Zune Boards has some exclusive Zune v2 Features information:
- Pairing Zune to a new computer will not delete your content. In 1.0 and with iPods, they require you delete all of your content when you pair it with a new computer. In 2.0, this requirement didn’t seem to be very customer-friendly and was lifted.
- Copy music to your computer. Reverse sync was a feature in v1 and we’ve made it even easier to do in v2. When looking at music in your device, just click and drag any music to the computer icon in the bottom left of the screen, and you can copy your music to the computer you’re connected to. This is especially great when moving music from your home PC to your work PC and vice-versa.
- Express yourself. The Zune Social is launching in beta, and it is incredible how addictive it is to be able to see what music your friends are playing and what their favorite artists are. The Zune Cards are huge, beautiful and customizable so that you can truly make it yours.
- Zune 4, 8 and 80 can sync 720×480 (30fps) or 720×576 (25 fps) video natively. This means less transcoding required, and your video will look great on your Zune 80 with TV-OUT enabled.
- MP3s in the marketplace will not have watermarking. Some labels are requiring watermarking to sell MP3 content, and thus far we’ve chosen to stick with our principles and refuse that content.
- All Zunes will support WMA lossless natively. No more transcoding of your best looking content.
- Zune 80 will come with premium headphones. These headphones sound fantastic and will be retailing for $39.99 if purchased separately. With Zune 80, they come in the box.
- Wireless send is improved. Music that you send can be played for three plays. We’ve dropped the three-day time restriction from sent music.
- We’ve added music videos to the marketplace. Music Videos will be sold through the marketplace, giving you another option to get great video content on your device.
- Native podcasting support. We have separate sections in the collection, marketplace, and in the device UI to support podcasting. There is a whole editorial team working on making the marketplace the best way to discover and subscribe to new podcasts.
- All Zunes have the same resolution screen. That means that the Zune 4 and 8, despite having a smaller screen that their bigger brothers, get to use the full hi-def UI experience complete with animations and blending transitions that make the device feel smooth and beautiful.
- Change your background. We include five different, gorgeous, hi-def backgrounds that you can choose from to customize the look of your software.
- Full-bleed artist art. For the most popular artists, we will have huge, gorgeous full-window art of the artist to make your shopping experience that much closer to being backstage with the band.
- More marketplace genres. People complained about the number of genres, and we’ve expanded to 17 top-level genres and many more sub-genres to help you find the music you’re looking for.
- Everything is upgradable. We have built an infrastructure to be able to rapidly turn around fixes and feature updates. I can make no promises on when future updates will come, but I can say that we’re already working on code for post-release updates.
Here are a few things to consider in your buying decisions:
* Zune is only supported on Windows XP SP2 and Windows Vista.
* DVR-MS/Media Center videos are only supported in editions of Vista which include Media Center. They are not supported in XP Media Center.
* Zune 4 and 8 do not support TV-OUT.
* Zune 4, 8 and 80 do not have an equalizer.
* There are no automatic/smart playlists in the v2 software.
* Zune 30 does not support WPA2 for wireless sync.
* Only English, French and Spanish characters are supported on the device.
For more information (and pictures) visit Zune Boards
