"The radically different manufacturing process of OLEDs lends itself to many advantages over flat-panel displays made with LCD technology. Since OLEDs can be printed onto any suitable substrate using an inkjet printer or even screen printing technologies,[43] they can theoretically have a significantly lower cost than LCDs or plasma displays.[citation needed] Printing OLEDs onto flexible substrates opens the door to new applications such as roll-up displays and displays embedded in fabrics or clothing.
OLEDs enable a greater range of colors, gamut, brightness, contrast (both DR and static) and viewing angle than LCDs because OLED pixels directly emit light. OLED pixel colors appear correct and unshifted, even as the viewing angle approaches 90 degrees from normal. LCDs use a backlight and cannot show true black, while an off OLED element produces no light and consumes no power. Energy is also wasted in LCDs because they require polarizers that filter out about half of the light emitted by the backlight. Additionally, color filters in most color LCDs filter out two-thirds of the light; technology to separate backlight colors by diffraction has not been widely adopted.[citation needed]
OLEDs also have a faster response time than standard LCD screens. Whereas the fastest LCD displays currently have a 2ms response time (manufacturer's quote), an OLED can have less than 0.01ms response time.[44]"
- From wikipedia, and you can travel there yourself to look at the citations.
and as far as the display's life being "too short," how many people still use their mp3 players from five years ago, which is the average time it takes to show any degradation in screen quality (even blues).
point one from fanboys = FAIL.
should i go on, or will you guys just go to the store and see how much pretty and responsive it is. don't worry. your head wont explode since these are all just TOYS, but grab your ipod touch and a zune hd, turn them both to the side, watch which one works faster and smoother.
nobody cares what you pick, zune or ipod, but i want competition so apple will get off their asses and start innovating again. It took microsoft 3 years to catch up on something 8 years in the making. apple needs to get a move on.
I'm curious how you think that the Zune HD has "caught up" with the Touch/iPhone platform.
As I've pointed out, it appears to be designed primarily as a PMP. As such, it has a nice screen and an extremely frenetic interface. How else has it "caught up"?
Well, I didn't write the article, so I guess I can't respond to this one. Let's just point at the app store. 85,000 apps. I'll say that again, 85,000 apps. Seems like a good metric for success to me
Let me know when Microsoft have that many apps on a mobile device. I look forward to it. (Competition is always a win for consumers.)
Amorya
I'm pretty sure old Palm OS had more apps around, and probably less useless, farting/burping/shake the baby garbage. Didn't help.
On the other hand, I know handful of people with iPhone and they all purchased it because it is nice phone/PDA to use out of the box. Apps are way down the WHY? list - from my experience at least.
video quality is much better on the zune, if you haven't noticed yet.
the interface for playing music is an opinion, so can't really rate that.
can plug zune into anyone hdtv and watch rented hd movies or tv shows with them, or by myself (if you dont already own the most popular gaming console-- if you do own it, then that feature isn't too big of a deal).
can click one of my favorite artists and listen to any similar artist using zune pass, which is years ahead of genius, and quite a bit ahead of pandora and last.fm
don't care about internet or apps. people have phones and computers for that crap.
I don't know about other people (because I don't like other people), but I use my media player for playing media.
Time for a bit of honesty from someone who is an admitted Apple fan.
There are features on the Zune HD that I lust over. The OLED display will be wonderful. It will have amazing contrast and look good in both brightly and dimly lit rooms. It may not work as well out doors in direct sunlight but to be fair I don't use my iPod or iPhone outside.
Another Zune feature I really want in my iDevices is a radio. Even a standard FM radio is long overdue. I own a Zune 30 and its radio is the feature that I use the most. It looks like the iPod Nano has a nice implementation.
True that. I am surprised so many people are downplaying good old radio. I'm lucky I am not using public transport - have company car - but having a choice between radio, CD and iPhone, I'm finding myself listening to radio almost 100% of time. You can always find a couple of wake up, feel good morning shows on local radio stations that offer right mix of music and talks, and some of them are genuinely funny.
If I'd have to ride a bus or train going to work and back, I'd feel more than a bit limited with my iPhone lacking a radio...
video quality is much better on the zune, if you haven't noticed yet.
the interface for playing music is an opinion, so can't really rate that.
can plug zune into anyone hdtv and watch rented hd movies or tv shows with them, or by myself (if you dont already own the most popular gaming console-- if you do own it, then that feature isn't too big of a deal).
can click one of my favorite artists and listen to any similar artist using zune pass, which is years ahead of genius, and quite a bit ahead of pandora and last.fm
don't care about internet or apps. people have phones and computers for that crap.
I don't know about other people (because I don't like other people), but I use my media player for playing media.
Yeah. Why would anyone want a pocketable general purpose computer when they could get far less functionality for the same money?
Apps are crap. The future belongs to having lots of different specialized devices.
No multi-national corporation raking in hundreds of millions (or more) per year is going to make bad product, but they very frequently make the wrong product.
Again, what the f--k is the point of this article on AI? Dilger has never touched the Zune HD and probably never will. 99% of the people on this site will agree that the Zune HD is already destined to be an also-ran PMP. The article is just fanboy nonsense regardless of what percentage is right or wrong. If he's going to go on for 3 pages of crap (I stopped reading halfway through the first page since all I could really see him saying was, "Microsoft sucks. Apple rules."), why not mention the strengths of the Zune HD?
