player. As an impartial user who owns both an iPod and a Zune, I would say that were it not for the size of the Zune, it would be hands down a better product. The interface is already infinitely better, IMO.

[7of7 @ Apr 10th 2007 11:17PM]

The Zune's "faults" pale in comparison to the those of players that have sold a 100 million units. The problem is everyone looks at that player through Steve Jobs colored lenses. In reality it's a very limited device in features and in quality. I'm glad companies like Creative and Microsoft are willing to fight that other player's monopoly in the market and produce good products instead of the mundane crappy ones that are synonymous with MP3 player.

[Marcus @ Apr 10th 2007 11:24PM]

I completely agree with you! The Zune does have faults, but it's also a great player (from what I've read/seen), and to me...offers far more than the iPod ever will!

I'd be very interested in a flash Zune...any idea when it will launch in Canada? Any Zune that is...we don't have it :(

[primetime4 @ Apr 10th 2007 11:26PM]

Do you honestly believe that most iPod owners even know or care who Steve Jobs is? He must be one heck of a door to door salesman.

[John Doe @ Apr 10th 2007 11:23PM]

Everyone who says the iPod is less featured is right in their facts, but they draw the wrong conclusion. iPods WORK. Other stuff doesn't - at least not as well. iTunes is the best jukebox software ever.

[treetrunk @ Apr 11th 2007 4:44AM]

@John Doe:

That Apple products "just WORK" any better than anyone else's is a marketing myth, and you're a complete sucker if you believe it. If iTunes just works, why is it on subversion 7.1.1? Oh yeah- to fix things which DIDN'T "just WORK", like vista support and the horrendous amount of bugs in the first version with Coverflow.

Don't get me wrong - Apple are certainly among the top brands for quality - but they are only human so their products are imperfect just like everyone else's. They have the same exploding batteries and buggy software, and their first-generation products are notoriously bad.

I have an iPod, and yes, in all its rather small feature-setted glory, it does indeed "WORK", most of the time. Sometimes it crashes and needs a restart. Once or twice it's screwed up completely and needed restoring. iTunes memory usage occasionally grows exponentially (right now I have it running minimised, doing NOTHING, yet it's using 116MB of memory. What for?).

I suppose an alternative interpretation is that the iPod does "just" work, in that its feature set brings it just above the level of being functional and no more. The plain text interface for example looks like how mobile phones did in about 1998.

[mike @ Apr 10th 2007 11:24PM]

"I've been wanting a zune and frankly now that everyone has a nano, I don't want to seen with mine in public"

I thought the iPod drones were the ones obsessed with image? Huh? You wanna show off your mp3 player to total strangers? Cool! You.. want to get a Zune 2.0 to impress people. Look at the mockup. It looks more and more like an iPod, except, you have to hold it sideways to watch videos and.. oh yeah.. no scrollwheel.

[Will @ Apr 11th 2007 12:46AM]

Wow, you have to hold it sideways... so that the screen is... used to show video that is.... larger than the iPod video's screen... and holding it sideways makes it appear similar to actual Personal Media Players like the Zen Vision W or the Meizu M6 or the Archos... well, you see what I'm getting at. Big deal. Hold it one way or another, what the hell difference does it make? I personally would take the one with the larger/higher resolution screen rather than squint at a smaller screen...

[Dave @ Apr 10th 2007 11:25PM]

Give me at least 80gb or give me death.

[Murc @ Apr 10th 2007 11:32PM]

Mike street - "flawed in all areas"

I disagree.

But I would love it if MS enables a bunch more video codecs like xvid, I hate having to convert video files...they take forever. converting video into another format is such a joke anyway...the whole point of it just sounds stupid...yet people do it everyday. I'm hoping some sort of zune linux comes out...so I can have all my codec support...but I like the zune UI...so that would be a lot of work done by the linux crew to skin that interface using linux.

[TheMac @ Apr 10th 2007 11:54PM]

I have been thinking about getting a new MP3 player since I sold my 30 gig ipod.. I really LOVE the Zune GUI and interface but the controls have left me wanting. If a new one comes out the way it is described I will be getting one.. guess I can wait to find out!

