Microsoft Might Have Had a Zune HD Phone in Development

A Microsoft-branded Windows Phone device seems more likely now than ever before, and more evidence to support this is now available online.

Apparently, the company might have had plans to launch its own smartphone a few years ago, but dropped them for no specific reason.

However, art work for what might have been at the time a Zune HD smartphone has emerged online, courtesy of WordPress.com site Of Spaceships and Boomboxes, complemented by some info on the matter.

Supposedly called Zune HD2, the prototype never managed to become an actual product, yet rumors on it being in development at Microsoft did emerge.

The images available today only depict a concept device, yet its interface resembles a lot not only the Zune device, but also the Windows Phone.

Supposedly, this concept was of an unreleased Windows Phone device, one that might have actually stood at the base of the operating system itself.

The images come from Greg McNamara, who created them for Astro studios, the design firm behind Zune HD.

Although an old concept, it still shows a device supposedly meant to be more than a simple music player, with a camera placed in the center of the back plate, the same as on Nokia’s latest Lumia devices.

The device was supposedly set to offer more features that simple music playback capabilities, including gaming, multimedia, mobile business applications, note taking abilities, electronic pass/electronic wallet capability, and the like.

Whether Microsoft will indeed launch its own Windows Phone (supposedly called Surface, the same as the Windows 8 tablet) is yet unknown. However, the one thing that is certain is that the company did have plans for such a device.

The launch of a KIN smartphone back in 2010 is another proof of this state of facts, although that handset lived a short life (Zune wasn’t that popular in the end either).