Zune HD hits FCC in prolific photo shoot, 16GB and 32GB capacities
By Ross Miller 
posted Aug 10th 2009 2:39PM
posted Aug 10th 2009 2:39PM
posted Aug 10th 2009 2:39PM
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
That looks nice. Hee haw chance of seeing it in Europe anytime soon though.
It'll probably take a while before a Europe release.
I personally am liking this product, but think I might wait for the reviews first before replacing my aging iPod Touch; we all know how Microsoft products react when hearing the sound of a public release.
"Our Princess" is referring to paul chapel. :)
Samsung has an alternative and I'm somehow sure it will hit europe this or next year...
@OneLove
Brilliant, just brilliant
Excellent small video clip showing the differences between LCD and OLED - the center one is OLED, the right is an iPod Touch. Viewing angles are incredible.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/designfabulous/3482406630/
Those capacities are fine with me, but I I think it will take a 64 GB to make this useful for watching 720p videos, since they're a couple GB a pop.
agreed. or maybe some Netflix streaming?
In theory I have this problem with my nano and huge videos, but iTunes has smart playlists that so I can sync, for example, only two unwatched episodes of family guy at anyone time. I really like where this zune is going so I hope that the software is equally as good if I'm going to get one next time I change player.
Yes, because most movies are over 30 hours long, so there is no use for 720p playback without 64 gigs.
Of course it is bloody useful with 32 gigs.
Agreed. The strange thing is Media Center will sync like that to other devices (all eps, recent eps, etc). Zune needs to support this too.
OMG !!! Finally.. Its here...
Boy, being taped to styrofoam doesn't do much for the sexy factor, does it? Still want one.
And Mark, it is being released in Europe, same day as US.
WIN!
How about Australia?
I think the "confirmed" rumors generally agree on US, Europe, Australia and China at launch. So you're in luck if they hold.
Can't wait for Australia launch too.
And Windows CE? Sweet - cooked ROMs, here we come!
I would love to have a Zune Phone though. They should release the Zune UI as an 'app' for WinMo 6/6.5/7.
I'm hoping "zune in Australia" means ALL the Zune models.
I'd much rather a Zune 120.
How does that battery compare to the other players.... 730ma?
iPod Touch has a 900mah but the Tegra chip and the OLED screen will really help the battery life.
Speaking of battery, if you look at this picture it shows the battery soldered to the board:
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2009/08/zunehd-in-fcc-picture-12-rm-eng.jpg
Looks like replacing the battery will be a little more complicated than I thought, and not something I would take lightly.
@kazbaeden, that white half is where the battery slides into. Just like a phones battery. I think those two parts are not connected at all. It appears to be user replaceable though.
@Templarian:
Don't think so. The white looks like a standard white-plastic-wrapped Li-ion or Li-poly battery to me.
@kazbaeden
only three solder connections, not that big of a deal.
what i find interesting in that shot is that the connector says "foxconn", they make microsoft's products as well? thats odd.
@Jon, I looked at the other image in the gallery. Too bad would of liked to see it replaceable. It only takes a while to notice these batteries diminish.
Looking at the picture again, the Tegra chips still say "Engineering Sample."
Since this is just a prototype, I don't think they'd go to the trouble of making modular battery connectors. I think we should wait and see whether this aspect changes in the future.
@Omega Foxconn makes stuff for EVERYBODY. I used to ODM notebooks through them, and they make at least half of Intels own motherboards, as well as many other "manufacturers".
Foxconn started out making little bit for motherboard, such as connectors, heatsinks, backplates...
You would be hard pressed to find a computer from the last five or six years that didn't have something foxconn in it.
Also +1 for this being pre-release so they might not have taken time with the connector. Otherwise, it's just a couple minute job to desolder it and solder in a new one.
@ James "Didn't some study find that wikipedia is about 99% accurate?"
Yeah, I think you can find the study on wikipedia, but who knows how accurate that is.
Finally. 1 Step closer. Now if Mobile IE is nice ill gladly jump ship from the Apple sandbox dump my Ipod Touch and move into the large MS sandbox.
Surprisingly enough, I've heard it is good enough to rival mobile Safari. At least that's what Cnet thinks.
I heard the browser on the Zune HD is made by the IE team, but it's not IE. It's also meant to be pretty good, as said above. Shame the IE on Windows Mobile doesn't follow suit... or maybe it will in the future :)
nice.....but no 64GB model. I'll hold off on that. hopefully we will see it not too long after CES. I've got a 30GB Launch model and its full 32GBs is NOT enough for my music alone, then throw in the fact it plays 720p HD movies and that makes 32GBs seem even SMALLER
I completely agree. I can't justify only 32GB for a 720p device
I'm in the same boat... was really hoping for a higher capacity. Oh well.
Finally, capacity. Now all we need is MSRP. The 16GB better be $200, as devices like the Zii will have video recording.
Is that WinCE underneath? I was hoping for Winmo7...
WinMo 7 is built on top of CE...
@Mark: What I meant was I was hoping the ZuneHD to simply use WinMo7 instead of another branch of CE.
Keep in mind that this is for the FCC, so all they need is to show how the hardware reacts when it's actually running something. So it probably doesn't matter too much what exactly is running on it. That said, It makes sense to me that they would have a modified version of WinCE rather than just slapping WinMo on the Zune and being done with it. It's meant first and foremost to be a media player so it makes sense that they'd lay out things differently than the standard WinMo does.
wow... how bout some reading before making comments like this...
Zune HD = WM 7 = Win CE 7
Zune and WM are just interface layers over Win CE.Its all they have been and all they will always be. Hell even the iPhone has the same relation! OSX mobile or whatever is a stripped down OSX just like Win CE is stripped down windows.
@Ben Carrol
"Windows CE is a distinctly different operating system and kernel, rather than a trimmed-down version of desktop Windows. " - Wikipedia
@peter dude citing wikipedia is the most idiotic thing u can do. Didn't your high school teachers tell u that?
@Zuner@Heart: This isn't a term paper, it's a comment on a tech blog. Wikipedia is good enough for this.
Wikipedia is right though. I'd suugest that there is the same distinction for iphoneos, it is only distantly related to Desktop osx.
@Zuner@Heart: Didn't your high school teachers teach you to spell out the word "you"?
Didn't some study find that wikipedia is about 99% accurate?
Am I the only one noticing that it looks like it's running Windows Embedded in one of those shots?
I saw that too..WTF?
I noticed that same thing.
Hackability ftw?
Makes sense, FCC doesn't need a fully running UI and the software isn't completely finished yet anyway.