[hubfam @ Apr 10th 2007 11:59PM]

"Microsoft's expecting to pump out 2.4 million next-gen Zune devices before holidays 2007"

Apple is expecting to pump out 2.4 million iPods before lunch time. Snap! Oh, yes I did!

[michael @ Apr 11th 2007 12:44AM]

Oh my gosh, Apple is going to release 2.4 million ipods before lunch? That's pretty amazing, considering that if you do that math, that adds up to 120 million ipods in 50 days. Which is quite remarkable, since Apple just announced that they sold their 100 millionth ipod yesterday. So a 120% increase, in just 50 days is a big accomplishment for them. Go Apple.

Just kidding. Why must there always be ipod fanboys mixed in with Zune posts? It's just so annoying. Anyways, the flash Zune sounds kind of cool. It's just like the nano, except a bigger screen, wifi-capabilities, more storage, and just a whole lot of other things similiar to the current Zune, except smaller. That's pretty cool. And those firmware updates that everybody's dying for, isn't that hard to accomplish. Microsoft said that they would back up updates for any Zune device for a long time. So like in 2009, my first version Zune might even have podcasting on it, without buying a new one. The Zune flash is just pretty cool.

[Dragod @ Apr 11th 2007 12:02AM]

^_^ Makes me glad... I'd like to see my favorite little player become better. Maybe the Flash zunes will be for the people who want to upgrade from their Sansa's to a Zune 2.0, rather than a Nano or a Video iPod?

[daliminator2000 @ Apr 11th 2007 12:20AM]

I think the Zune is GREAT - I've used one several times and honestly think it's one of the best offerings out there. I own an iPod but the thing really doesn't "just work" anymore - it's dying on me just like most iPods do after a couple years. It's also a little glitchy and doesn't always react immediately.

Whoever says iTunes is the "best jukebox software" isn't using it on a PC or has very limited experience with media players - iTunes is a bloated, slow program that was very poorly ported. Winamp, Songbird, and even Windows Media Player are better - and the Zune program seems very nice as well (though it's apparently just a skin of WMP 11 with a "marketplace").

I'm definitely getting a Zune (...sometime...) and can't wait for Microsoft's new offerings, however much naysayers may criticize them - hell, I was even one of them before my iPod started sucking. Gen 2 may do it, maybe Gen 3 or beyond - but it's damn cool.

[plaidpjs @ Apr 11th 2007 10:50AM]

It might have to do with the number of Zune-fanbois who are involved in every iPod discussion... or... maybe it has to do with every Zune discussion basically deteriorating into an iPod-bashing fest!

[Jesse S @ Apr 11th 2007 12:52AM]

Apple iPods...It's like Steve jobs made a bet with Bill Gates, "I bet you I can sell 100million pieces of utter crap DAP's through good marketing!" Well, he won that bet.

iPods are poorly made, have a poor feature set, output poor sound (no real audiphile would ever use one). It's all design (which honestly, I don't even like) and good marketing. Great marketing, in fact.

The Zune's are better, the Sansa's are better, the Creative Zen's are better, the Cowon's are better...

Really, the iPod is a pretty horrible PMP/DAP/whatever when compared to other players. It has nothing going for it except for looks, and popularity.

I'll be somewhere, listening to lossless music on my iaudio X5, using some Shure E4C's, and I will just laugh at the next iPod fanboy listening to low-bitrate music on $5 headphones...but I suppose that's just the audiophile in me.

We really need a quality DAP to have some good marketing campaigns...The iPod needs to be de-throned, people need good quality media players...

[leo @ Apr 11th 2007 12:58AM]

Meh. I think the problem with the Zune is that it's competing with the other good players like the Sandisk, Creative, Cowon, etc. . . People who want a stylish gadget get iPods whereas "power users" who are looking for a specific feature-set have plenty of other choices. What's the compelling reason to buy a Zune?

[Joel @ Apr 11th 2007 1:28AM]

Not to get too far off track, but anyone have any idea if the Zune can display text files? I thought it was pretty cool when a roommate of mine pulled up a recipe (in .txt format) on his iPod.

Personally, I like the look of the Zune. Now if only they could include some form of internet radio through the WiFi...