Both you and him try to negate the nicety of having an HD Radio tuner built in. I have one in my car and that piece of gear is definitely something that will come with me to my next vehicle. HD Radio channels DO sound better than their analog counterparts. They obviously have no static and that alone makes them sound better even if they are broadcast at the same bit rate as the analog version. And nearly every major station in my area is broadcasting in HD plus several have secondary digital channels as well.
Everyone slams the Zune pass but I subscribe to Rhapsody to use it on my 2 TiVo's and I love it. It makes we wish I wasn't stuck with a Mac so I could use the unlimited downloads feature. No, music subscriptions aren't for everyone but it works for me. It's great to get to listen to a full album before I commit to buying it. And it's really nice to listen to songs that I want to hear but don't want to buy the album. I love 80's music and it's fun to explore the rest of one-hit-wonders catalogs.
And it's also really nice that it can play back 720p video files despite the display resolution not matching. It seems really nice to not have to download both and SD and HD version of a file like the iTunes kludgy solution. No, you won't fit many full length HD movies on the Zune HD, but you won't fit all that many SD movies on an iPod Touch or iPhone either.
Just like this article's author I've never touched a Zune HD, but it sounds like a competent media player. Too bad very few people on this site will look past their fanboy-ism to get it a fair chance. Does it match a Touch for features? No, but who cares? If Microsoft worked on the Xbox 360 integration, it could be a really compelling companion to that game machine. It would be even better if Microsoft removed the PC from the equation and let the console be the device's sync hub.
Well, I certainly didn't ask him to write the article, you would have to ask the admins about that. But it is obviously of interest to the people here.
I'm also not negating the usefulness of the HD tuner. It's just that more than a few people have asked me if it's a high definition tuner, and it's anything but that. Sure, it may be static free in good areas, but the quality of the audio is still poor to fair. This isn't arguable, just look up the transmission rates. If you love 128 Kp/s MP3's, then you might love this in a car, where its a noisy environment. But over a good pair of cans it doesn't sound that good.
For a basic tuner therefor, it's ok, but the company that has come up with this is misleading people with the name. This has been discussed by people in the radio industry to death already, as well as in the audio magazines.
I'm not slamming subscription services, just saying that most people don't want them. That's the truth. People have every opportunity to use them, but they don't. They are losing subscribers. These are all facts. If you enjoy it then that's great, but it's not getting MS much in the way of buyers for their products.
Yeah. Why would anyone want a pocketable general purpose computer when they could get far less functionality for the same money?
Apps are crap. The future belongs to having lots of different specialized devices.
well, my phone is my "pocketable" general purpose computer, so i want a media player that sounds and looks great, not something that is a worse version of my phone. So, your statement is terrible, because everyone posting on here will have a phone and a media player (since the iphone isnt something most would want to use as an actual media player), and I would rather have the better MEDIA PLAYER.
Good points. But I could easily see Apple saying to a vendor, "well we're getting our current screens for $18" (like your example, just a number). "If we do a $30 screen, we might have to charge an additional $50 to the retail price just to keep our proper margins. Also, you tell me that the failure rate of your product in 30 days is 2% while our current product is .06%" So if we keep our profit margin where the street expects, we may shave off 500,000 unit sales this year as some customers choose the cheaper older Touch or (worse) choose a Zune. And given the projected failure rate, our warranty costs for this part are projected to more than triple, which eats into margins as well."
All I'm saying is that we have no idea all the metrics that went into Apple's decision not to go OLED with this cycle of product but I can speculate on some reasonable theories. Again, Sony and Microsoft may be looking strictly to poach market share by going with a product feature that is really sexy but makes the product that much unprofitable. Given how entrenched Apple's marketshare and mindshare is, they might figure it's the only way in the game until they have enough critical mass to force suppliers to give them better prices. Apple's investments in the Flash RAM markets is a classic example of a company who gets far better prices than anyone else due to the sheer number of pieces than can order and their ability to pre-pay for large shipments of product months in advance. The Palm Pre launch is a classic example where Apple's 16g iPhone 3G was the same price as the 8g Pre at launch. Apple's component costs including things like lithium batteries, Flash RAM and LCD screens were lower than Palm's.
Nice to read about your background. Pleased to meet you.
I can't argue with what you're saying, because it's possible too. This is one reason why I was somewhat disappointed in that Apple didn't have OLEDs this year, but I wasn't too disappointed, or surprised. I was hoping for OLEDs, because when they work well, they will be a very good addition.
But going to an OLED screen is a proposition that manufacturers must consider in light of how their product is used.
For example;
If a product is mostly a phone, it's likely that even with some multimedia features, the phone won't have the screen on for too long during the day. So lifetime, and battery consumption aren't much of an issue.
But if the phone (or player) is going to be heavily used for browsing, games, books, programs, then it might be on for several hours each day. That's different.
Also, if it will be used for high quality video games etc, that must be taken into account as well.
If used in quick spurts, an OLED screen is dandy. but if used for long times, and with bright images, the screen heats up more, and lifetime is shortened. It gets dimmer over time.
Heat and lifetime are proportionally related. (O)LEDs can be run much brighter than they are, but their lifetime drops significantly, so max brightness is limited to a fraction of where it can go.
