Zune 2 bits and pieces, plus an in-depth interface video

We know you've heard a lot of Zune 2 info today, but we've got the word on some other details and features that we thought our loyal, highly intelligent, and downright handsome readers would like to know. Also, the folks at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer have scored some quality hands-on time with the 80GB version, and you can see breathtaking video of the interface in action after the break. But first -- here's more goods on Microsoft's newest entry into the media player world:

• The new players will support lossless audio of the Windows Media variety (don't go screaming FLAC just yet)
  
• The WiFi is just b/g, so no n, a or x (the sexiest form of WiFi)
• Microsoft is still in the testing phase for battery life and will have numbers "later"
• You can manually sync up the player wirelessly on battery power, but you can't do auto-sync -- you'll need the dock for that action
• All your old accessories are said to work with the new models
• The screens are glass, not plastic
• Green is the new brown... but brown is sticking around on the 30GB models
• You can connect the Zune to an Xbox 360 to create "your own soundtrack"

[Thanks, Nikropht]

[Slvrgun @ Oct 3rd 2007 6:08PM]

Hot damn! That is simply stunning. Microsoft you guys sure did your homework. Sign me up. Beautiful interface and I am really feeling the squircle.

[David Piatek @ Oct 3rd 2007 6:33PM]

If that doesn't just scream Microsoft employee shamelessly trying to promote their new player, then I don't know what does.

Before you play the 'fanboy' card on me, no I don't own an iPod anymore...

[Cagrino @ Oct 3rd 2007 6:36PM]

Alright everyone it's time to give credit where credit is due.

Cheers to Microsoft for Wifi sync.

I wish my Touch had it.

[HaX80r @ Oct 3rd 2007 6:45PM]

Looks good indeed, but I'll stick to my Discman for now. I'll just wait for eBay to come into play here.

[Slvrgun @ Oct 3rd 2007 6:52PM]

I haven't owned a Mp3 player since the Creative Zen Micro 4GB. I don't work for Microsoft and I am not an ex- Apple employee. I am just a hugely interesting consumer. And I have done my research. The Zune has a better offering than the iPod, point blank.

[Nerdtalker @ Oct 3rd 2007 6:57PM]

I agree, hardware accelerated interfaces with neat transitions certainly makes it look slick.

The way the letter (corresponding to the first character of song titles) changes and fades... That's what makes it cool.

[Phreak511 @ Oct 3rd 2007 7:50PM]

This will fail like EVERY other Microsoft product. Zune is horrible. It sucks. And anyone who buys one and is seen in public will be laughed at.


BTW, I'm an Apple employee / plant.

[Paul @ Oct 3rd 2007 8:49PM]

#Phreak I suppose you have never heard of windows, xbox, or Visual Studio just to name a few? All of those previously mentioned, love them, hate them, far from failed.

[Shane Reustle @ Oct 3rd 2007 8:49PM]

Introducing... the new

WinPod!

4gb, 8gb, and 80gb

there sooo creative!

[Paul @ Oct 3rd 2007 10:30PM]

@Shane: Good lord people, now you are claiming that just because it comes in three different sizes, one of which is 80 gigs its an ipod clone?

WAKE UP AND SHAKE OFF THE STUPID.

// do not ask me how, I am not the one that needs to do it.

[Shibathedog @ Oct 3rd 2007 9:57PM]

I'm wondering if people who make comments like this realize hard drives come in set standard sizes. You can't just go out saying i want a 70GB HDD! I want a 125GB HDD! They pretty much come in sizes of 40, 80, 120, 160, 250, 320, and so on all the way to 1024 unless its some kind of specialized HDD built for speed or some special application, which they aren't going to spend extra money to do when they can just mass order the drives already being produced for cheap. So of course they are going to have similar if not the exact same sizes. It also keeps them competitive.

