September 14, 2006
@ 07:33 PM

From the Microsoft press release Microsoft’s Zune Delivers Connected Music and Entertainment Experience we learn

The Zune Experience

Available this holiday season in the United States, Zune includes a 30GB digital media player, the Zune Marketplace music service and a foundation for an online community that will enable music fans to discover new music. The Zune device features wireless technology, a built-in FM tuner and a bright, 3-inch screen that allows users to not only show off music, pictures and video, but also to customize the experience with personal pictures or themes to truly make the device their own. Zune comes in three colors: black, brown and white.

Every Zune device creates an opportunity for connection. Wireless Zune-to-Zune sharing lets consumers spontaneously share full-length sample tracks of select songs, homemade recordings, playlists or pictures with friends between Zune devices. Listen to the full track of any song you receive up to three times over three days. If you like a song you hear and want to buy it, you can flag it right on your device and easily purchase it from the Zune Marketplace.

Zune makes it easy to find music you love — whether it’s songs in your existing library or new music from the Zune Marketplace. Easily import your existing music, pictures and videos in many popular formats and browse millions of songs on Zune Marketplace, where you can choose to purchase tracks individually or to buy a Zune Pass subscription to download as many songs as you want for a flat fee.

To get started with great music and videos out of the box, every Zune device is preloaded with content from record labels such as DTS, EMI Music’s Astralwerks Records and Virgin Records, Ninja Tune, Playlouderecordings, Quango Music Group, Sub Pop Records, and V2/Artemis Records.

Nice. The ability to share songs with friends so they can try before they buy is quite nice. I don't know about coming preloaded with music if it's going to be the kind of stuff you see pimped in the blogs of Zune insiders like Cesar Menendez and Richard Winn. What would be sweet, would be getting themed preloaded music (e.g. hip hop, heavy metal, or pretentious emo music preloads). I'd prefer that to a one size fits all approach to preloading music on the devices.

You can also find more information about Zune devices including pictures in Cesar Menendez's blog post entitled Zune Details Revealed.