From OLED to Tegra: Five Myths of the Zune HD - Page 8

When Ballmer was asked, in a Tv interview, about 18 months ago why they weren't bringing the Zune to international sales, his response was that if they did, they would lose more money.

That's a pretty good answer for him, even though he likely didn't realize the implications of it.

MS is likely losing money on every Zune sold. Why distribute a device internationally that isn't selling well in its home market?

Apple sold over 50 million iPods last year, certainly no more than half were sold abroad, the rest in the US. That compares to under one million Zunes in the US.

You can't use the lack of international sales to cover for the amazingly poor sales of the device here, in their home market.

And with 90% of people using Windows, you would think that many of them aren't persuaded by Apple's supposed "hype".

Meanwhile, Sandisk is also outselling the Zunes by 7 to 1. That's without both Apple and MS's huge Ad budgets. And SanDisk gets no hype at all.

First, I don't think OLED is that bad.

Another, MacBooks don't have OLED. They are LED backlit LCDs.

You know, for all the fevered denunciation of "Apple fanboys" in this thread I can't help but noticed that some of the most over the top, hysterical stuff is coming from what appear to be Zune, or MS, or OLED, uh, enthusiasts. Really, angry OLED partisans? WTF?

The same people that are disgusted that someone would slam the underlying tech of the Zune before it is released are also sure that the Zune is just the specialist, most awesome, bestest thing ever, for sure.

I'm sure it will be perfectly nice, and the zoomy animations between every screen will amuse the kind of people who are amused by that sort of thing. The screen will probably look pretty good under certain conditions. MS may even get a game or to available for launch.

That eclipses the Touch how, again? Obsoletes iTunes and the App Store by what magic? I want to pay the same money for a media playback device that may or may not get some apps or games instead of a general purpose pocketable computer with a vast ecosystem of peripherals because.....

Anyway, MS fanboys/apologists are good at one thing: bullying. As long as they can leverage platform dominance into a sneering contempt for Apple users as some kind of fatuous tribe of posers, ganging up at the average tech site like of crowd of drunk frat boys, they have a high old time.

When obliged to defend a minority platform, I swear to God, MS fanboys are the whiniest, shrillest bitches on the internet.

Sony has made amazing profits from the PS series of machines over the years. In some of those years, PS profits were over half of Sony's profits. It's only with the PS3 and its difficult development with the new, and expensive technologies involved hasSony been losing money on it, though that's about ended.

But also, Sony has had its Blu-Ray become the new hi def standard. This is considered to be so partly, if not mostly because of PS3 sales. So Sony has benefitted from that to offset the PS3 losses.

But MS has had no such synergy. Their entertainment division, which includes not only the XBox itself, but also the games licensing, music subscription services and the Zunes, has consistently lost big money since the first day the old XBox was introduced. The first five years of it MS lost at least $1.2 billion a year, which has since dropped to about $1 billion a year.

And just when MS thought it was coming out of its 360 losses, they were hit with the red ring of death and other failure modes for the device, and have had to put at least $1.3 billion into an escrow account to pay for the repairs, problems which have been continuing.

No other company would have kept its entertainment division going with those losses. The XBox would have been discontinued years ago. The same with the Zunes. There have been calls for MS to drop them as well.

The only reason why they haven't is because MS feels that they are required for MS's future growth as Windows and Office sales slow down.

Do you want me to post links? I have plenty, going back years.

That's really not very good, is it? What, $18 million a year? That's peanuts. And the valuation is artificial. It's not a public valuation. This is a bunch of investors who have put money into the service. It's no different from what we've seen with all the other subscription services where hundreds of millions were poured in at the beginning, only to have it evaporate over the next year or two.

Everything you read about this was said about all the other failed, and about to fail services.

They were all supposed to be different, or to have a name favorably recognized, or had some special "hook" that would get people to join and pay.

When you think about it 2% of people paying is pretty bad. That's less than the number of people who respond to surveys sent in the mail, which is over 3%.

Pretty dismal.

They don't. They have LED-backlit LCDs.

This was a really well written article until the HD Radio section. The HD Radio stuff attempted to dispell HD Radio as a worthwhile technology, which I agree on, but does not match the tenor of the rest of the article. Previously it dealt in facts (mostly), but at this point it veers to the left.

The "software will wow you" section continues this trend by being 100% opinion-based, rather than factual in nature. I think the article stood well on its own without these two sections at informing consumers.

