Microsoft’s foray into Apple’s digital music market didn’t quite return the expected results, which apparently determined the Redmond behemoth to give up its collaboration with Toshiba and take the destiny of Zune 2 into its own hands.

On October 2, Microsoft has finally lifted the veil off its highly-anticipated Zune 2, although the new model is not exactly a surprise. The most capacious next-gen Zune is now boasting with an 80GB hard-drive, which from this point of view makes it only a second place candidate. Apple’s new line of iPods, unveiled almost a month ago, includes an MP3 player with double that amount of storage space, namely the iPod Classic. The Zune 80 sports a larger (3.2 inch) LCD screen and is 27% smaller compared to the previous edition but for the beginning it will only be sold wrapped in a black casing. More colors will be added in the future. The package will retail only in the US for $249.99, but will also include “premium headphones.”

The new additions to the Zune line of MP3 players are the ultraportable Zune 4GB and Zune 8GB models. Both of them are Flash-based and will be available in 4 flavors: black, dark red, ping and green. Similar in size to Apple’s former iPod Nano and priced at $149 and $199 respectively, the shiny gadgets will have video playback capabilities, just like their “bigger brother.” Microsoft said it targets early November as a launch date for its portable music players.

All Zunes devices have a modified navigation button, dubbed Zune Pad, which apparently tries to mimic at a smaller scale what Apple did with the iPod Touch. The Zune Pad is a touch sensitive controller that allows users to scroll faster through picture slideshows or sift through the songs stored on their handheld’s hard-drive/Flash memory module. The Wi-Fi feature has been kept in the new edition of Zunes, but a wireless sync feature with the PC has been added, which should entice users even more.

Microsoft also updated the central hub for Zune owners, the Zune Marketplace, which is now packed with more than 3 million songs and has a new layout.