[Marty @ Apr 11th 2007 1:28AM]

wow, all this bickering is fun! i have a mac and a PC. sadly its only xp media centre edition, but im gettin vista ultimate soon i hope. and my mac, it's a green imac g3 i got for like $69.99 off ebay, ($110.00 i think with added shipping costs) why i'm telling people this... i dont know. I got the imac for internet and music in my room, while my family PC is in my sisters. My mac is running panther, which wrks surprisingly well. I do have to say that apple makes awesome hardware, because every PC owner knows their PC is a dinosaur in like 2 years. Though my mac is like some protozoa being 6 years old!! it is working awesome for its age!

so to my point, America is great! Capitalism rocks! God Bless Us All!!

no really, obviously iPods are an awesome product, but why would they ever need to get better if there wasn't competition? Just let the Zune sell some awesome players. Wouldn't it be so cool if the Zune totally defeats the iPod market in like 5 years, and and Bill Gates becomes even more ruich and steve jobs just like, fades away?

DOWN WITH DRM!!! of course us Gizmodo readers know what that means, but the average consumer doesnt. they couldn't care less. The reason for the iPod's greatness is accessories! Zune needs awesome accessories! and we all know the iPod commercials are the best( omg but the apple Tv one i saw ttonight sucked!!), and the zune ones well, suck too. Why does it seem everyone with a zune is a snowboarder? and theyre all multiracial? and why do we have to read words on the screen? who cares if its a cool, hip font microsoft, we dont want to think when we watch TV. In conclusion fellow bloggers, the zune wont be the best., at least not in the rest of this decade. Microsoft does make awesome software, and we can argue about windows vs. mac OS, but we wont.

Finally, i dont even own an mp3 player. i had a clix llast year, but returned it when i heard about the zune, because it was supposedly gonna be the best thing ever! haha... no. Well nll now im debating on waiting for a new Zune, the sweet new clix 2, or a new ipod. Something an iPhone minus the gay phone and the internet thing. (well maybe not the latter.)bu w/e, im sick of waiting for new devices to come out. i shoulda just kept the clix,which was voted best mp3 player in its class by all the tech editors. it even beat the nano! which brings us back to advertising. LET PEOPLE KNOW HOW COOL YOUR PRODUCT IS!!! THEN THEY WILL BUY IT!! (and get cool wifi stuff) that means you iriver clix! then you'll be like Ubuntu (meaning the third tier, who people in the real world have no clue about, but will learn soon enough; read digg for a day) and all the people will want to try you out! ok, i'm done! God Bless Us All!!

[Jesse S @ Apr 11th 2007 2:09AM]

Well...The thing is, the ipod sucks in comparison to over players. It has really cheap build quality (I've gone through 3 in two years, yet my DS and PSP are fine, and heart-wrenching gaming has put them through more stress), and it has really, honestly, shitty sound output. Plus, itunes music is encoded at a pretty low bitrate...At least, compared to my lossless FLAC music...

[dave @ Apr 11th 2007 1:48AM]

Good grief Charlie Brown. This isn't the solution. The existing ZUNE is just not refined..podcasting, clock, useful WIFI etc are what's needed.

[sHoRtBuS @ Apr 11th 2007 8:06AM]

three in two years? Are you required to wear a helmet whne you ride the short bus too? I've had my iPod (3g) since early 2003, and use it daily to this day. It has been dropped dozens of times, including while mountain biking wipeouts, and once when it fell from a 6ft shelf in my basement onto the concrete floor. Has been subject to extreme heat (left in my car during a weekend that topped 95º) also left in my car in freezing weather. This 15gig iPod has yet to show mw any problems what so ever (besides being horrendously scratched) and still no problems. I am looking for an wexcuse to upgrade it, but I will not until it dies. Shoddy products are Microsoft's specialty, stop kidding yourself & take a look at their history. If microsoft were to take over the DAP world, and be the only player - what you see now is what you would get for the rest of the DAP existance.

[James @ Apr 11th 2007 2:35AM]

So, when I listen to lossless music on my iPod that's over 2 years old does everbody's head just explode or something. "It's not possible!!"

Anyway, the Zune is failing because it does nothing important better than the iPod (price, storage, looks) but instead does random things nobody really wants (bigger screen as same low resolution, lame wi-fi)

[Jesse S @ Apr 11th 2007 2:42AM]

You don't understand...Yeah, with rockbox you can listen to FLAC and the audio is a little better...But the iPod outputs inferior audio, as opposed to other players, and one of the best choices for near-perfect audio is an iaudio X5 with an amp...