The way LED and OLED life is measured is different from the way it's measured with other displays (except for plasma, which is sorta rated a similar way). most displays are rated until dead. But (O)LEDs are rated for either a 25% drop in brightness, or a 50% drop in brightness. Without knowing which is being used for a particular screen, we can't tell how it rates against another screen, no matter what it is.
So if an (O)LED screen is rated for 15,000 use, what does that mean? If it's for 25% drop, it could have a 25,000 life at 50% drop. but if it's rated for a 50% drop at 15,000 hours, then it might actually be 9,000 at 25%. There are standards, but they aren't equally applied.
but these ratings are at some specific temperature, which has to be known, because the life ratings change as we change the test temps.
That's why I, and others, wonder about some of the numbers we see for these screens.
And has been mentioned the colors age differently. Right now, it's the green that ages the quickest, followed by the blue. So how is the screen rated? Is it an average of the colors, or is it the shortest lived, or the longest lived?
Confusing, eh?
Meanwhile efficiency is increasing for all types of LEDs at a quick rate. As I mentioned earlier, it's expected to be twice as great in a year. That's major. Not only will battery usage drop, but the display won't get as warm at any given brightness, which either means longer lifetime, or brighter displays, or a bit of both. They are also increasing the life of the green color significantly.
I would assume that if Apple chooses to go OLED next year with a newer and better display, MS will too.
Again, what the f--k is the point of this article on AI? Dilger has never touched the Zune HD and probably never will. ... If he's going to go on for 3 pages of crap... why not mention the strengths of the Zune HD?
.
As it has been said before, the point of the article is to analyze the technology behind the claims being made about the zune. it's not analyzing how it's implemented (e.g. a review). Which explains why he did not go into the strengths of the zune.
The zune is touting the OLED and the Tegra as technology that gives the zune a significant advantage. the writer is showing how they are not intrinsically superior and possibly flawed. and yes, as a result, he is questioning the core advantages of the zune
Wow Im used to extremely slanted stories on here, but the bitterness to which this article was written feels like the Zune inventor slept with the authors wife or something.
Get a life.
Really, it's not bias if his thesis is overinflated claims of the zune based on its technology.
Now, if he had feigned to write an article as a review of the zune and then went on a bent against it, that would be bias.
The writer wrote on the topic at hand; should he stray off topic to talk about good things about the zune just to make people happy who want him to play nice?
yes, the topic itself is biased against microsoft. if you're wondering why, look at the banner at the top of the page.
video quality is much better on the zune, if you haven't noticed yet.
the interface for playing music is an opinion, so can't really rate that.
can plug zune into anyone hdtv and watch rented hd movies or tv shows with them, or by myself (if you dont already own the most popular gaming console-- if you do own it, then that feature isn't too big of a deal).
can click one of my favorite artists and listen to any similar artist using zune pass, which is years ahead of genius, and quite a bit ahead of pandora and last.fm
don't care about internet or apps. people have phones and computers for that crap.
I don't know about other people (because I don't like other people), but I use my media player for playing media.
If we were just talking about mp3 players, why would we throw $300 at a device when others can do it for cheaper?
and if we're just talking about mp3 devices, why did you bring up video?
these devices offer much more than mp3 capability. it's these features that drive consumer spending habits.
you may not care about internet or apps, but millions of others do. This fact either makes them or you irrelevant.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Threpac
well, my phone is my "pocketable" general purpose computer, so i want a media player that sounds and looks great, not something that is a worse version of my phone. So, your statement is terrible, because everyone posting on here will have a phone and a media player (since the iphone isnt something most would want to use as an actual media player), and I would rather have the better MEDIA PLAYER.
jeez, this guy is thick, isn't he?
said the pot to the kettle. Do tell why most of us wouldn't want to use the iphone as an actual media player.
Don't say storage capacity. the ipod classic can do the trick and the iphone does everything else.
Is your pocketable general purpose computer an iphone? if not, the ipod touch is not a worse version of your phone.
if you do have an iphone, then why would you want to buy an ipod touch? it's not marketed for you. the fact is, the ipod touch offers many of the features and the experience of the iphone without a phone/contract. Not the other way around.
So now Fan Bot is not allowed when you personally use FanBoy in many forum postings?
Don't make this a room of Double Standards because he/she has some great points.
Heh, yes. I was wondering how many more "Micro$hits" are supposed to happen before moderator does something about that, too - I've seen them more around here than you can stuff into 64GB iPod memory.
While this is a fan site and bias is expected, some behaviour standards should be respected. And forced.
What I don't understand is why people whining about no camera on the iPod Touch would flee to another media player that has no camera. The iPod nano update will drive sales, not turn them away.
That said, the ZuneHD will probably become the best selling Zune ever (however significant that is) because it looks to be a good product. At this point it would be very difficult for the Zune to gain significant traction against the iPod though (the iPod is just too entrenched in peoples minds), and you can't take rumour boards as representative of actual consumer demand.
Hmm... it will never turn off loyal Apple supporters, but I think among that big Windows market share there are many users who use iPod not because it is Apple, but because it is better for them than competition.
Since so many of them don't have real brand loyalty, I think they can easily turn to the other brand on their next gadget refresh if other brand delivers.
