Craving some more room for that season of Avatar you've been trying to cram onto your Zune without dropping your Mega Carrie Underwood Workout Mix? It looks like Microsoft is one-upping its 80GB model with a 120GB version, which just blew by the FCC, and should allow all your media to live in harmony. As might be expected, there's not much other than that new hard drive to set this new model apart -- the drive size is the same, as is the 2.5 firmware. The FCC tested this out on June 19th, which helps us exactly none in pinning when this will ship to stores, how much it will cost, or how they'll ever top those
Joy Division designs.
posted Aug 18th 2008 2:35PM
whatever happened to the touchscreen zune? at least give us 160GB... it's too unimpressive
Touchscreen? Well, one would think they'd have do something about the underpowered Zune Desktop software first, but I guess that's not needed as long as serious music fans continue to stay away from the Zune.
that would be a next gen device genius, this is obviously a new model for people who need more space. i like to carry lots of movies on mine so that i can watch them with friends at their place or wherever. very useful.
Yeah, coz I really enjoy the touch screen on my iPod classic.
Douche...
will battery life also be improved? The 160GB iPod touch has 10 hours more battery life for music than the 80GB.
Where are you getting a 160GB iPod touch? I wants.
Arent all iPod touches flash based? Can't compare battery life on flash based devices to ones with hard drives.
As much as I love microsoft, their treatment of the zune and the xbox360 are perfect reasons I can see why an Apple fanboy would hate them.
Xbox360...no built in wifi...no web browser. Even if I were to ignore the lack of a web browser, for Microsoft to not build in a wifi and sell a damn $100 wifi adapter is insanity. What's worse is that that part NEVER got cheaper and its still up there in price. Even when they redesigned the Xbo360 they never built it in. Meanwhile lowly wii and Ps3 came with it built in. PS3 was expensive, but Wii isn't...how much are they actually charging you for a built in wifi?
ZUNE....pathetic.
Microsoft releases it with a crappy wifi share stupidness - Sansa releases their DAP with built in Wifi and the ability to connect to the internet radio. So what does Microsoft do? They redesign it, make it smaller, but never give it a wifi that can do anything worthwhile. That zune song share bullsh*t was here and gone in a split second. Then Apple comes out and puts Safari on their iPhone and their ipod leaving Microsoft in the dust.
Microsoft has no idea how to make a good product.
@Flashpoint
Does any reasonably intelligent person at Engadget NOT think you're a total jackass?
"As much as I love microsoft..."
"Microsoft has no idea how to make a good product."
Don't try to avoid grills by playing both sides of the field. You can't love a company that you believe makes nothing good.
flashpoint: i like how you threw in "as much as i love microsoft," to push your anti-microsoft agenda. everyone knows you only post on engadget to stroke steve jobs.
@ sinai:
Sounds like *somebody* hasn't been reading Flashpoint's posts. He does a lot more Ballmer stroking than Jobs stroking.
You're getting your fanboys mixed up.
@ Flashpoint: I own an Xbox 360 and a Zune 80, and I can't agree more with you. I mean it pisses me off every single time I think about the lack of the expensively-sold-alone wifi for the Xbox 360 and the crippled useless wifi in the Zune! I seriously haven't used the Zune's wifi ever, except for once to try how fast sending a file was to my brother's Zune, other than that it is very very very pointless addition. I use wired network for my Xbox 360 machine, which ease up my pain when I think "What kind of harm would it get to Microsoft if they build in the wifi and have a web browser in their next software update??".
I swear sometimes I feel like going to Microsoft's R&D department and kicking the crap out of every single stupid copy-cat brain they have in there; If they only check out the ideas posted in thousands of online pages, they would be creating some of the most advanced gadgetry in the world, all for the same or less price of competing devices! God dammit.
Why do you, Microsoft, need to be so stupid?! In the Arab world we have a saying that urges "If you do a job, perfect it"; Microsoft is definitely doing lots of jobs, but they always ruin some of the most obvious and easy parts in their productions; it's like there is a specialized team to make sure everything that comes out of Microsoft has some crippled feature for the sake of it!
I'm jealous. I ran out of room on my iPhone White 16GB last week (and did, in fact, end up deleting Avatar in to save the Carrie Underwood). But a 160GB...
As much as I love you Flashpoint...
CLASSIC! Sorry, guys.
As much as I love Apple.
$10 just so i can write notes on my iTouch!!!
Also, I would like to address the xbox 360 web browser "issue."
I have a ps3, i've used the ps3 browser once to find it doesn't support a certain free suggestive website. I haven't used it every after that.
So this year the Zune is only getting a spec update?!?!