Which MacBook Pro has an OLED screen?

That would have been really big news.

do you know the difference between LED backlighting and OLEDs?

Now is the time to say that you were just kidding.

This is demonstrably false. To wit:

"After tearing-down an Apple TV and itemizing the cost of each internal component, iSuppli arrived at an approximate BOM -- or Bill of Materials -- of $237. That amounts to a meager 20.7 percent gross margin."

- AppleInsider, 2007

A "meager" profit is still a profit, not a loss. A loss is something that happens when you actually lose money. See how that works? I would be so happy to have a "hobby" that made a 20% margin that I'd piss rainbows.

I know it's hard to accept that a company can do anything better than the Microsoft behemoth. I mean, if Microsoft had to lose billions of dollars to enter the set-top-box business, then that's obviously what it takes. Right? Right?...

Doesn't it go both ways? The Zune isn't out yet, and article writer on this site making complaints about the screen that the author hasn't seen is a bit much. There are several OLED technologies and the sites that have seen the device did like the screen.

And how is that now? How did Apple convince 90% windows using population that they should buy an Apple device? It was all "clever marketing"?

If it's only clever marketing, then those buyers would have been disappointed when they used their iPod, and certainly wouldn't have bought them for relatives, recommended them to colleagues, and came back to buy new models. But they did do all those things. That certainly suggested they appreciated the user experience of the iPod far more than a feature list on the side of a box.

It seems the market has a different definition of "better" than you do. One could say a better definition, but I don't think you understand that.

Not an ideal solution for you, but here's a tip as a stopgap: when you really NEED those two apps gone (when you run out of app slots on your device, as I have) you can just push those two unwanted apps off the end of the last screen. (You can even store more WANTED apps there: they are launchable from Spotlight.)

P.S. I like that glass-half-full attitude

No apps now, a small number of unknown ones coming at some unknown time from Microsoft, and no third-party apps planned. Translation: "ts nice that they arent charging and arent cluttering up your device with a bunch of apps youll never use"

How can you say that?

While developers were interested in an SDK for the phone and touch, there wouldn't have been nearly as many developers on board as there were once Apple had sold over 8 million of the things when the SDK first came out.


MS has announced that programs for the Zune HD will be free, at least for the foreseeable future. That's really going to excite developers. Ms has been cagy about third party developer support, so we'll have to see what happens there.
Here's one quote:

You know what that really means. They don't expect to get many apps for the Zune.


It's a vastly bigger gamble when there are no sales for the current product, and past sales for the older ones hardly added up.

It's developers counting the Pre's sales and figuring that there aren't enough for them to cover development costs for themselves, much less make a profit.

There's power in the numbers.


No they won't.

Developers will want to make money, or at least, fame.

Sure, a few developers might find something to love, but most are far more livelihood oriented than that.

I think the point being missed is the philosophy of both companies, and the reason they both introduce certain technology.

MS often don't even know why they introduce certain technologies. Usually it's to kill a competitor or protect their core asset (Windows). When you look at OLED, while it may seem innovative, MS have only added it for marketing reasons. It's not necessarily the best device for the job, or has the best power/performance or price/quality ratios.

When Apple introduce a new technology, it's usually to the benefit of the user (not the marketing guys). This difference between the companies has existed for 3 decades, and will probably continue so long as Balmer and Jobs are in their relative positions.

The only time I have ever seen MS truly innovate and truly take the user into account was with the Xbox360, which aside from it's unreliability was almost a perfect product. Xbox Live was great, leaving out Blu-Ray and HD-DVD was the right decision (unlike Sony's), partnering with ATI and IBM worked well and the Xbox has done fairly well... but not as well as the Wii.

Now I don't hate MS... they are what they are and we take take it or leave it. I am writing this in IE7 on Win XP (not by choice). But there is a real issue that they are holding technology back by blocking standards. IE6 on their latest, greatest device? Seriously? I suppose it will run flash and lets see what that does to battery life etc.

MS have a history of defeating superior products with inferior ones because they've been able to abuse their market position. So now they need something MUCH better, and they don't seem to be able to deliver it.

His article isn't a review. It's an overview of the technologies used in the Zune, from information supplied by MS and others, and "his" evaluation of the software prospects.

I wish people would understand this.

Spouting more nonsense doesn't make your post useful, interesting, or true.

That article is a smear job melgross and you know it. He hasn't provided links because they would dispute his claims.