So at this point it is a question of will MS be able to deliver competitive ecosystem with their new media player? Of course apple has big head-start with their iPod/iPhone/iTunes dynasty, but MS can pull a few good cards out with smart XBOX integration (something Apple simply can't right now) and with good enough player and accompanying desktop software/music store, they can nibble into iPod territory quite nicely.
To take market by storm they will not, but to gain market share significantly (compared to present one)..? We'll see.
Five simple reasons why the Zune HD will be a non-event:
1) 3 years too late.
It is never too late if the product is spot on. If Apple hasn't taught us that, noone has.
Quote:
2) iPhone
Different price segment, really.
Quote:
3) iPod mindshare
Only for Apple fans. I know only 3 iPod users total (all with Windows computers) and all 3 are excited about Zune HD. Outside these walls, there is not that much love toward Apple and what it stands for (or is perceived to).
Quote:
4) The move toward device convergence
Not sure what are you referring to. If it is about Mac/iTunes/iPod/iLife/i... integration, don't forget majority of iPod users are actually Windows users.
[QUOTE]5) US-only (for an indefinite period of time)/[QUOTE]
Considering unavailability of Palm Pre is major reason I have an iPhone, I agree with you on that. Question is - how long is it going to last..?
I'm pretty sure old Palm OS had more apps around, and probably less useless, farting/burping/shake the baby garbage. Didn't help.
On the other hand, I know handful of people with iPhone and they all purchased it because it is nice phone/PDA to use out of the box. Apps are way down the WHY? list - from my experience at least.
I had Palm based smartphones for years before I bought my 3G last September. There were about 25,000 apps for the Palms, but many didn't work with the newer phones or OS's, and many didn't work with the older phones and OS's, so maybe a few thousand for each phone model in a generation.
I didn't look for fart apps, so I can't speak to those, but many apps were pretty bad, and many were useless. The average cost of an app was about $20, with a fair number close to $40, some much more, but there were a good number at $10, or even as low as $5 for a small game or trivial utility. Some free ones as well.
Everyone I know with iPhones and iPod Touches has at least a half dozen apps, and most have more, a few such as myself have a lot more. We're talking about a lot of people here, several dozen. I doubt we're that far off the average.
well, my phone is my "pocketable" general purpose computer, so i want a media player that sounds and looks great, not something that is a worse version of my phone. So, your statement is terrible, because everyone posting on here will have a phone and a media player (since the iphone isnt something most would want to use as an actual media player), and I would rather have the better MEDIA PLAYER.
jeez, this guy is thick, isn't he?
I think if you're going to call people "thick" you should append it to a post that doesn't suggest you're a fucking idiot, yeah?
iPhone users absolutely use their phones as a media player, as well as a pocketable computer. That's, you know, pretty much what it was designed to be.
Many Touch users want that same functionality, but without the phone app or the phone charges.
I have no idea what you mean by declaring your phone your pocketable computer (why the scare quotes on pocketable, I wonder) but go on to make some confused assertions about inferior media players (compared to the Zune, I guess). The Touch is the iPhone without the phone app, so not seeing how that would make it "worse" than what you're already doing with your phone, but I suspect you don't know what you mean either and are just sort of making combative noises with a Zune-ward slant. Or something.
At any rate, I'd rather have a single device that did a lot of things. Modest improvements in image quality and battery life wouldn't be enough to tip the scales for me, since the upside of being able to a ton of other stuff with the same device would carry the day.
I really doubt that the dedicated MP3/video player has much a future, any more than people carry around transistor radios.
Only for Apple fans. I know only 3 iPod users total (all with Windows computers) and all 3 are excited about Zune HD. Outside these walls, there is not that much love toward Apple and what it stands for (or is perceived to).
Well then, honestly, you either never go anywhere, or you live in a very small village. I see iPods everywhere I go, and that includes other countries. You can't get away from them. And considering that almost all iPod owners are also Windows users, your statement about no love for Apple other than here is off base, also considering that Apple has sold more than 225 million of these things around the world. Those people obviously have love for at least one of Apple's products and the way they work.
Why do people come up with statements like this when it obviously isn't true?
This is kind of cute, from the same interview with the Zune marketing guy I cited before:
Quote:
Q: Are you concerned about competing with new iPods with cameras built in?
A: The more things like that that make their way into these devices that aren't about great music and video playback, the more it's distracting or sacrificing that original purpose of the device. Apps are jamming in, cameras -- that's work that's not being done on the music front.
With this release, you can see we're still really focused on music and video. We're still hyper-focused on that. Maybe that's the benefit of being the little guy. We can have that laser-focus.
Maybe some of those people ... did buy an iPod because it's all about music, and now it's not. Maybe we can get some of those folks.
This same argument is being made in this thread-- all of a sudden doing less is a feature, because additional functionality is "distracting." Apps are "crowding in", apparently against my will, possibly tossing my music into a ditch.
This is why I never watch movies on my computer-- all that other stuff is just too distracting and I keep thinking of all the apps lurking around, just waiting to pounce.
I wish someone would make a laptop that only played movies and music, but still cost as much as the one that did everything else. Because of the laser focus.
