CNET Labs has just published the results of their Zune 80 audio-only battery tests and “the numbers are somewhat disappointing,” Donald Bell reports for CNET.
Despite Microsoft’s rating of the Zune 80 for 30 hours of audio playback with the Wi-Fi feature turned off, “lab testing revealed that the Zune 80 is realistically capable of 22 hours of audio playback with the Wi-Fi feature turned off, or 18.5 hours with the Wi-Fi feature enabled,” Bell reports.
“While 22 hours is certainly better than the 13 hours we got from the first-generation Zune, it’s nowhere close to the 45 hours we were able to get from the competing 80GB iPod classic,” Bell reports.
MacDailyNews Note: Apple historically understates battery life. For the 80GB iPod classic, Apple rates music playback time at “up to 30 hours when fully charged.” For the 160GB iPod classic, Apple rates music playback time at “up to 40 hours when fully charged.”
Bell asks, “Does the fact that the Zune’s screen is nearly twice as large as the iPod make up for the battery life being about half as good?”
MacDailyNews Take: Uh, no, especially when you realize that the screen resolutions (320-by-240-pixel resolution) are the same, so all you get with Microsoft’s Oldsmobile, er… Zune, besides general derision, social isolation, and ownership of an ugly, squircled, also-ran iPod wannabe with less than half the battery life, is a blocky, pixellated, inferior image.
Full article here.
Microsoft’s Oldsmobile, er… Zune
Olds at least was respectable at one time. 4-4-2 or “455 rocket”, anyone?
MS and Zune, OTOH, have always been shit. Hard to think of any automaker that equals them. Even Detroit does better.
Yugo.
So, if you compared a 1080p (remember that;s the best) 42 inch tv to a 1080p 65 inch tv the 42 would be better because the dpi is better? Very interesting. By that reasoning, the tv manufacturers should stop wasting money building such large tvs and instead make iPod screens that can support 1080p. I can see it now, “oh don’t worry honey that you can’t actually see anything on the tv, what really matters is the dpi.”
But then again, my dell inspiron 8500 has a 15.4 inch screen with a 1920×1200 display. I believe that is better than anything apple makes. I always knew dell made better products than apple
Compared with iPod, the Zune screen’s low dots per inch (dpi) stands out as a huge negative. As opposed to the high density Apple iPods (classic, nano, and, of course, touch), the Zune’s pixels are very noticeable. Video looks cheap and chintzy on a Zune, which is actually appropriate for the few niggardly Zune sufferers that roam the earth in utter isolation today.
@ChrissyOne
One of my colleagues was in a meeting with Bezos recently (well within the last couple of years, minor detail which I can’t recall), said he’d gone bozo. Well I paraphrase, he actually said mad.
Kindle, got the name wrong. Like a cross between kind and candle. Sounds like one for the ladies (in private of course).
Does MS sell any Zunes in Canada? I have never seen one nor know of anyone who has. I just want to see one to ensure that it actually looks like a cheap shit piece of plastic as it does in the web pics.
@ @Jubei
So would 320×240 resolution look better on a 10″ screen than on a 3″ screen?
“So would 320×240 resolution look better on a 10″ screen than on a 3″ screen?”
hrmmm, it might….
so then i guess the holy grail is a 60″ 4 dpi screen?
i mean, just trying to keep up with the new logic…..
“. . . a 60″ 4 dpi screen?”
Or this?
MS innovation!
When a Zune doesn’t meet user expectations, it’s called being “Zuned,” as in, “Dude, you got Zuned.” On Christmas day this year many will wake up only to learn they’ve been Zuned.
zuned like a marooned buffoon
Haha…. Nice to see that these same Zune idiots do not understand the benefits of a high pixel count on a smaller screen like an iPhone or iPod/Touch screens. They post the same confused reasoning as their other Zune loving blind and confused idiots who still thinks the Zune 320×240 stretched screen is awesome. Good job confirming my point Zune or should I say iPod wqnnabees. After all that is all your beloved MS is trying to be. Apple wnabees. LOL
Which is better? A 22 inch 1920 x 1200 screen, a 24 inch 1920 x 1200 screen or a 55 inch 1920 x 1200 screen. All three are made. It does seem a bit obvious that anyone who bought anything but the 22 inch is stupid because the pixels are so noticible at 55 inches. In fact, I bet watching anything on that size of screen would look horrible.
MDN, of course, doesn’t understand what they are talking about—again!
The larger screen does have an effect on the battery life. While the LCD uses very little power, the backlight does not. The larger backlight, therefore, is responsible for at least, a good part of the life.
But, the battery is likely also undersized as well.
It’s just odd that MS would be so far off in their ratings. Unless the unit they tested was defective in some way. I don’t know if they tested several, to find out.
So, you watch hi def Tv on a 1080p 55 inch screen from how far away? Obviously, the bigger the screen the further away you can watch.
Most people watch that screen from more than seven feet away.
I’m not a fan of the Zune, but you can’t compare that to a hi def display. It makes no sense.
it’s all proportional, as mel gross points out.
Apparently, the class action has already started.
The lawyer acting is pretty confident of success having spent an afternoon interviewing every Zune 80 owner on the planet. Both owners were said to be outraged at Microsofts overstatement of battery life.
dont go in the bathroom for a while i just took a massive zune.
The new Red Zunes are gorgeous, but unfortunately they’re Zunes, so meh. I’m not a big fan of iPods, but the iTunes software makes them the best solution out there.
i think the new trabants are being wired for zunes?
@ Gandalf
I’ve heard similar reports from almost everyone I’ve known who worked there. Most tell me to avoid working there if I ever get the chance. They used to be right next door to us when I worked downtown and I heard endless horror stories about their call center and imaging studio. I read all the marketing muck about the Kindle and I wanted to like it, but it seems coated in the same vile DRM candy that graces the Zune. The iPhone has limitations, that’s true, but nothing like what I’ve read about Kindle. You pretty much can’t put anything on it at all unless you go through Amazon and pay a fee. It doesn’t read PDFs. The books have their own DRM system that doesn’t look like anything more to me than a ticking bomb. And a chicklet keyboard, which is oh-so-2006. As Scotty might say, “How quaint…”
Of course I have not touched one yet, so this could all change and I could fall in love with it. Who knows. But as one review said, it’s not the *book* that needs replacing. Books are fine. I want a new kind of laptop that I can use for books and other things. That’s like selling an iPod that only played Fairplay protected AAC files, and not MP3s, and I had to buy the damn White Album again.
“I bet watching anything on that size of screen would look horrible”
Yes, who would ever buy Sharp’s 108″ HDTV when it’s clear that it has no more pixels than the 20″ HDTV I have in my mother’s basement.
22 Hours.
That’s long enough for almost any customer
After a while extras specs become meaningless. Do you think anyone’s really going to sit there debating whether to buy a player with 22 vs 45 hour battery life?
Other features like the larger screen on the Zune, wireless synching and so on are what’s going to make up people’s minds.
The fact is that Microsoft is giving Apple a good hard zuning in the HDD player category right now.
And it’s Apples own fault because they’ve rested on their laurels in that area.
The fact is that Microsoft is giving Apple a good hard zuning in the HDD player category right now.
The FACT is that the Amazon rankings are completely useless for real sales figures. Apple is going to sell over 25 million iPods just this quarter. Microsoft won’t sell that many Zunes in it’s entire lifetime. Amazon is the ONLY place that Zunes even register, and that’s only because of the fire sale prices.
Please keep your Microsoftian fantasies in check.
Magic Word: “increase” as in “The increase in iPod sales this quarter will embarrass every other company on the planet”