Spicy Stuff

Zune Features

Everyone's eagerly awaiting for the release of Microsoft's new "iPod Killer", Zune. Eagerly not to get their hands on it, but to see how the competition will change the marketplace.

Microsoft is coming up with a slew of features in Zune. Please not that at this time most of these features could be guesses and speculation (at the time of writing this blog - 28th August 2006)

WiFi capability: Zune users will be able to share music between via Wi-Fi. I wonder if you can actually transfer files to other users. I guess you can broadcast songs, not transfer. So you can become a DJ, however your audience will be limited to 4.

Capacity: 30GB or 60GB hard-drive devices will be released first.

Media supported: Zune can play both audio and video, there is no doubt that WMV and WMA will be supported. Remember WMA could be DRM protected and therefore you will not be able to copy files from your device to another, nor can you make a CD of the songs.

Music: The screen appears the album's cover when music be played.

Video size: 3.5-inch bigger than video iPod's 2.5-inch.

Color: Zune should be available in three colors, white, black and brown.

Preloaded audio and video content: The video coming with Zune is "30 Seconds to Mars", the best rock video at this year’s MTV VMAs!

PlaysForSure: The service and device will not be PlaysForSure compliant, meaning you will not be able to use your Zune player with Napster or Vongo, for example. This will be an entirely new system. Microsoft will continue to support and develop for their PlaysForSure initiative, but all things PlaysForSure are handled by two entirely separate division that will not have any crossover.

Zune Live: Zune players will also be offered on a subscription basis access to the Microsoft Music library currently code named Alexandria. The MSN music service is called Zune Live and will incorporate Microsofts vision for a community of music fans very similar to what they have now with the Xbox Live.

Zune Processor: The Zune comes with a 400 Mhz DPS processor. This is a super fast processor with gaming capabilities. The processor will most likely be produced by Portal Player chips.

posted by Arun @ 7:45 AM