Though I have only read reviews and played with a couple of them, I have to say they did a damn good job of showing the top 10 MP3 players. It missed a couple of fan favourite players (such as the Sandisk Clip and Creative Stone), but it did include the ZEN, Zen V Plus, 3rd gen Nano, iPod Touch, Clix Gen 2, Sansa Connect, P2, Zune 8, Sansa View and Sansa E280. If you are looking for an MP3 player, it is definitely worth a glance.
For the article, click over to PC World.
Bad news people. The Zune 4 and Zune 8 flashed based PMP players will not feature video out capabilities as first expected. Apparently the only Zune 2.0 that will feature the ‘DVD quality output’ will be the Zune 80. I guess it may be another reason to buy the 3rd gen iPod instead.
For more info, click over to the Engadget Blog.
So the big news today is that Microsoft have refreshed there series of Zune players, and now bring the series up to 2.0 (or firmware 2.1). The Zune range has now grown huge with now a choice of 4 different players, and even more colours.
The original Zune will stay in the series, but for a first, will get the new firmware and new features and get a name change to Zune 30. The other 3 Zunes are all new and all feature a new way to navigate, called a Zune pad. The Zune pad is basically a four way touch-sensitive d-pad.
The first two of the remaining 3 are flash based players, with the only difference between them being is a 4GB (titled Zune 4 and will sell for $US150) or 8GB (titled Zune 8 and will sell for $US200) option. They both feature a 1.8-inch screen, WiFi and will measure 41.4 x 91.5 x 8.5mm. Both will be available in pink, green, black, and red.
The remaining Zune is titled the “Zune 80″, which as you could guess it is a 80GB HDD based player. It features a very nice big 3.2-inches QVGA screen, “premium” headphones, WiFi and will measure 61.1 x 108.2 x 12.9mm. It is only available in black (for now) and will retail for $US250.
Coming with the Zunes is also a rehash of the firmware, which changes the GUI and a few features to boot. New features include native video codecs for h.264 and MPEG-4, sync video from your Media Center PC, WiFi sync to host computer, Podcasts, 3 day play limit on shared music now removed (still 3 plays though) and the Zune Store is going DRM-free. Now time to list the things missing, which are no wireless music store,no 16GB flash model, no Bluetooth and no memory card slot. I will have to hold judgement until I see the battery lives of the players. Expect an update in November when they ship.
For more info, click over to the Engadget Website.