Microsoft really needs to do something with that crippled Wi-Fi... Let us do MORE! Like surf the Internet???
You really want to surf the internet on your Zune? Because I can't imagine ever doing that, or even wanting to do that.
there's nothing saying that this is the yearly product update, is there? remember their marketing strategy with the original zune and zune 2. they kept the first one around after the release of the second. perhaps this is just a slight refresh to the 2nd gen line that will still be around when the 3rd gen comes around
i've had my zune 2 for about a year now and love it. personally, i don't really feel like i'm missing anything with the zune the way it currently is. doesn't mean they can/should sit. it'd be a little disapointing from an product line point of view if they don't unveil a zune 3 this year.
We all know the only reason anyone wants portable browsing is for porn. So face it, youll just have to stick with downloading it for the time being.
I believe it's been rumored for months now that there was not going to be a hardware change this year.
I figure we're getting a hard-drive upgrade and they're bringing the software to the mac.
That's my bet for this year.
I was kinda hoping it would be 160GB over 120GB though :/
Control wise the touchpad would work for a web browser. It also has 16mb of ram, and would have a beefy 120gb hd for caching pages. It wouldn't be a technical impossibility, it would just be stupid!
120!!!!!!
Worst comment of the year!
@ Dan Halen: If by "comment" you mean "display picture", then you my friend, are a winner.
That's a crazy amount of space. Hard to tell from the photo but it looks about the same size as the 80gb.
it looks shiny, psp2000 style
Everyone should have all three seasons of Avatar on their PMPs. It is the greatest show ever.
...or not.
I think that if it was not for Microsoft's epic bank balance and shear bloody mindedness the Zune would have been killed off quite a while ago.
Surely it hasn't taken anywhere near the position in the market Microsoft would have hoped.
Yeah and they could have quit with the Xbox too.
Microsoft knows how to make something profitable.
Abuzar Baloach
"Yeah and they could have quit with the Xbox too.
Microsoft knows how to make something profitable."
You idiot, Microsoft has lost billions of dollas on Xbox 360. Zune hasn't earned them a dime either.
AW! I was hoping of OVER 9000GB!!!!!!!!
That joke is lost on many people...
And those that get it think it sucks
made me lmao, OVER 9000, heheheheheh
Wow. Never thought I'd regret buying my Zune 80. Ha.
yay more avatar...
And this is supposed to compete with what? There's already a 160 gig iPod Classic, Microsoft. Maybe you should've done a Zune touch.
That fat looking ugly piece of crap called the iPod classic?
no thanks.
The Zune is almost twice as fat as the iPod Classic. lol
That is what this is competing against...
"Dimensions:
* iPod: 2.4″ x 4.1″ x 0.41″ (67.2 cm^2)
* Zune: 2.4″ x 4.25″ x 0.5″ (85.3 cm^2)"
source: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Burnette/?p=394
if your going to support a product, at least know what your talking about.
hint: 0.50/0.41 < 2
iPod Classic 80GB - 0.4in in depth
Zune 80 - 0.5in in depth
iPod Classic 160GB - 0.6in in depth.
You cant mean width... they are exactly the same. Hmm, weight? Nope Zune is lighter. And its taller too! Taller, lighter, sexier... I could be talking about a woman, but nope.
I do agree that Microsoft should release a iPod Touch competitor, no matter the cost. Its longer list of features just make it that much more appealing. Unfortunately I dont think they will this year and next year will be too late. Prove me wrong Microsoft...
I like your creative rounding, AlCie. The 160GB ipod is really 0.53"
Okay, just putting this one out there, zip22.
If you wear tight enough girl-pants to where .03" makes a difference, it's time to think about getting a bigger pair.
I'm glad the Zune is getting a hard drive update though. Although you can really easily do it at your house.
Is it just me or does the nav pad look different?
No... its got a Glossy front plastic cover rather than the matte front on existing 80's. 80's never get smudges like that ¬_¬
Fantastic. The commitment from MS to continue its ground breaking innovative updates to the Zune platform has finally bore fruition. It's simply amazing that a 120GB capacity can fit in that super slim form factor. Massive amounts of dollars must have been spent on R&D to product such a product. At this rapid pace, the Zune will clearly overtake all other MP3 players in the market today. This update along with its extremely feature laden WiFi capabilities must have all competitors scrambling for a response.
Gotta love thinly veiled Apple fanboyism. Seriously, what's the point of being a fanboy? We're talking about electronic GADGETS, not hot women.
Right they should be spending more money on something useful, like Cover Flow.
my gf has an ipod nano and i played with cover flow. it was cool until i realized what a pain in the ass it was to find the song i want. its so much easier to search by artist than album name.