Here's some reality:
1. OLED screens look so much better than LED ones, like those used in the Touch and Iphone. I've used both and there is significant differences. Only a matter of time before the technology is adopted across the board.
2. Microsoft only markets in dark roooms. Go to any BestBuy and see if they've hidden the Zune HD's in dark lit corners. No they have not.
3. Tegra is a beast for graphics and video. According to PCWorld it is composed of eight processors two of which are two ARM11 cores. These are the HD Video Decoder, HD Video Encoder, 2D Engine, Imaging, GPU (3D graphics), Audio, and two ARM11 cores. http://www.pcworld.com/article/17028...a_details.html

I don't agree with everything or most things Microsoft does but they did an excellent job this time with the Zune. Yes the internet has plenty of places to do real research.

Except that what your saying is not true.

Since you don't believe, why don't you give some links?

I have serious doubts about the accuracy of this article, especially about the OLED part, but the other parts seem dubious to me.

However there are some real differences, and the comparison chart on page 1 at the bottom (the one with all the corrections on it) seems fair to me.

You can't deny that Microsoft have finally got something right with the ZuneHD (the third generation Zune, i.e., the generation Microsoft normally get things mostly right, c.f. IE3).

A like for like comparison will be needed, that includes battery life under similar situations.

Also in a year many of the detractors about the Zune will be less worse, the app store for one.

However I can't buy a Zune in the UK, so it's irrelevant. Also the iPod does work, no hassle, so it takes a lot to make me change my choice now. Haven't got the time to get burned by hassle. "Marketplac" indeed ... treat me like an adult, Microsoft.

Sure, but at least Prince's caveats are grounded in some of what we know about the limitations of the tech, as per currently shipping products. For instance, he may be overstating the shortcomings of OLED in direct sunlight, but it's a fact that OLED doesn't look as good in direct sunlight as LED. Higher battery consumption when displaying mostly white or lighter screens is a fact, as well.

Similarly, the sort of awestruck chanting of "Tegra, Tegra" that one sees on tech sites needs a corrective dose of reality, the tech simply isn't some kind of astonishing leapfrog of the Cortex based implementations out there, and certainly doesn't live up to the Nvidia marketing hype (no surprise there, most tech is wildly oversold).

Anywho, my response was in regards to the breathless delight being expressed about a non-shipping product from a company with a pretty abysmal track-record in the space, which, as far as I can see, isn't really even competing with the Touch, despite the heated rhetoric. It seems to have been optimized as a really nice media playback device with a MS's notably inferior mobile browser thrown in. If people want to LOL at how it beats up on the Nano, I have no problem with that.

None of that's true though. Don't let people tell you that. There are no production problems for the small OLEDs used for phones and such. They were being used in car audio units for years before, and made in the millions.

The problems were with quality and reliability.

Most of those problems have been solved.

If Apple wanted 40 million screens from a big manufacturer, they could get them. The problems are with big screens.

Those problems are twofold. One is that as with other displays, costs go up disproportionally with size. Two is that rejections go up disproportionally with size.

Getting 3.5" screens is easy. Getting 10" screens is hard.

Apple is not the cause of NAND shortages. I've made this clear in another thread. It's just a result of memory production cutbacks from manufacturers. Apple is ordering bit more than before, where last year there were no shortages, but manufacturers are producing much less to get memory prices up, which is happening, and causing shortages this year.

I understand that it's an overview of the technologies -- that's a given. But the overview of the technologies is being used to trash the Zune when the author has NO CLUE how the technologies are implemented in the Zune HD at the user level.

How can can the author make any claims about the OLED screen (indoor/outdoor performance) of the Zune or the performance of the Tegra processor if he has not actually witnessed it first hand?

It's a "hit job" plain and simple. I say this as both an iPhone 3G S and 13" MacBook Pro owner.

Now, if this same article had come out AFTER the Zune HD was released and the author had come to these conclusions on the Zune HD's hardware, I'd have absolutely NO problem at all with it (based on his first-hand experience). However, being that this article has come out before the device has been handled by the author and makes such damning accusations, it's credibility is called into question.

It's not a matter of being a fanboy or anything like that, it's a matter of being fair and even handed.

Brilliant post!

They don't.

HD radio is pretty poor quality. Where did he go wrong?