Anyway, this Zune looks really neat, if it has decent sound quality and a fair price ill pick one up, ive been dying for an MP3 player that holds alot and still sounds good (not that the two directly effect each other at all, it just seems to be how it works out :/) If this doesn't work out, theres always Archos!

[nikster @ Oct 3rd 2007 9:58PM]

Yes they have done their homework. Assignment: How can we copy all that cool stuff from the iPhone/iPod touch/iPod without getting sued to the moon. What they have done is pure grade A.

You know what they say about imitation... hey no shame in it, they took some neat stuff from the iPod/iPhone and put it in their Zunes. Glass screens, smooth transitions, sexed up graphics. And a touch pad instead of a touch screen.

Oh I am sure they'd have done all that even if the iPhone didn't have it. 100% sure. No, 150%. Totally ;)

Somehow Microsoft is always at its best when playing catch-up. I'll give them the squircle - Dell wouldn't have come up with a new shape like that. But apart from the shape it seems to function like a touch pad...

Here's a reminder what innovation is: It's coming up with something that hasn't been done before. The Zune can still be a good product - and it sure looks like it from the video - without innovation.

[RyanReed @ Oct 4th 2007 9:00PM]

@nikster:
The Touch and iPhone aren't innovative either. Touchscreen has been there for a long while. I've had a PDA with all those features for years. In fact, the only thing I can think of they really innovated is their wireless iTunes store which really isn't that innovative to begin with. Apple is excellent with designs and marketing but they haven't really innovated much in the last year or two.

[Hung @ Oct 4th 2007 6:57PM]

@Paul

You did see the caveate at the end of his comment, right? "BTW, I'm an Apple employee / plant." I'm pretty sure that nothing in his comment depicts his actual opinion.

@nikster

They copied "Glass screens, smooth transitions, sexed up graphics. And a touch pad instead of a touch screen?" Come on, you can't be serious? I really hope that was just poorly written satire, because I'm appalled at your insight—lack thereof, rather—into so-called "iPod innovations." Come on.

[Richard Dy @ Oct 4th 2007 6:02AM]

I Would Like a Zune sadly, I have a Mac, I Think Apple will achieve touch wifi sync with software update.... after all, it's OS X based... I just wish apple would level their classic with the new Zune and update the easy to use software with a stunning one! not a split screen one that is has very small screen!

[Scott @ Oct 4th 2007 3:23PM]

It looks like the interface needs some smoothing out. He is having some serious trouble getting to "pictures" and he keeps scrolling past it. Other than that, this might be the replacement for my 2nd Gen nano when it dies (if it dies). Looks nice.

[Bobo @ Oct 3rd 2007 6:10PM]

What about Audible Support??? Please find out for us Engadget. Will these things now support Audible.com files?

[TDG01 @ Oct 3rd 2007 7:49PM]

i was thinking the same thing...

[Brad @ Oct 3rd 2007 6:27PM]

Anyone know if the new firmware update will allow bookmarking of MP3 files (an important feature for podcast support)?

[ryan @ Oct 3rd 2007 6:12PM]

Looks like the thing would be interesting to move through. I also really like the screen to overall size ratio. Touche Microsoft, touche.

[jason51873 @ Oct 3rd 2007 6:26PM]

Very nice, but I really don't see much improvement over my old Zune 1. I mean they still did'nt do anything great with the WiFi (I guess wireless sync is a start). I am glad that my old Zune will be getting the new firmware, but this thing has nothing on the iPod touch cept storage and price, but the touch beats it in every other way and a bunch more ways that the Zune don't even have.

Sorry MS - I supported your Zune 1 but after waiting a year for this update I'm not about to wait another year for something good - iPod here i come for my next player.

[Carlos @ Oct 3rd 2007 6:33PM]

Ryan - these "new" Zunes appear to have the same internals as the original Zune. thats why the new 2.0 software works on the old Zunes.

Seems like its noting more than a refresh of the same old Zune.