Comments
"The radically different manufacturing process of OLEDs lends itself to many advantages over flat-panel displays made with LCD technology. Since OLEDs can be printed onto any suitable substrate using an inkjet printer or even screen printing technologies,[43] they can theoretically have a significantly lower cost than LCDs or plasma displays.[citation needed] Printing OLEDs onto flexible substrates opens the door to new applications such as roll-up displays and displays embedded in fabrics or clothing.
OLEDs enable a greater range of colors, gamut, brightness, contrast (both DR and static) and viewing angle than LCDs because OLED pixels directly emit light. OLED pixel colors appear correct and unshifted, even as the viewing angle approaches 90 degrees from normal. LCDs use a backlight and cannot show true black, while an off OLED element produces no light and consumes no power. Energy is also wasted in LCDs because they require polarizers that filter out about half of the light emitted by the backlight. Additionally, color filters in most color LCDs filter out two-thirds of the light; technology to separate backlight colors by diffraction has not been widely adopted.[citation needed]
OLEDs also have a faster response time than standard LCD screens. Whereas the fastest LCD displays currently have a 2ms response time (manufacturer's quote), an OLED can have less than 0.01ms response time.[44]"
- From wikipedia, and you can travel there yourself to look at the citations.
and as far as the display's life being "too short," how many people still use their mp3 players from five years ago, which is the average time it takes to show any degradation in screen quality (even blues).
point one from fanboys = FAIL.
should i go on, or will you guys just go to the store and see how much pretty and responsive it is. don't worry. your head wont explode since these are all just TOYS, but grab your ipod touch and a zune hd, turn them both to the side, watch which one works faster and smoother.
nobody cares what you pick, zune or ipod, but i want competition so apple will get off their asses and start innovating again. It took microsoft 3 years to catch up on something 8 years in the making. apple needs to get a move on.
I'm curious how you think that the Zune HD has "caught up" with the Touch/iPhone platform.
As I've pointed out, it appears to be designed primarily as a PMP. As such, it has a nice screen and an extremely frenetic interface. How else has it "caught up"?
Well, I didn't write the article, so I guess I can't respond to this one. Let's just point at the app store. 85,000 apps. I'll say that again, 85,000 apps. Seems like a good metric for success to me
Let me know when Microsoft have that many apps on a mobile device. I look forward to it. (Competition is always a win for consumers.)
Amorya
I'm pretty sure old Palm OS had more apps around, and probably less useless, farting/burping/shake the baby garbage. Didn't help.
On the other hand, I know handful of people with iPhone and they all purchased it because it is nice phone/PDA to use out of the box. Apps are way down the WHY? list - from my experience at least.
sound quality is a wash between the two.
video quality is much better on the zune, if you haven't noticed yet.
the interface for playing music is an opinion, so can't really rate that.
can plug zune into anyone hdtv and watch rented hd movies or tv shows with them, or by myself (if you dont already own the most popular gaming console-- if you do own it, then that feature isn't too big of a deal).
can click one of my favorite artists and listen to any similar artist using zune pass, which is years ahead of genius, and quite a bit ahead of pandora and last.fm
don't care about internet or apps. people have phones and computers for that crap.
I don't know about other people (because I don't like other people), but I use my media player for playing media.
Time for a bit of honesty from someone who is an admitted Apple fan.
There are features on the Zune HD that I lust over. The OLED display will be wonderful. It will have amazing contrast and look good in both brightly and dimly lit rooms. It may not work as well out doors in direct sunlight but to be fair I don't use my iPod or iPhone outside.
Another Zune feature I really want in my iDevices is a radio. Even a standard FM radio is long overdue. I own a Zune 30 and its radio is the feature that I use the most. It looks like the iPod Nano has a nice implementation.
True that. I am surprised so many people are downplaying good old radio. I'm lucky I am not using public transport - have company car - but having a choice between radio, CD and iPhone, I'm finding myself listening to radio almost 100% of time. You can always find a couple of wake up, feel good morning shows on local radio stations that offer right mix of music and talks, and some of them are genuinely funny.
If I'd have to ride a bus or train going to work and back, I'd feel more than a bit limited with my iPhone lacking a radio...
we are talking about mp3 players aren't we?
sound quality is a wash between the two.
video quality is much better on the zune, if you haven't noticed yet.
the interface for playing music is an opinion, so can't really rate that.
can plug zune into anyone hdtv and watch rented hd movies or tv shows with them, or by myself (if you dont already own the most popular gaming console-- if you do own it, then that feature isn't too big of a deal).
can click one of my favorite artists and listen to any similar artist using zune pass, which is years ahead of genius, and quite a bit ahead of pandora and last.fm
don't care about internet or apps. people have phones and computers for that crap.
I don't know about other people (because I don't like other people), but I use my media player for playing media.
Yeah. Why would anyone want a pocketable general purpose computer when they could get far less functionality for the same money?
Apps are crap. The future belongs to having lots of different specialized devices.
No multi-national corporation raking in hundreds of millions (or more) per year is going to make bad product, but they very frequently make the wrong product.
Again, what the f--k is the point of this article on AI? Dilger has never touched the Zune HD and probably never will. 99% of the people on this site will agree that the Zune HD is already destined to be an also-ran PMP. The article is just fanboy nonsense regardless of what percentage is right or wrong. If he's going to go on for 3 pages of crap (I stopped reading halfway through the first page since all I could really see him saying was, "Microsoft sucks. Apple rules."), why not mention the strengths of the Zune HD?