I don't see how anyone can honestly think that Apple had no roadmap planned for an iPhone OS SDK before the iPhone was first introduced in January 2007. They may have decided to wait to see how the reception was before putting extensive resources into it, but for some to think that Apple never considered it until developers cried for it is silly. I just can't imagine that the required rewrites could have happened as fast as they did from the announcement to its release. I'm still waiting (okay, not really waiting) for Palm to release a decent WebOS SDK.

I'll just make this point.

The reviews for the Zune HD will be coming in within the next 12-24 hours. They will tell us how good the screen is (in comparison to the iPhone/iPod touch), how good the video playback is, how the battery life stacks up, and how good the HD radio reception stacks up.

Then we'll see if this AI article is complete bullcrap or was right on the money.

Any other conversations in this thread (with relation to hardware at least) are pretty much useless/irrelevant until those reviews start rolling in IMHO.

That be true for the screen MS is using but any brand new tech can be more easily obtained by companies buying less quantity if production has yet to scaled up to meet demand. We've already seen this in action with HP, Dell, Sony and others having selling PCs with new Intel CPUs well before Apple can get the hundreds of thousands they need to have ready in stores with distributors and online all at the same time. This is Apple fault for having such a limited product line and using so few varying components when compared to other PC makers, who sell bulk of older tech with many different setups and their comparitive machines are often build to order and don't have the unit sales that Apple has for a single model. A bit off topic, but I think Apple's growth will force them to expand their Mac platform to more models.

But the fact that you choose to focus on those specific metrics just reinforces the point that the Zune HD is not a Touch competitor, but rather a big touchscreen Nano competitor.

Vs. the Touch, the Zune HD screen will almost certainly have deeper blacks. Video playback performance on the device could hardly be much better than the Touch, since both will run at their respective device's native res at full frame rates. The Zune can output 720p via an accessory dock, I guess it remains to be sen how much most people really want to use their PMP as an HD playback/storage device. Video playback battery life will almost certainly be marginally better on the Zune, although most people don't run their battery down by playing video for 6 or 8 hours straight, so unless the battery wins are across the board I don't think this is going to make too much difference. HD radio is irrelevant vs. the Touch.

And then what? Ecosystem? iTunes store, with its vast catalog of media and apps? General purpose computing in your pocket? Competitive web browser?

Nope. Really nice media player, with a nice looking screen and a processor optimized for video playback/graphics. Microsoft has succeeded in making a competitive PMP, just as the market is moving on toward palmtop computing/phones.

Against the Nano, the Zune HD has a much bigger screen, touch interface, and a browser. The nano has Tivo like FM radio functions (that trump the "HD" gimmick, IMO), a video camera and is much more compact/lighter.

That's the actual comparison people should be focusing on. The Touch envy completely misses the point.

Wow over 300 comments. Is that a record?

Although i've been an Apple product user for longer than i can remember, i'd happily buy Microsoft products if i thought they could add value and do something well if not better than the competition.

Having said that this is probably why i've been an Apple product user for longer than i can remember.

But isn't it great to see Microsoft making an effort and trying to compete for a change.

Jesus Christ AI, look what you've done!

Does the Nano have a browser/Internet connectivity or a multi-touch touchscreen? Nope.

The Zune HD will have games, it will have apps, you can purchase music on the go, you can access the internet, etc. That makes the Zune HD a straight up iPod touch competitor (they both even lack a camera ). As for your comments on the web browser, how do you know it won't be competitive? Have you seen it already?

We'll see how Microsoft's app store and games stack up, but they will surely be lacking from the start being a new platform and all (Tegra/touchscreen/etc).

I think most people around here are too caught up in Apple's stock prices to give a competitor a chance at anything.

He must be very young for him to have made a statement that there were better mp3 players out when Apple came out with the iPod.

Apple's iPod was so far beyond all the other players out there that it was in its own universe.

But he doesn't know that, because he's either a child, or he's a Windows person coming here to try to do some damage.

It's funny, because the iPod was so bad that Windows users were demanding to be able to buy it, something that Apple didn't anticipate. It got so bad that Apple had to distribute third party software for Windows users until they could write their own.

Some people may want to gloss over the truth here, but it's well known.

I agree that it's competing with the Touch, but I don't see how IE6 --especially a mobile version-- can compete with Safari 4.0 that incorporates HTML5 anda very powerful and efficient JS engine. Mobile Safari on 3.1 can get 100/100 (non-passing) on Acid3 while I don't think IE6 can even pass Acid2. The web has changed a lot since IE6 was introduced in 2001. The inclusion of a web browser and a better web browser than IE4 is great, but I think this will hurt the Zune experience.