[Homeboy @ Oct 3rd 2007 6:39PM]

Jason: Who said anything about the Touch. The Zune 80 is an iPod Classic competitor and nothing else.

As a music and video device it's much better than the iPod Touch. It comes with 10 times storage, has FM radio, supports sync over WiFi, almost has the same screen size and is a lot cheaper.

Sure it's not a big jump from the Zune 1.0, but the iPod Classic isn't any different from it's predecessor either. At lest MS did a better job keeping us consumers happy.

[cran @ Oct 3rd 2007 7:07PM]

@Carlos

I love how you can tell what internals it has from... watching the UI? Or was it the metal case that gave it away? You must have a great job reverse engineering things if you can immediately tell what components make up a device by its form factor.

[John @ Oct 3rd 2007 7:07PM]

The internals of the Zune can shift around and still use backwards compatible firmware. Your PC from 1997 can run XP, but that doesn't mean that it's the same as the one you currently use.

[Fabio @ Oct 3rd 2007 9:45PM]

Even though both are running XP, they are not running the same bios... Firmware is not only a kind of operating system and the inference about internals, at least for me, makes sense indeed.
Regards,
Fabio

[Carlos @ Oct 3rd 2007 10:33PM]

If the new 2.0 software runs on both the new Zune and the original Zune then its either the same hardware or your over paying for the new hardware because its underutilized.

[josh @ Oct 3rd 2007 10:35PM]

Firmware is just software that sits on a memory chip. Microsoft could be using an identical or compatible BSP between zune hardware (probably not horribly likely with both a flash and a harddisk version) or they could have the software platform independant (assuming both platforms had the same instruction set, or the software was written in managed code and the compact framework was on the device) of a hardware abstraction layer.

I suspect they are using different parts, since the devices seem smaller. That said, why do the parts *need* to be grossly different, outside of wanting smaller more power efficient parts? They don't need to be any faster for what it does, nor are they adding any functionality that requires new chips (man, I wish it supported bluetooth A2DP headphones...) so outside of looking for more power efficient and smaller chips, there isn't a huge need to change the interals a great deal.

[ma5yk @ Oct 3rd 2007 6:13PM]

Interesting. I like that you can either touch or click.

Now only if MediaMonkey can promise support. :)

[L @ Oct 3rd 2007 6:16PM]

Wow. Microsoft really did things right this time apparently...

The rest of the world would love to use it too, I heard :p

[MARSHAK @ Oct 3rd 2007 9:25PM]

that video didn't show it blue screening.

I'm only partially kidding. I expect the zune to take a good hard bite out of the ipod market share. If in 6 months the price dips $50 or so, and no one has complained about major and widespread problems, sign me up. hell I'll take a zunephone if that ever happens.

Also, I want to address what the linux whores are going to do with it. ipod linux was a neat toy but apple did a good job of shutting it out on later models. Can the zune get something similar? can it play doom?

[V3LOCIP3D3 @ Oct 7th 2007 10:52PM]

Zune 1.0 has been out for a while, and I think it has proven itself better, IMO, than the ipod (it's more than an opinion actually if you read the comparison.) I bought one after my ipod gen 5 was stolen. I didn't think there was much more an MP3 player could do than an iPod, but I'm glad I switched. Zune only loads 1 program in memory (zunelauncher.exe) and takes up about 3mb. If there was one thing I hated about the iPod, it was the software. Too many programs running in memory, and iTunes was a pain in the ass. I only discovered this when I used the Zune software and realized how easy it was. I really don't give either company much applause for creating a good MP3 player, it's one of the easiest gadgets for a company to make and it's not much of an accomplishment to make a great one.

And before you mac-addicts go on about windows not making good products, save yourself some embarrassment and shut your mouth. Mac only owns about 5% of the market. I don't think windows has anything to worry about, especially with Linux being open-sourced and actually gaining market share when mac is losing it. Why do you think that is?

