ZuneScene reports that there is a...

Zune Upgrade Plan Coming June 2009

This is not a firmware upgrade. This is a good ol' old fashioned hand over your old Zune plus some cash and get a brand new Zune trade-in upgrade. ZuneScene says it is aimed at owners of damaged first generation 30GB Zunes. But, I'm giving some thought of trading in my old but fully functional Zune 30GB (see photo above) for either a Zune 16GB (flash storage) for $109.99 or a Zune 80GB (hard disk) for $159.99. This assumes that my fully functional Zune is eligible for a trade-in, of course.

Why upgrade to a Zune instead of buying an iPod classic 120GB model? Well, the iPod lists for $249. So, the Zune trade-in option saves some moeny. And, the Zune models have a larger screen than the iPod classic for video viewing. On the other hand, I mostly use my Zune 30 for listening to podcasts over a small speaker (see photo above) when puttering around the house and in need of some interesting audio background. So, the Zune 16GB model would be fine too.

ZuneScene advises us to call the Zune support line at 1-877-438-9863 (1-877-GET-ZUNE) AFTER Microsoft announces this trade-in upgrade program sometime in June. Are you making the call? I'm giving it a lot of thought myself.