The iPod has bad build quality, and crappy sound output...why does anyone want one again? Oh yeah, marketing and looks. The majority of DAP users want the popular, cool looking player...Sadly...

[idfk @ Apr 11th 2007 2:35AM]

Most people who have a zune would probebly be upset that there's a better zune coming out soon at the same price i would presume.

I'm not though. And here's why. I had $300 and went looking for an MP3 player, just to listen to music, and occasionally watch movies on. I came across the 30GB zune, and the 30GB Ipod, both at the same price! Hmm.. Buy the more fetured, blue, newer player with a bigger screen, or buy the UGLY WHITE player and support steve jobs, and emo"ism".

And I really don't think that an M P 3 player needs to have loads of features aside from playing MUSIC, and videos!(But I have to admit that i've used the wireless feature numerous times to send pictures and audio to my bro's zune) Do I want it to be able to do all these crazy things? Shure, but I don't need it because that's not what I bought it for!

My PSP, now that!... is what I bought to do EVERYTHING, and I've been very happy with it. And very happy with it's durability, since I got it in the first month of release! (2004 i think)

[James @ Apr 11th 2007 2:37PM]

Jesse, do you have any data to back up your claims regarding superior sound quality? A quick google search indicates that others doing direct comparisons have found the iPod to sound as good as, if not better than, most other personal audio players. Even PC mag declares that your precious Cowon player sounds "as good as" (but not better than) an iPod.

http://homepage.mac.com/marc.heijligers/audio/ipod/comparison/comparison.html
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1833882,00.asp

Assumin the most popular thing has the worst quality is usually a good rule of thumb (see: popular music), but in this case it's just not true.

[Mike Botros @ Apr 11th 2007 3:09AM]

I saw a new Zune commercial today. No more of that ambiguous "welcome to the social". Actually talking about features.

I would like wifi radio and song downloads.

[tyecies @ Apr 11th 2007 4:38AM]

"The iPod has bad build quality, and crappy sound output...why does anyone want one again? Oh yeah, marketing and looks"

Now i'm not saying marketing and looks aren't important, but there are many other reasons people buy an ipod. Its user interface (the click wheel) and folder system are ridiculously easy for even the most technically challenged people, and from what i hear the zune's controls are rather lackluster. Personally I'm not to impresseed with the build quality of ipods (my 4G 20GB non-color is somewhat tempermental in cold conditions), but its ease of use and the itunes ipod combo that keeps people coming back

[PEZ @ Apr 11th 2007 6:21AM]

U R AWL KWEEYA. I dont hope it costs $199.99, but I do hope it costs less than $200.

[toosday @ Apr 11th 2007 9:11AM]

Wait a second.... Isn't Zune Scene the same site that released TOTALLY FAKE photos of the Pink and Red Zunes - claiming to have the "inside scoop" only to have the photos proven to be fake (since the pink Zune looks nothing like the photo they posted)?

Yeah, I thought so. Not trusting them, sorry.

[Lyndon @ Apr 11th 2007 9:48AM]

"The Revolution Evolves"? Fake. SO fake.

[Matt @ Apr 11th 2007 10:02AM]

treetrunk: the Zune marketplace didn't even WORK with Vista...
'nuff said.

[treetrunk @ Apr 11th 2007 2:11PM]

@Matt:

Yes, but that's irrelevent, as it is APPLE who claim their products "just work", not Microsoft. Both have their problems, but Apple try to market as if they never do.

[Matt @ Apr 11th 2007 2:24PM]

It's irrelevant? How is it irrelevant that Microsoft's own media player didn't work with their own operating system. We should just expect Microsoft products to be incompatible with each other? A comment was made about how long it took Apple to fix iTunes on Vista, well it took Microsoft a lot longer to fixe the myriad Zune Marketplace bugs.
Not that I care, I don't even have the option of buying a Zune in Canada.

[Kendeezy @ Apr 11th 2007 10:42AM]

Jesse S:

"iPods are poorly made, have a poor feature set, output poor sound (no real audiphile would ever use one)."