Zune comes with wi-fi, free fm tuner, great software, bigger screen, better look and design (opinion based) . . one thing I would love is an equivalent to the WMP visualizations on your Zune, AN F-ING CLOCK (jeezus)! and a small, high quality, 1080p projector, with a lens located next to the headphone jack, and THX 7.1 surround sound.

[Paranoia @ Oct 4th 2007 7:45PM]

Anyone notice he missed the "pictures" section about twice with the squircle?

[Michael @ Oct 3rd 2007 6:18PM]

Looks good, but he was having a little trouble using the Zune Pad to view his pictures.
Copies from iPod a bit, but hopefully the competition will make Apple buck up its ideas, iPod interface isn't quite as good as Zunes (apart from the touch of course)

[Paul @ Oct 3rd 2007 7:51PM]

How does it copy from the iPod?

[Michael @ Oct 3rd 2007 7:59PM]

The way it looks, similar to the Nano, but then again it's probably more familiar to the Sansa player (I forget it's name). They need to differentiate the product from the iPod, because the "iPod but better" approach has been tried many times in the past.

[rlh82 @ Oct 3rd 2007 8:59PM]

I just don't know what people are expecting from players sometimes when they say it's 'like the iPod.' Yes, it's a DAP, it has a screen, and it has a control scheme. I mean . . . what else is there? There's the touch, which is cool in it's own right, but I think if the Zune 80 was an enormous touch screen device then everybody would, once again, say it's too much like the iPod, just a different iPod. I dunno, just seems like a silly gripe.

[Libb @ Oct 3rd 2007 6:19PM]

Brad: I saw on another video of the interface that the podcast interface asks you when you select a podcast whether you want to continue playing from where you left off or start over, so it does allow you to maintain your place in a podcast. Not sure if it supports AAC chapter markers though...

[Brad @ Oct 3rd 2007 10:24PM]

Perfect, that's the information I was waiting to hear. Thanks.

[McGinley @ Oct 3rd 2007 6:19PM]

Id definitely get one if they were AVAILABLE IN EUROPE!

Are you listening Microsoft?

AVAILABLE IN EUROPE!

[Homeboy @ Oct 3rd 2007 6:39PM]

eBay and the not so mighty dollar are your friends.

[Rususeruru @ Oct 3rd 2007 10:49PM]

Hey if you're willing to pay the USD price in Euros maybe I'll ship you one... the weakness of the dollar to the euro may be enough to cover shipping ;-)

[PDexter @ Oct 4th 2007 2:29AM]

I was kinda intrested about first zune...but the lack of Europe support was the final no go.
I'm a bit picky about sound quality so if zune 2 has good one its perfect for me(and to come here Europe damn it!) thought it came a bit too late already sold my 5.5G ipod and getting classic for now.

[Deniz @ Oct 3rd 2007 6:20PM]

Damn it, I whant that ZUNE.
Zune 2 Kicks ASS
But it ain't for sale yet in The Neterlands for a long long time

[wetworker @ Oct 3rd 2007 9:11PM]

Credit card and eBay. Zune 1 is still not available in Canada; I didn’t let that stop me.

[chris @ Oct 11th 2007 1:38PM]

WHANT ≠ WANT

[chris @ Oct 3rd 2007 6:20PM]

Looks nice, but I'm not going to throw away my Zune 1 just to get a new one. I'll take the new additions to my older version!

[Slvrgun @ Oct 3rd 2007 6:54PM]

Or Ebay it! And put it towards this newer hipper Zune with more HDD storage.

[Yoshi Likes Boys @ Oct 3rd 2007 7:33PM]

Dude. You totally are an MS employee. Well done hiding it.

[Dean @ Oct 3rd 2007 8:02PM]

yeah, didn't steve jobs say straight up that you should buy a new ipod every year? I like how microsoft decided to let all the old zune owners in on the new features, apple wants you to buy a new product. and you guys said microsoft was an evil money making corporate machine?