DailyTech says Microsoft’s new Zune, which goes on sale November 14th in the U.S., has a 30GB hard drive, 3″ QVGA screen, FM radio and WiFi. Battery life is rated at 14 hours (WiFi off) and 13 hours (WiFi on) when playing music. Battery life when watching videos is listed at “up to 4 hours.”
Microsoft is giving Zune owners a free 14 day trial of its subscription service. Users can download as much music as they desire within the trial period and listen to the tracks as much as they like, but the songs will go dead after 14 days. You’ll then either have to purchase the tracks or you can delete them off your player.
The Zune Marketplace will accompany the Zune player. Microsoft is discontinuing its MSN Music store. After November 14 it will no longer offer music downloads. Here’s Microsoft’s Q&A .
Gizmodo has a review of the Zune.
So the big news: The Zune will be upgradeable. How? Let us explain… Microsoft’s put in WiFi on the Zune, which even though it doesn’t seem to be a big draw to consumers now. The hardware paves the road for them to do various other “scenarios” with the Zune.
In the future, via software update, the Zune should be able to possibly do stuff like share songs over the internet, wirelessly sync with the computer, stream music/video to other devices, and much more. The hardware is there, but it just needs to be activated by software. Microsoft’s decided to focus (wisely) on making the Zune simple to use and intuitive for people to pick up. Something that we think they’ve achieved.