"The thing is, the ipod sucks in comparison to over players. It has really cheap build quality (I've gone through 3 in two years,"

"I suppose that's just the audiophile in me."

So a real audiophile would never use an iPod, but you've gone through 3?So are you or are you not an audiophile? You sound like a commercial for iaudio, and you are talking out of your ass. So you don't like the iPod. So what? If your iaudio player is so great, then listen to it and shut the hell up. Why are you so bothered by what has been proven to be the most popular? You are coming off like a psuedo-elitist bastard who really doesn't know what he is talking about. Just because you don't like something doesn't make everyone else wrong for enjoying it.

[Jesse S @ Apr 11th 2007 3:07PM]

I had them before I knew any better.

[RITTER @ Apr 11th 2007 1:13PM]

why is there no link to Zune Scene?

[treetrunk @ Apr 11th 2007 3:25PM]

@Matt:

Did you actually read my original post? The issue is MARKETING, not product quality. ALL companies products have faults, but Apple claim their products "just work", while others such as Microsoft make no such claim.

Therefore your pointing out an example of a fault in one of Microsoft's products has absolutely no effect on the above argument as I have already acknowledged that faults do exist! Since company X doesn't claim its products "just work", saying they don't is irrelevant. Since Apple does claim their products "just work", saying they don't is relevant.

[Matt @ Apr 11th 2007 4:39PM]

So because company X doesn't claim its products "just work" means that the consumer should assume that they won't?
Either way, using the example of iTunes not working with Vista, or the Zune Marketplace not working with Vista isn't really a fair one. Clearly nothing is 100% future-proof. However, one would think that Microsoft at least could ensure that its products are compatible with each other. Though that raises the spectre of PlaysForSure, so whatever.

[r3f @ Apr 11th 2007 2:57PM]

Why dont you use better research, James. Im not defending one or the other because i dont care. But your sources suck balls.

http://homepage.mac.com/marc.heijligers/audio/ipod/comparison/comparison.html
--Its a one paragraph oppinion from a biased mac site by someone who hasnt done any graph analysis of the audio output. Useless source of information.



http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1833887,00.asp
--Another useless source of information and thats because of: "On our lab tests, with the included headphones, the X5 showed a steady roll-off below 80 Hz, though response remained flat above that." Every one knows the included headphones in any media player are the lowest of the low, and that definently includes the iPod. To use those in a review does test the quality you get out of the box, but sure as hell does not define the quality of the devices audio output. Why dont you think before you challenge another person. Once again, i personally dont care about audio quality, but have been turned off by apple products after my well maintained shuffle died for no reason in 6 months. Apple is dead to me, and i wish i could take the form of Steve Jobs so i can march all you sheep over a cliff.

Man, forgot this was about a Zune. The initial Zune is a failure, simply put. But you CANNOT compare a current zune to an iPod, because all of you take into account sales, and a vast majority of iPod sales go towards the lower cost units, as opposed to the Zune sized units. If this is true, maybe the Zune can capture some marketshare from apple. It sure as hell wont be alot, because i can garantee microsoft will screw up in marketing, which apple always gets it done right.

[Jesse S @ Apr 11th 2007 3:10PM]

Thanks.

I saw some graph data using line out...Somewhere. I honestly don't remember.

Maybe on anythingbuipod.com or iaudiophile.net (yeah, a little bit of bias on those sites). It MIGHT have been on Hydrogenaudio or head-fi, I honestly don't remember.

[James @ Apr 11th 2007 4:50PM]

I did indicate my sources were the result of a quick google search. At least I tried to find some supporting data. You offered no data in return so you are officially the pot calling the kettle black. Even weak sources are better evidence than no sources.

And both my sources were still better than random comments that claim superiority without even a shred of evidence.

Also, the PC mag review does (indirectly) state that they used Etymotic ER4 to measure subjective sound quality and found the Cowon to sound similar to the iPod (granted, this was not an objective test).

Finally, the PC mag review was against the 4th gen iPod. The 5th gen is generally regarded as having superior sound to the 4th gen. making it even less likely that the Cowon sounds superior (unless it too has been updated to sound better: I don't know).

Why don't you pay attention before you make a jackass out of yourself?