Zune 2 bits and pieces, plus an in-depth interface video
By Joshua Topolsky 
posted Oct 3rd 2007 6:02PM
posted Oct 3rd 2007 6:02PM
- 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"
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.
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...
Alright everyone it's time to give credit where credit is due.
Cheers to Microsoft for Wifi sync.
I wish my Touch had it.
Looks good indeed, but I'll stick to my Discman for now. I'll just wait for eBay to come into play here.
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.
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.
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.
#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.
Introducing... the new
WinPod!
4gb, 8gb, and 80gb
there sooo creative!
@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.
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!
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.
@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.
@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.
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!
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.
What about Audible Support??? Please find out for us Engadget. Will these things now support Audible.com files?
i was thinking the same thing...
Anyone know if the new firmware update will allow bookmarking of MP3 files (an important feature for podcast support)?
Looks like the thing would be interesting to move through. I also really like the screen to overall size ratio. Touche Microsoft, touche.
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.
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.
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.
@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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Interesting. I like that you can either touch or click.
Now only if MediaMonkey can promise support. :)
Wow. Microsoft really did things right this time apparently...
The rest of the world would love to use it too, I heard :p
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?
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.
Anyone notice he missed the "pictures" section about twice with the squircle?
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)
How does it copy from the iPod?
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.
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.
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...
Perfect, that's the information I was waiting to hear. Thanks.
Id definitely get one if they were AVAILABLE IN EUROPE!
Are you listening Microsoft?
AVAILABLE IN EUROPE!
eBay and the not so mighty dollar are your friends.
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 ;-)
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.
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
Credit card and eBay. Zune 1 is still not available in Canada; I didn’t let that stop me.
WHANT ≠ WANT
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!
Or Ebay it! And put it towards this newer hipper Zune with more HDD storage.
Dude. You totally are an MS employee. Well done hiding it.
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?
I'll be the first to admit I am an Apple fanboy. I am still rational enough to say that this new Zune looks pretty cool. I'm also disappointed in how Apple has been conducting itself towards consumers lately. They've seemed to adopt this "we're the good guys, but we have to act like bad guys for a little while to ensure our success against the evil empire; please bear with us" stance that is really unfortunate. It's a losing battle. I know money (in this case market cap) is power or lack therof, but losing your vision is losing your identity. I have no doubt that Apple is going to dribble out features that are far ahead of anything we've seen, at such a slow rate, that they will become eclipsed. Happened with Mac OS vs Windows 95, no?
looks nice!! The accessory box in some other pics had stuff printed in english and french.. does this mean its releasing in canada??
Awesome!
I am seriously considering trading in my 30gb for one of these new 80gb ones. . . maybe I'll wait for a green 80gb though.
Nice job Microsoft. . . nice job.
unfortunately im debating the same thing... I love my Zune (sorry but it is faster than the ipods)
I just wish i had the money for one, but that money is going towards speakers and a 705 receiver. Looks like il be sticking to the Zune with new software.
Good job Microsoft! now just give us gapless...please?
After watching that video, and owning an iPhone, I half-expected the reviewer to interface with the Zune using the screen (i.e. multitouch). Such a large screen, why the old school user input style? I have become so accustomed to multitouch that I take it for granted now.
If they'd added touchscreen capabilities, they'd have lost battery life and been forced to switch to flash memory, like the iPod touch. But yeah, I wish they'd introd a touchscreen version with a web browser too :D
Lose battery life? What they hell kind of ignorance is that?
Wow. I hate the smug attitude you iSh*t fanboys have.
"I half-expected the reviewer to interface with the Zune using the screen (i.e. multitouch). Such a large screen, why the old school user input style?"????
wtf? omg i can't believe it! did he like.. just use a BUTTON? omg... that's like so 21st century?? wtf omg lol??? ipod touch is my bff cause i can touch it without being accused molestation!
Give me a break. Ever think that people don't WANT touch screen?? Don't get me wrong, touch screen is cool... ON MY REFRIGERATOR. But just because Apple makes it doesn't mean it's the most functional thing ever. God. I hope Apple makes a clickwheel touchscreen for cars so you morons can drive off a cliff while worshiping it. I don't want a touchscreen MP3 player. That is ANTI-functional. It's a novelty. Get over it.