Don't be upset. Perhaps MS and DELL will partner and produce a mutated service called the ZuneZing Music Store. Say it a few times. It really does sound as if it was meant to be.
Yeah, it's a pain on the Nano, the screen's too small. It's better on the Touch/iPhone, I have to admit
And @phaybouy (above)
Yeap. It's since they got movie capability.
You're such a worthless tool, Jubei...
looks pretty good, if the price stays at 250ish, it should become a pretty good competitor on the market.
nano's have cover flow now? thought it was only the Touch
You know what MS needs to do....
They need to make the Zune act as a memory unit for the 360. I would LOVE to be able to store my gamertag and copies of the XBLA games and saves on my Zune..
Sweet! I am a little tired of my 30gb Zune (not enough space left).. this oughta be a good choice for me to upgrade to.
I went from a $100 30 gig to an 80 and it's great. The screen is much nicer, and looking at the 30 now, it looks huge. I wouldn't give up my zune for anything, due to it's iPod like speed/interface, but also the FM Radio. Most other players with FM radios have bad interfaces or clunky software on the PC side.
Things Zune needs to fix:
1) Speed up the PC software on launch, honestly... it takes forever. After it's up it's pretty quick, but initially, man, it's a minute or more.
2) Podcast wierdness - Perhaps it's old rss feeds I use, but some podcasts never get downloaded correctly, while they do in iTunes.
3) Cheaper accessories - this is mostly the fault of the lack of market penetration, and 99% of the accessories are first party, but also, that leads to fire sales of usb cables and wall chargers (not included in original box.. dumb) I've gotten a $5 wall charger (retail $40) and a $10 tv hookup kit (retail is about $80).
other than that, I love my zune, and have turned down several ipods.
I'm getting really sick of all the Zune bashers.
It is a solid PMP with a great ecosystem/firmware and ease of use. It is certainly superior to most other PMPs out there, with the possible exception of a few cowon or creative units.
Other than zealot/lemming like supporters, apple really doesn't have that much on the zune.
I agree, it's a great player. I love mine.
The only negative part was that the software forces you to use sync so I have to keep around 20 gigs of downscaled video on the computer that I don't need but one you get used to the sync it's actually pretty nice to always have a backup. My brother got himself a iPod classic and for some reason it broke and he had to send it in. He got another one for replacement and therefore had to do a lot of transcoding for the video he had on there. But that's got nothing really to do with this.
The Zune is a great player.
same here. i've had mine since december and i still luv it as much as the day i bought it. nvr gets old for me.
i would like anyone to point out a single thing that an iPod classic does better than a Zune.
...even fanboys know the Classic sucks
I realy prefer a Zune 80 insted of the classic, but I'll answer your question with two points:
- Clock alarm and sleep mode
- genre>artist view on the Ipod (you can't do that on the Zune)
But for all the rest.. The zune is much better.. but I'm still waiting for an 160gb (or higher) zune
- 160GB option
- multi platform support
- removable hard drive feature
- 160GB option
- third party software options (not official, but there)
the zune also doens't offer an equalizer, but the implementation on the ipod is less than ideal. the ipod also has a line out.
apple discovered such a ground breaking feature by adding that clock
Yawn...why don't they just give up already and admit defeat?
you a waste of space
I would love a Zune with bluetooth.
Seconded.
It looks a little more elongagted than the 80gb version.
thats an interesting idea and the zune really could use a better screen (640x360 since their videos are already at that resolution) but i think its the picture angle because the zunepad looks longer than it should as well.
i think it would be a novel idea if ms did something right and standardized all their players around a single screen resolution (again 640x360 would be nice).... would make everything simpler in terms of ui, video content etc.
They are all standardized around one screen res. The 4, 8, 30 and 80 all have the same screen rez of 320x240 I believe.
Hence I HIGHLY doubt they'll be changing the res.
I have a zune 30. The unit itself if very nice and well built but the software that I am forced to use is horrible. It lags, crashes, keeps putting duplicate songs on my zune and will only accept wmv for video. Plus it is such a pain to install.
That is the reason why I will not pick up a Zune not matter how much space they put in them. Let me drag and drop my files and use it as a USB hard drive. How hard is that?
The Zune software works very well. I don't see what the problem is.