PS: Does it even have ActiveX. I can see that as a tipping point for some.

You fanbois are all clueless if you don't see the unlimited potential for Zune software sales. Here's just a few examples off the top of my head:

• Zune Firewall
• Zune Antivirus
• Zune Registry Editor
• Zune Defragger
• Zune Rebooter
• Zune Spyware Defender
• Zune User Account Contol (cancel or allow?)
• Zune OS, Premium Edition
• Zune OS, Ultimate Edition
• Zune Reinstall Kit
• Zune Genuine Advantage
• Zune Minesweeper

The possibilities are endless!

I've already said that he overdid the OLED a bit, but the Tegra is something else. It has two ARM 11 cores. These are the equivalent to the old ARM 11 core in the older 3G and 2nd gen iPod touch, run faster. Since the new Apple devices are much faster than the old, sometimes 2.5 times faster, it's doubtful that this, using the older cores, abet at a higher speed, will give it a performance rise over Apple's new models. None of the rest of it can qualify as a core. If that were the case, then every other SoCal would have 8 or 10 or 12 cores. The others are processors, such as the GPU, the video decoder, the audio chip etc. It's meaningless, and major hype on MS's part. Why don't you speak to that?

Yes, understood.

But Apple becoming lazy and relying more on a established platform instead of continually innovating is not going to be healthy for Apple in the long run.
We'll see though come early 2010 when Steve Jobs debuts the next type of portable computing device.

The only thing I found about the article that was over blown was the OLed portion.

The Tegra is a very good chip. But so is Apple's chip, and chips.

I happen to think, from what I've seen of the specs of all, and performance that Apple's is better.

If we want to talk about hype, the the Tegra has been the subject of a lot of it from Nvidia and others, who don't understand that while the chip is very good, it does rely on some older cpu technology, and the two cores merely gets them back into the game. It doesn't get them ahead of it. The specs of the gpu's are also in favor of the Imagination chip used by Apple. Apple's stuff is simply newer and more sophisticated.

But the Zune HD has an advantage in processing, in that it has fewer pixels to process, both in its interface, and programs, but also in its video. That makes it easier, and take less punch from the chip to do so.

So I think that we have to understand that the Tegra is no superchip as Nvidia and now MS is promoting it to be. It's a pretty good one with less work to do in the Zune HD.

Prince's attempt, which has fallen somewhat flat, was to make the point that this ISN'T a superchip, but merely just another competitor in the industry, which is the truth.

I don't recall Microsoft ever calling HD radio as high definition radio, but I do agree that it is a misleading for the average consumer.

As for the OLED screen, yes it doesn't work to well in direct sunlight, obviously the solution is simple and that is to turn up the brightness which you can do on a Zune HD, but to be fair any portable media player viewed in direct sun light no matter what the screen type is going to look bad.

No offense, but the primary function for both of these devices is to listen to music. Nowhere in the 400+ comments did I read a single mention of this important feature. I am not an Apple fanboy. I am not an MS fanboy. I have been reviewing DAPs on-line for several years now, and I can honestly say that IMHO the Apple sound quality has become sub par. The line out is wonderful, but when using the headphone out, the sound is not nearly as full as other players out there. The Zune is not the best either, but it is better then the last several generations of all types of iPods. I have listened to them with many different types of headphones as well from Klipsch, Denon, etc. As a side note, I have found that the Sony players offer ME the best listening experience of all of the DAPs I have reviewed. I am not saying the Zune is the best overall either. Every DAP out there has there strong suit. The iPod has many, the Zune has others, Sony has it's, etc. For this battle though, I would give the SQ to the Zune if it sounds the same as the last gen.

P.S. I agree that the subscription service is wonderful for those who like to dabble in all different genres. I think it would be a great experience for anyone who has not tried one to give it a trial period of at least 2 months. I guarantee you will find artists and songs that you love which you never would have found otherwise.

I think they did. I said it from the first day they announced the phone, 6 months before it came out. Jobs himself said several times that they would come out with a way for third party developers to have their programs on the iPhone, and it would make everyone happy.

When the "cloud" apps were announced by Apple, many people thought that that was what they meant, but I said that it wasn't, and that it was just an in between solution. People argued with me.

Apple of course had time to develop the SDK. But now, companies don't have that luxury. They've got to get a working one out the door pronto!

Apple changed the game, and no matter how much anti-Apple howl over it, that's the truth.