I would rather be able to operate my mp3 player from my pocket than to have a touch screen. I am looking hard at these new Zunes, my wife has the Halo 3 Zune, its just really hard to find a player that beats my Rio Karma.
Mike, you do realize YOU are the fanboy here? Look at all that hate and spite you have...
This thing is looking better all the time. The only thing I would really change would be to give it the ability to be used in horizontal mode all the time. The controls look a bit too close to the bottom to be comfortably used vertically, but using it horizontal would be perfect.
I agree. I have the first zune and I wish it could be used in horizontal all the time. It's easier to operate while driving. I guess being that it's easier than the iPod is good enough. I've had 5 mp3 players, one of them being an iPod video and one being a Zune. I got the Zune after my iPod was stolen, but I'm not so disappointed, as my iPod was scratched to hell, the battery didn't last long, the interface was slow, and text was too hard to read while multitasking. I have my gripes with the Zune, but I'd still take it over the iPod any day, especially considering that the iPod is WAY overpriced for the small functions it handles.
That thing looks really sweet, good job Microsoft.
"Too bad" my iPod Touch is here in just a day. (Im sure i will love it anyway)
I have to admit it....It's pretty hot, but I do think that the screen size is a bit overdone (weird that it's so long)
Mac user here btw....see we aren't all biased.
Did you say that about the Touch?
Can't wait to update my old Zune to the new firmware.
Looks nice minus that "I'm 85 and can't see" main screen.
Uh, you're not actually complaining that the screen is TOO BIG, are you? Holy crap, you people can't be pleased!!
Not the screen, the huge ridiculous font
Brad, I agree the interface - totally text driven mind you - looks like it was assembled for someone with eyesight problems. Surely a bit of colour couldn't hurt?
Looks ok, but again availability outside the US means no Zune for me
Interesting navigation though, I guess you don't have to worry about fingerprints all over the screen - hey I love my iPod touch but starting to hate the greasy marks left behind!
Amen! The interface is slick, but that home screen's font size is ridiculous...it cuts off half of "podcasts." Either increase the font size to put "podcasts" on a completely separate page or decrease the size and fit all the menus available onto one homepage. That looks like half-finished Word document, and it's not helping.
I want a Zune 80, but dear God that homescreen is geriatric!
I think someone else said that the original Zune had a similar sized font, but you can change it? Not sure as I've never played with one that much, but I'd certainly hope that was the case.
Ah! Well, in that case, I agree - great screen, but the font is huge and ridiculous!
Nice product. Apple can use the competition. I just hope an increase in Zune's market share doesn't take away Apple's bargaining power with the music lables, or else we'll all end up paying $30 per song per day to rent the right to listen to our music. I highly doubt Zune 2 will be THAT successful though.
Eh? Apple's all that stands between us and exorbitant music prices? I don't think so. The pricing of songs on Amazonmp3 compared to iTunes should be a very obvious counterpoint to that idea. The songs there are non-DRM, twice the bitrate of iTunes DRM tracks, and range from the same price to 10 cents cheaper.
If it were Apple that was keeping the major record labels from raising their prices to ridiculous levels on downloaded music, this most certainly would not have happened.
Now if they only made one with a Genuine Fake Wood finish.
Too bad they don't offer automatic updates for the hardware too!
I still
blargh that was supposed to say "heart my Zune."
stupid html tag interpretation...
wow really impressive. that has to be the best interface now, filling in that "one page" scroll gap that was never really in a device. The ipod's scroll was good for scrolling really fast but is horrendous for accurate single item scrolling as it is terribly inaccurate. Moving your hand in a circular motion was always a very stupid idea as well. The single item down (click) and fast scroll (hold click) were covered well with the original zune, but now this one will have the best mp3 player interface ever. Good work Microsoft, and nice job supporting the old zunes by upgrading their firmware to the new software as well.
What about a removable battery. I get the subway to work so I would watching video everyday. I need a removable battery to motivate me to buy this.
Yeah this is awesome, i wont even have to get a new zune because weer all getting the new features, first time ive ever seen something like this
When can we get a DAP that will also play shoutcast streams?
