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More. More. More. I love it. Rumors are flying around like jabs in tonight’s Contender Boxing Match. Hope nobody gets knocked out.

Engadget has posted some nice looking leaked photos 1st of all. (click them for the big version!)

Somehow, I don’t think these were supposed to be seen quite yet.

Well, 30 minutes later, more in at Engadget…

This Engadget post, if accurate basicly takes all the guess work and some of the excitement out of it all. Read on for all the details.

Well, 1st off, no 160gb model on tap as many speculated. Engadget has blown the doors off it all here…

Hard drive Zunes

• It’s called the Zune 80 and, shockingly enough, it has 80GB of storage.
• Uses the new Zune Pad — four way touch-sensitive d-pad (with up, down, left, and right buttons).
• It will sell for $250 (with “premium” headphones).
• Available only in black (to start).
• Screen size has increased to 3.2-inches (from 3-inches). As far as we know the resolution is still QVGA.
• Dimensions are 61.1 x 108.2 x 12.9mm (2.4 x 4.25 x 0.5-inches), some 1/3rd smaller than the classic Zune.
• The classic Zune will now be known as the Zune 30 — it’s not going anywhere. More on that in a sec.

New flash Zunes

• Zune 8 and Zune 4 are the names for the 8 and 4GB flash based models.
• Also uses the Zune Pad.
• These will sell for $200 and $150 respectively.
• Both will be available in pink, green, black, and red.
• It will feature a 1.8-inch screen (compare to the nano’s 2-inch screen).
• Dimensions are 41.4 x 91.5 x 8.5mm (1.6 x 3.6 x 0.33-inches) — compare to the new iPod nano, at 69.8 x 52.3 x 6.5mm (2.75 x 2.0 x 0.26-inches).

Everything else

• New Zunes ship in November, date not yet announced.
• All Zunes (including the Zune 30) will have a new, redesigned interface and feature parity. In other words, early Zune 30 adopters will have all the same software features as new Zune 80, 8, and 4 users.
• Additional native video codecs for h.264 and MPEG-4 — users no longer need transcode those file types to WMV.
• WiFi sync to host computer!
• Podcast support! (Sorry, no over the air downloads — sync only.) Podcasts can also be shared via WiFi.
• The 3×3 song sharing DRM has had its three day restriction removed, but users can still only play files three times.
• There is still NO wireless music store.
• The Zune software is all new and rewritten, and is supposed to actually be more than a rebadge of WMP10 now. Friggin finally.
• The Zune music store is going DRM-free, with over 1m MP3 tracks being made available for download. Other details (like which labels, whether there is a DRM-free upgrade path is for users who’ve bought music with DRM, price differences, etc.) are not yet revealed.

DRM-less MP3 Downloads… HELL YEAH! Lots to look forward to here.

Chris Leckness (3527 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook

Chris Leckness is the Owner/Administrator of Mobilitysite. He is a Microsoft MVP, Mobile Devices and a member of the exclusive focus group, Mobius. Chris runs a Mobilitysite, GotZune, and a few other smaller sites and blogs. His personal blog is chris.leckness.com.