P.S. If you REALLY want drag and drop support, it only takes 2mins to apply the HD Patch that enables that.
i dont understand how so many ppl say the software is so laggy when even on a high performance pc itunes runs like shit (in my experience). the zune software works great for me, except on my P4 pc its pretty slow but itunes is even worse. the only thing thats slow about it is browsing the marketplace sumtimes.
i my software has never crashed and i havn't had the duplicate song copy since the original 2.0 firmware
Only accepts WMV? Odd. I have a whole season's worth of Boston Legal on my 80GB Zune 2nd Gen in MP4. And I don't have problems with duplicate files at all. Sounds like you're dragging copies of identical songs from different locations, because that's the only way I've accidentally gotten dupes to show up.
I got my Zune maybe 6 months ago after retiring my old 30GB Dell DJ (gave it to my mom) and my wife liked the functionality/interface/etc. of the Zune so much, I got her one of her own earlier this month.
I've never owned an Ipod but I've toyed around with them before. Did nothing for me, honestly. Hated the control wheel and just didn't like the general interface. Never really understood all the hype over the Ipod other than the superficial, "Ooooh, it's pretty and colorful!".
No complaints with my Zune.
Fanboyism asside...does anyone know where to find actual sales numbers for the Zune? I'm curious how it stacks up with the iPod, and and whether or not MS has been making any progress etc...
I heard a while back that microsoft had sold it's 1 millionth Zune, but not much since then.
They announced 2 million in May, are #3 in the MP3 player market behind the Mac and Sandisk.
With Canada now on board for selling Zunes, that two million has grown significantly. The dozen users added from the Canadian market alone has surely cemented the Zune as a leading candidate in overtaking iPod sales.
Interesting that MS is still going with hard drive PMPs at this stage in the game. They must be seeing a demand for lots of storage storage still.
I'm guessing Apple will phase out the hard drive models completely, add Wi-fi to all the iPods, and go with the SimplyMedia approach instead (Apple's recent patent sounded a lot like SimplyMedia's approach.
More HDD space is useless without them allowing us to use the unit for mass storage. -__- Come on MS, I know you have heard our cries, just give it to us!
maybe the firmware that will release with this will add it. OMG YES!!!
The Zune 80 is really one of the best choices for a hard drive based player out there and I'm very happy that everything hasn't gone all flash yet because flash still isn't quite there as far as price/capacity.
I wanted a large capacity player and, quite frankly, the design of the Zune 80 beats the crap out of the iPod classic. The screen is larger, the device it self just feels higher quality, and (though personal preference) I like the interface better.
What did I loose going getting a Zune over an iPod Classic? Just the ability to play protected AAC files. Since I have no intention of ever purchasing DRM laden music, that's not a loss for me. Now, while I won't ever purchase DRM protected music, I have no problem renting DRM protecting music and Zune pass was another compelling feature that I just couldn't get with an iPod.
Other than that, it can play MP3 files just like iPods, it has excellent sound quality, excellent build quality, hell I can even convert videos for it using Handbrake which was made for the iPod.
I'll buy it the second I run out of room on my Zune 80.
You can use a Zune for mass storage (i.e. set it up as a removable drive).
I'm totally fine with my Zune 80. Not to say I wouldn't mind getting a larger one, or a larger one that is blue down the road... I'm totally content with my Zune, except for the dead pixel in the screen, which is a bummer. Anyway, I don't have an X-Box, nor do I really want one. There are a ton of things I'd like the Zune to be able to do however, like a calender/clock (which I think is already out there). I don't really care about my wireless, though I do use it from time to time....
An Ipod touch with 120GB is what i want. Why can't Apple do that?
I just filled my 30gb.
Ill have to decide whether Im going to get an 80gb (the price will probably fall) or whether I should just go all out and get a 120gb.
Yeah, I suppose it depends on the price... I had a 30 gig too, and well, sold it to a friend to get the 80. 80 is pretty big, especially if coming from a 30 gig. I'd wait and see what the 120 gig price is and if it has an impact on the 80, or if they are going to add additional sizes or colors later on.
Where's the 160Gb version. Did apple buy the entire world supply of 160Gb 1.8" drives?
Actually aren't we due another disk space hike? Where's the 240 or 360Gb 1.8" drive?
I like the Zune. But I'd like it more if it functioned as a regular MTP or UMS device. The Zune software is almost as bloated as itunes. Come on, Microsoft.. if Sony can ditch SonicStage and switch to MTP, I don't see why you can't make the switch too.
You know what I found most humorous about this post? Aside from the always funny "Ipod vs Zune" fanboyism, of course. The picture at the top: that "podcast" photoshopped in is great. :)
What are you talking about? "Podcasts" is a distinct menu option in the latest firmware (actually, may have been distinct since Zune upgraded to 2.0). It looks different than the other options because it was highlighted when the picture was taken.
podcast was one of the "big things" when the 2.0 firmware released. have u even touched a zune b4?