Both you and him try to negate the nicety of having an HD Radio tuner built in. I have one in my car and that piece of gear is definitely something that will come with me to my next vehicle. HD Radio channels DO sound better than their analog counterparts. They obviously have no static and that alone makes them sound better even if they are broadcast at the same bit rate as the analog version. And nearly every major station in my area is broadcasting in HD plus several have secondary digital channels as well.
Everyone slams the Zune pass but I subscribe to Rhapsody to use it on my 2 TiVo's and I love it. It makes we wish I wasn't stuck with a Mac so I could use the unlimited downloads feature. No, music subscriptions aren't for everyone but it works for me. It's great to get to listen to a full album before I commit to buying it. And it's really nice to listen to songs that I want to hear but don't want to buy the album. I love 80's music and it's fun to explore the rest of one-hit-wonders catalogs.
And it's also really nice that it can play back 720p video files despite the display resolution not matching. It seems really nice to not have to download both and SD and HD version of a file like the iTunes kludgy solution. No, you won't fit many full length HD movies on the Zune HD, but you won't fit all that many SD movies on an iPod Touch or iPhone either.
Just like this article's author I've never touched a Zune HD, but it sounds like a competent media player. Too bad very few people on this site will look past their fanboy-ism to get it a fair chance. Does it match a Touch for features? No, but who cares? If Microsoft worked on the Xbox 360 integration, it could be a really compelling companion to that game machine. It would be even better if Microsoft removed the PC from the equation and let the console be the device's sync hub.
Well, I certainly didn't ask him to write the article, you would have to ask the admins about that. But it is obviously of interest to the people here.
I'm also not negating the usefulness of the HD tuner. It's just that more than a few people have asked me if it's a high definition tuner, and it's anything but that. Sure, it may be static free in good areas, but the quality of the audio is still poor to fair. This isn't arguable, just look up the transmission rates. If you love 128 Kp/s MP3's, then you might love this in a car, where its a noisy environment. But over a good pair of cans it doesn't sound that good.
For a basic tuner therefor, it's ok, but the company that has come up with this is misleading people with the name. This has been discussed by people in the radio industry to death already, as well as in the audio magazines.
I'm not slamming subscription services, just saying that most people don't want them. That's the truth. People have every opportunity to use them, but they don't. They are losing subscribers. These are all facts. If you enjoy it then that's great, but it's not getting MS much in the way of buyers for their products.
Yeah... those pesky 'facts' thingies really get in the way.
well, they can get in the way, but we all know that Prince never lets facts get in the way of his rants
Yeah. Why would anyone want a pocketable general purpose computer when they could get far less functionality for the same money?
Apps are crap. The future belongs to having lots of different specialized devices.
well, my phone is my "pocketable" general purpose computer, so i want a media player that sounds and looks great, not something that is a worse version of my phone. So, your statement is terrible, because everyone posting on here will have a phone and a media player (since the iphone isnt something most would want to use as an actual media player), and I would rather have the better MEDIA PLAYER.
jeez, this guy is thick, isn't he?
Good points. But I could easily see Apple saying to a vendor, "well we're getting our current screens for $18" (like your example, just a number). "If we do a $30 screen, we might have to charge an additional $50 to the retail price just to keep our proper margins. Also, you tell me that the failure rate of your product in 30 days is 2% while our current product is .06%" So if we keep our profit margin where the street expects, we may shave off 500,000 unit sales this year as some customers choose the cheaper older Touch or (worse) choose a Zune. And given the projected failure rate, our warranty costs for this part are projected to more than triple, which eats into margins as well."
All I'm saying is that we have no idea all the metrics that went into Apple's decision not to go OLED with this cycle of product but I can speculate on some reasonable theories. Again, Sony and Microsoft may be looking strictly to poach market share by going with a product feature that is really sexy but makes the product that much unprofitable. Given how entrenched Apple's marketshare and mindshare is, they might figure it's the only way in the game until they have enough critical mass to force suppliers to give them better prices. Apple's investments in the Flash RAM markets is a classic example of a company who gets far better prices than anyone else due to the sheer number of pieces than can order and their ability to pre-pay for large shipments of product months in advance. The Palm Pre launch is a classic example where Apple's 16g iPhone 3G was the same price as the 8g Pre at launch. Apple's component costs including things like lithium batteries, Flash RAM and LCD screens were lower than Palm's.
Nice to read about your background. Pleased to meet you.
I can't argue with what you're saying, because it's possible too. This is one reason why I was somewhat disappointed in that Apple didn't have OLEDs this year, but I wasn't too disappointed, or surprised. I was hoping for OLEDs, because when they work well, they will be a very good addition.
But going to an OLED screen is a proposition that manufacturers must consider in light of how their product is used.
For example;
If a product is mostly a phone, it's likely that even with some multimedia features, the phone won't have the screen on for too long during the day. So lifetime, and battery consumption aren't much of an issue.
But if the phone (or player) is going to be heavily used for browsing, games, books, programs, then it might be on for several hours each day. That's different.
Also, if it will be used for high quality video games etc, that must be taken into account as well.
If used in quick spurts, an OLED screen is dandy. but if used for long times, and with bright images, the screen heats up more, and lifetime is shortened. It gets dimmer over time.
