Battery life and Wifi – the hole in the Zune 3.0 marketing plan

If you’ve installed the new Zune 3.0 software and firmware update, are you using the new Internet connection functions to Zune Marketplace and Zune-to-Zune gaming?

Both my daughter and myself each have a Zune.  She has my hand-me-down Zune 30 (original) and I have the newer Zune 80, so I have been able to test this on both models.  Unless Microsoft has beefed up the battery life of the new Zune 120, I’m sure that it, too, will suffer from the problem.

The issue is that Microsoft recently announced a partnership with McDonald’s and others to provide free Wifi access to Zune users.  The new Zune software allows Internet access to Zune Marketplace (new feature) and also connection features for Zune-to-Zune song sharing (not new), Zune-to-Zune community (not new), and Zune-to-Zune gaming (new feature).

So, both my daughter and I have been burning up the Wifi wires using the cool, new Marketplace connection.  You can basically access Zune Marketplace directly from the Zune and download songs, check lists like “What’s New”, “What’s hot”, etc.  Really cool feature.  However, this EATS battery juice like nothing I’ve ever seen!  The Zune hardware is simply not made for this feature.  While it works great, it only works for what seems a few minutes at a time before you have to charge the Zune’s battery.  This is a major reason why the Zune battery should be user replaceable so that you can keep spares on hand.  My daughter sat in our living room yesterday, searched Marketplace, downloaded 2 albums, and had to recharge her Zune.  That was after starting from a full charge.

So…all of this cool news about “free Wifi at McDonald’s” isn’t really great news at all because just as soon as Zune users start to download songs while eating their Big Macs, their Zune will go dead before they can say: “two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun”.

Luckily, Microsoft keeps improving the Zune with each model and each software/firmware upgrade, so maybe they’ll pay extra attention to the battery life in future models.

I’m still a Zune lover, but I recognize the limitations, and will have to work around those to get the best enjoyment I can out of the hardware.  Why can’t anything be perfect – ever?