Myth 1: OLED is a great display technology for mobile devices
First off, Microsoft gave the Zune HD a new OLED display. OLED is an interesting new technology that uses a layer of electroluminescent organic compounds, rather than the inorganic materials used in traditional LCDs, to produce an image. OLED panels dont require a backlight, so they can render true blacks and provide a higher contrast ratio.
However, todays OLED panels are much dimmer than standard issue LCDs: a typical maximum output of 200cd/m^2 compared to around 4-500 for mid-range LCDs. OLED also performs considerably worse in bright light because OLED is 100% emissive rather than being partially transflective.
A good quality LCD actually uses ambient light to make its image brighter and more vibrant; OLED does not. This means when you take it outside, the OLEDs screen is completely washed out by sunlight. Unless you only plan to use your mobile device in your dark basement, you dont want one of todays OLED screens, particularly on a mobile media player that you might expect to use on the go in various environments.
A shot in the dark
Microsoft knows this, which is why it only demonstrates the Zune HD in dark rooms. Engadget filmed a full demonstration, including the devices incapacity to pull up a web page, in a suspiciously dark room without even noting this. There are actually candles visibly flickering in the video behind the device.
Microsoft sets up its demos in the dark because the Zune HD looks terrible outside, where its contrast ratio advantage observed in ideal conditions completely falls apart. Engadgets other pictures of an OLED-using Sony Walkman show that without the candle-lit smoke and mirrors, OLED blacks are not black at all.
There are other problems with OLED. They dont last long, because the electroluminescence layer degrades far more rapidly than regular LCDs. Component colors within OLED also die at different times, with the blue pixels fading first. This results in a rapid shift of the color balance as the device ages. Additionally, the original color reproduction gamut of brand new OLED displays is already worse than standard LCD, resulting in less natural-looking colors from the start that only get worse.
More power to ya
And despite the power savings attributed to OLEDs backlight-free design, OLEDs still use more power than LCD displays most of the time because the OLED technology consumes power based on how bright the image it is displaying is. Essentially, OLED is the backlight.
Sony and Microsoft try to compensate by giving their OLED devices a dark, mostly black user interface. Unless you will exclusively be using your Zune HD to watch gothic movies in the dark, the screen will be gobbling up more power than an LCD. This is particularly the case if you want to browse the web, which involves a lot of white space. Showing a white background, OLED consumes as much as 300% of the power of an LCD. Any colors that rely upon those those fragile blue pixels are particularly power inefficient.
And again, because OLED doesnt use any ambient light to brighten its picture, as LCD does, 100% of the image comes from emitted light output, which requires a bigger drain on the battery. For this reason, reviewers of other OLED products have expressed puzzlement about why the supposedly efficient OLED technology didnt translate into better battery life in actual use, as did the Register when looking at a Samsung s8000 Jet:
Considering its got an energy-saving OLED screen, we were disappointed with the battery life of the Jet. Perhaps the powerful processor puts some extra drain on the juice, but the promised 180 minutes of talk time and 250 hours standby translated into a barely a day of moderate use.
If youre wondering why Apple, which sells tens of millions of mobile devices per year and has a component appetite that literally sways RAM markets, didnt beat Microsoft, a company that barely sold a couple million Zunes in two years, to the OLED trough, its not because Microsoft is on the cutting edge, but because Microsoft is desperately looking for a marketable feature, whether or not that feature makes any sense for consumers.
Myth 2: NVIDIAs Tegra processor leapfrogs existing mobile processors
Myth 3: Zune HD is mobile HD
Myth 4: Zune HD delivers high definition radio
Myth 5: Zune HD games and software will wow you
You made it to the party. I see you're still loaded with all the baggage though. 