Heat and lifetime are proportionally related. (O)LEDs can be run much brighter than they are, but their lifetime drops significantly, so max brightness is limited to a fraction of where it can go.
The way LED and OLED life is measured is different from the way it's measured with other displays (except for plasma, which is sorta rated a similar way). most displays are rated until dead. But (O)LEDs are rated for either a 25% drop in brightness, or a 50% drop in brightness. Without knowing which is being used for a particular screen, we can't tell how it rates against another screen, no matter what it is.
So if an (O)LED screen is rated for 15,000 use, what does that mean? If it's for 25% drop, it could have a 25,000 life at 50% drop. but if it's rated for a 50% drop at 15,000 hours, then it might actually be 9,000 at 25%. There are standards, but they aren't equally applied.
but these ratings are at some specific temperature, which has to be known, because the life ratings change as we change the test temps.
That's why I, and others, wonder about some of the numbers we see for these screens.
And has been mentioned the colors age differently. Right now, it's the green that ages the quickest, followed by the blue. So how is the screen rated? Is it an average of the colors, or is it the shortest lived, or the longest lived?
Confusing, eh?
Meanwhile efficiency is increasing for all types of LEDs at a quick rate. As I mentioned earlier, it's expected to be twice as great in a year. That's major. Not only will battery usage drop, but the display won't get as warm at any given brightness, which either means longer lifetime, or brighter displays, or a bit of both. They are also increasing the life of the green color significantly.
I would assume that if Apple chooses to go OLED next year with a newer and better display, MS will too.
Again, what the f--k is the point of this article on AI? Dilger has never touched the Zune HD and probably never will. ... If he's going to go on for 3 pages of crap... why not mention the strengths of the Zune HD?
.
As it has been said before, the point of the article is to analyze the technology behind the claims being made about the zune. it's not analyzing how it's implemented (e.g. a review). Which explains why he did not go into the strengths of the zune.
The zune is touting the OLED and the Tegra as technology that gives the zune a significant advantage. the writer is showing how they are not intrinsically superior and possibly flawed. and yes, as a result, he is questioning the core advantages of the zune
Wow Im used to extremely slanted stories on here, but the bitterness to which this article was written feels like the Zune inventor slept with the authors wife or something.
Get a life.
Really, it's not bias if his thesis is overinflated claims of the zune based on its technology.
Now, if he had feigned to write an article as a review of the zune and then went on a bent against it, that would be bias.
The writer wrote on the topic at hand; should he stray off topic to talk about good things about the zune just to make people happy who want him to play nice?
yes, the topic itself is biased against microsoft. if you're wondering why, look at the banner at the top of the page.
get a life. classic.
we are talking about mp3 players aren't we?
sound quality is a wash between the two.
video quality is much better on the zune, if you haven't noticed yet.
the interface for playing music is an opinion, so can't really rate that.
can plug zune into anyone hdtv and watch rented hd movies or tv shows with them, or by myself (if you dont already own the most popular gaming console-- if you do own it, then that feature isn't too big of a deal).
can click one of my favorite artists and listen to any similar artist using zune pass, which is years ahead of genius, and quite a bit ahead of pandora and last.fm
don't care about internet or apps. people have phones and computers for that crap.
I don't know about other people (because I don't like other people), but I use my media player for playing media.
If we were just talking about mp3 players, why would we throw $300 at a device when others can do it for cheaper?
and if we're just talking about mp3 devices, why did you bring up video?
these devices offer much more than mp3 capability. it's these features that drive consumer spending habits.
you may not care about internet or apps, but millions of others do. This fact either makes them or you irrelevant.
well, my phone is my "pocketable" general purpose computer, so i want a media player that sounds and looks great, not something that is a worse version of my phone. So, your statement is terrible, because everyone posting on here will have a phone and a media player (since the iphone isnt something most would want to use as an actual media player), and I would rather have the better MEDIA PLAYER.
jeez, this guy is thick, isn't he?
said the pot to the kettle. Do tell why most of us wouldn't want to use the iphone as an actual media player.
Don't say storage capacity. the ipod classic can do the trick and the iphone does everything else.
Is your pocketable general purpose computer an iphone? if not, the ipod touch is not a worse version of your phone.
if you do have an iphone, then why would you want to buy an ipod touch? it's not marketed for you. the fact is, the ipod touch offers many of the features and the experience of the iphone without a phone/contract. Not the other way around.
So now Fan Bot is not allowed when you personally use FanBoy in many forum postings?
Don't make this a room of Double Standards because he/she has some great points.
Heh, yes. I was wondering how many more "Micro$hits" are supposed to happen before moderator does something about that, too - I've seen them more around here than you can stuff into 64GB iPod memory.
While this is a fan site and bias is expected, some behaviour standards should be respected. And forced.
What I don't understand is why people whining about no camera on the iPod Touch would flee to another media player that has no camera. The iPod nano update will drive sales, not turn them away.
That said, the ZuneHD will probably become the best selling Zune ever (however significant that is) because it looks to be a good product. At this point it would be very difficult for the Zune to gain significant traction against the iPod though (the iPod is just too entrenched in peoples minds), and you can't take rumour boards as representative of actual consumer demand.
