(I honestly am not sure what these posts about Microsoft digital music players are doing in an Apple-centric blog, except for the fact that these things give us perspective - and make us feel better about our biases.)

More details and official confirmation has come out about the new version of Microsoft’s beleaguered music player. These include:

• pricing - 80gb (harddrive) model costs US$249; the 4gb flash costs US$149, the 8gb US$199; the old 30gb will sell at US$199
• wifi syncing (nice one, actually; no, really)
• the Squircle is real, and is touch sensitive like the iPod’s
• the 80gb version comes only in black, has a 3.2-inch screen and is thinner than the original
• the flash Zunes come in red, green, pink and black
• sorry, none are brown
• no longer WMV-exclusive; you can use h.264 and mpeg4
• squirting is still alive and well
• new sites: Zune Social, Zune Marketplace
• FM Radio
• November launch

Now back to regular programming. (Hey, in case you’d like to know, the iPod Touch started selling at PowerMac Center branches here in Metro Manila beginning this afternoon; the 16gb version goes for around PHP22,900.)