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View Full Version : FCC Reveals Zune: Guts and Glory


Jason Dunn
08-25-2006, 04:41 PM
<span style="font-style: italic;">&quot;Well, here's a bit of a surprise: a wireless PMP just showed up on the FCC, featuring a 30GB HDD, FM tuner and a strangely familiar 3-inch screen. And it ain't being manufactured by Microsoft. Instead it looks like Microsoft got their </span><a href="http://www.engadget.com/2006/01/05/toshiba-gigabeat-s-portable-media-center-with-2-4-inch-qvga-lcd/" style="font-style: italic;">good pal Toshiba</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> to produce the </span><a href="http://www.engadget.com/search/?q=Zune" style="font-style: italic;">Zune</a><span style="font-style: italic;">, which not only saves Microsoft the job of gearing up some production lines for the thing, but seems to keep them from stepping on at least one PlayForSure licensee's toes. Things get more interesting from there, since the documentation refers to those other heavily bandied code names: &quot;</span><a href="http://www.engadget.com/search/?q=Pyxis" style="font-style: italic;">Pyxis</a><span style="font-style: italic;">&quot; and &quot;</span><a href="http://www.engadget.com/search/?q=Argo" style="font-style: italic;">Argo</a><span style="font-style: italic;">.&quot; From the looks of things, Pyxis seems to be the name for the network which Zune devices will use to share content, since in the &quot;DJing Content&quot; section it states that &quot;Pyxis allows you to stream music to up to 4 other Pyxis devices.&quot; A bit more confusing, however, is that &quot;You can invite other Argo members that you meet to be your friends wirelessly.&quot; Of course, it's always likely that they hadn't gotten all the codenames smoothed out by the time they wrote that up, but it's clear that the Zune player as we know it is only a small part of the overall &quot;Zune&quot; plan.&quot;<br /><br /><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/zt/2006/toshiba-1089-zune.jpg" alt="" /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><br /></span>engadget has posted a great story about the Zune: FCC documents have been discovered that tell us more about the Zune than ever. The reason why the Zune was submitted to the FCC is due to the integrated WiFi: anything that sends a wireless signal must be approved by the FCC. And since the FCC started putting documents up on the Web, almost every new phone and wireless gadget has been &quot;exposed&quot; this way. We'll unravel the FCC Zune documents in a series of posts today...but it looks like our logo design was on target.

SuperFreak
08-25-2006, 05:25 PM
Sweet! 30GB, FM tuner, Wi-Fi... :eek:

Aaron Roma
08-25-2006, 05:51 PM
...but it looks like our logo design was on target.

Surprise... surprise.... imagine that. ;)


If this is the final design of the Zune, hopefully the usability will be more impresvie then the physical device itself.

saru7755
08-26-2006, 03:54 AM
as much as i wanted MS to do the whole design thing themselves but choosing Toshiba for the 1st device is still okay.

Just wanna confirm, this first device will play vdo's right?

Darius Wey
08-26-2006, 05:55 AM
Just wanna confirm, this first device will play vdo's right?

Yes, it will play videos, if the information contained within the FCC documents is factual (and I'm pretty sure it is). ;)

rvacha
08-26-2006, 04:53 PM
Did anyone notice that there are two model numbers (1089 and 1090) submitted to the FCC? The actual FCC radiation self-certification refers to the 1090 while (presumably) the pictures depict the 1089. I wonder if it's possible that the prototypes we've seen really aren't the real thing?

rvacha
08-26-2006, 05:20 PM
Spoke too early.... The exciting colors are

1089 - Black
1090 - White
1091 - Brown

And since I haven't seen anyone mention this yet the battery is only 800mAH, not very large, as can be seen in the pictures. If you have WiFi in a smartphone then you know that it clobbers runtime - and that's only with 802.11b. Zune's Keystream/Taiyo Yuden b/g should be worse. The large color LCD won't help much either. And there is definitely no wall adapter input - USB is the sole method for charging the battery. There is definitely no video output. It appears that USB data transfer is locked out when WiFi or video is playing