Hmm... it will never turn off loyal Apple supporters, but I think among that big Windows market share there are many users who use iPod not because it is Apple, but because it is better for them than competition.
Since so many of them don't have real brand loyalty, I think they can easily turn to the other brand on their next gadget refresh if other brand delivers.
So at this point it is a question of will MS be able to deliver competitive ecosystem with their new media player? Of course apple has big head-start with their iPod/iPhone/iTunes dynasty, but MS can pull a few good cards out with smart XBOX integration (something Apple simply can't right now) and with good enough player and accompanying desktop software/music store, they can nibble into iPod territory quite nicely.
To take market by storm they will not, but to gain market share significantly (compared to present one)..? We'll see.
Five simple reasons why the Zune HD will be a non-event:
1) 3 years too late.
It is never too late if the product is spot on. If Apple hasn't taught us that, noone has.
2) iPhone
Different price segment, really.
3) iPod mindshare
Only for Apple fans. I know only 3 iPod users total (all with Windows computers) and all 3 are excited about Zune HD. Outside these walls, there is not that much love toward Apple and what it stands for (or is perceived to).
4) The move toward device convergence
Not sure what are you referring to. If it is about Mac/iTunes/iPod/iLife/i... integration, don't forget majority of iPod users are actually Windows users.
[QUOTE]5) US-only (for an indefinite period of time)/[QUOTE]
Considering unavailability of Palm Pre is major reason I have an iPhone, I agree with you on that. Question is - how long is it going to last..?
I'm pretty sure old Palm OS had more apps around, and probably less useless, farting/burping/shake the baby garbage. Didn't help.
On the other hand, I know handful of people with iPhone and they all purchased it because it is nice phone/PDA to use out of the box. Apps are way down the WHY? list - from my experience at least.
I had Palm based smartphones for years before I bought my 3G last September. There were about 25,000 apps for the Palms, but many didn't work with the newer phones or OS's, and many didn't work with the older phones and OS's, so maybe a few thousand for each phone model in a generation.
I didn't look for fart apps, so I can't speak to those, but many apps were pretty bad, and many were useless. The average cost of an app was about $20, with a fair number close to $40, some much more, but there were a good number at $10, or even as low as $5 for a small game or trivial utility. Some free ones as well.
Everyone I know with iPhones and iPod Touches has at least a half dozen apps, and most have more, a few such as myself have a lot more. We're talking about a lot of people here, several dozen. I doubt we're that far off the average.
well, my phone is my "pocketable" general purpose computer, so i want a media player that sounds and looks great, not something that is a worse version of my phone. So, your statement is terrible, because everyone posting on here will have a phone and a media player (since the iphone isnt something most would want to use as an actual media player), and I would rather have the better MEDIA PLAYER.
jeez, this guy is thick, isn't he?
I think if you're going to call people "thick" you should append it to a post that doesn't suggest you're a fucking idiot, yeah?
iPhone users absolutely use their phones as a media player, as well as a pocketable computer. That's, you know, pretty much what it was designed to be.
Many Touch users want that same functionality, but without the phone app or the phone charges.
I have no idea what you mean by declaring your phone your pocketable computer (why the scare quotes on pocketable, I wonder) but go on to make some confused assertions about inferior media players (compared to the Zune, I guess). The Touch is the iPhone without the phone app, so not seeing how that would make it "worse" than what you're already doing with your phone, but I suspect you don't know what you mean either and are just sort of making combative noises with a Zune-ward slant. Or something.
At any rate, I'd rather have a single device that did a lot of things. Modest improvements in image quality and battery life wouldn't be enough to tip the scales for me, since the upside of being able to a ton of other stuff with the same device would carry the day.
I really doubt that the dedicated MP3/video player has much a future, any more than people carry around transistor radios.
Only for Apple fans. I know only 3 iPod users total (all with Windows computers) and all 3 are excited about Zune HD. Outside these walls, there is not that much love toward Apple and what it stands for (or is perceived to).
Well then, honestly, you either never go anywhere, or you live in a very small village. I see iPods everywhere I go, and that includes other countries. You can't get away from them. And considering that almost all iPod owners are also Windows users, your statement about no love for Apple other than here is off base, also considering that Apple has sold more than 225 million of these things around the world. Those people obviously have love for at least one of Apple's products and the way they work.
Why do people come up with statements like this when it obviously isn't true?
Q: Are you concerned about competing with new iPods with cameras built in?
A: The more things like that that make their way into these devices that aren't about great music and video playback, the more it's distracting or sacrificing that original purpose of the device. Apps are jamming in, cameras -- that's work that's not being done on the music front.
With this release, you can see we're still really focused on music and video. We're still hyper-focused on that. Maybe that's the benefit of being the little guy. We can have that laser-focus.
Maybe some of those people ... did buy an iPod because it's all about music, and now it's not. Maybe we can get some of those folks.
This same argument is being made in this thread-- all of a sudden doing less is a feature, because additional functionality is "distracting." Apps are "crowding in", apparently against my will, possibly tossing my music into a ditch.
This is why I never watch movies on my computer-- all that other stuff is just too distracting and I keep thinking of all the apps lurking around, just waiting to pounce.
I wish someone would make a laptop that only played movies and music, but still cost as much as the one that did everything else. Because of the laser focus.