I know it's not a PMP but my old Treo has been doing this for me for the past couple of years. It was one of the main reasons I bought it. No XM/Sirius for me. Just a cable that plugs into my car stereo from my phone.
That's so true, most PDAs had mp3, video, web browsers, touch screen, wifi, sometimes Bluetooth, contacts, notes, etc. The only thing missing was the HDD (except perhaps the palm lifedrive), but now that we're heading back to cheap flash devices even that difference is gone. I think that if I'd dig up my old Cassiopeia E105 from 1999, and stuck a modern compact flash card in it (let's say a 4gb Fat16 partition), I'd have all the underpinnings of a Zune or iPod touch minus all the pretty transition effects and modern UI design.
You know, with the WiFi that should be possible, but I see an even cooler streaming feature... putting the store on a device is not a compelling feature if all you can do is buy music, but with the Zune Pass, which lets you currently set up and stream playlists on the desktop, that would be a badass feature on the device. User defined streaming music via subscription service from the store > shoutcast.
So long as you were in WiFi range you wouldn't need to worry about capacity. That would be the hands down killer feature.
I don't really like the new UI.
I've always liked the UI on my current v1 Zune, and I've always thought it was awesome.
The new UI refresh, looks kind of overdone. I don't like how the main menu has gigantic text. And navigating through other areas look too flashy.
Of course, I'm basing this on the video, but I hope the UI isn't too flashy. The current one always looked nice and simple to me.
I'm surprissed this doesn't have windows messenger built in to take advantage of the wifi, and or more integration with the xbox, beyond 'soundtrack' stuff.
I know ms employees will read this, so come on guys, time to push things a little more. wireless synch needs to auto check a folder on the network for changes and update as need be (this isn't hard from a programming perspective) and I would love to use this as a vista sideshow gadget. I don't have or like vista,.. but still, the code base is all inhouse, so lets see something more than just, it has a menu and makes sounds.
put the cpu to use.
MS could do a simple software update later to add Messenger, wireless sync - and maybe even a browser. They've got my attention with this one.
So, exactly how do you propose you reply accurately and quickly to IMs through Win Messenger?
caldrich, the pad can be used for rudemntry keyboard input, the same as on a game console via the gampad.
does it need to be perfect? no. lack of touchscreen doesn't mean a feature can't be put it.
Whatever happened to players that you just plug in and copy music to? Plug the ear buds in and stick it in your pocket. Must these things get more complicated every revision?
They're now done by *gasp* Sony. And Creative, iRiver and a few others afaik.
But that's also one of the major gripes I have with the Zunes and iPods - I dislike iTunes, and that Zune-SW looks a bit bloated as well...mass storage FTW!
This is quite an upgrade to the previous Zune, but it's still not amazing. I really like the wireless syncing, and a 3 inch screen would be pretty good for videos and photos, but when I had my 80GB iPod Video (5.5) people looked at it in awe of the huge capacity. Now that the ipod Classic is 160GB, the Zune 2 is merely just another unnoticeable PMP that isn't an iPod. I'm not saying the Zune is bad, but I think Microsoft should stop trying to get a product in every tech market known to man and start working harder on the things that really matter the most (Windows, Xbox 360, Office).
You know it would be even better if it could utilize RSS feeds. I'd add Engadget!
Well, rss is podcasts so you could..
I know.I'm just so excited I'm saying obvious stuff. Damn I want one!
If it worked with linux I'd consider it seriously. It's really really nice.
That UI is fantastic.
(I'm the guy on Xumdeo's graffiti board)
Im with B-Rad, its a VERY NICE looking Dap, but they could of made the font a little smaller, makes me feel a little slow. but other than that, here i come ZUNE2!
Does anyone wonder why Microsoft is so freaking late with this update? I mean, Apple will have had their 07/08 models available for at least a month or more before these are on shelves? Given the relatively incremental update (compared with a completely new Touch interface that Microsoft knew was coming to iPods in January of this year), the delay is weird. The update to the old Zunes is cool though (and a good business move).
I just bought a Touch and its a fantastic device (but could be better with only minor changes). Microsoft needs to be *far* more aggressive.