Stretching the Zune's battery life to 14 hours

Here at Engadget, we're all about squeezing every last drop of functionality from our gadgetry, and to be honest, Microsoft's Zune needs all the constringing it can get. While we've heard reports stating the average Zunehead could expect 12 hours of battery life when simply spinning through tunes, and 3.5 hours while watching their favorite YouTube masterpieces, new (unconfirmed) talebearing suggests that users can realize 14 hours of continuous audio playback should they follow a few (rather stringent) rules. There can be no activation of wireless functions, no skipping over tracks, and no usage of the built-in equalizer; additionally, the tunes must be ripped as 128kbps WMA files and repeated into perpetuity. Oh, and we almost forgot -- the backlight timer must be set to "one second," and no "other activities" such as viewing photos or scrolling through playlists are allowed either. While we suppose these carefully implemented listening guidelines can stretch the Zune's theoretical battery life to match that of its primary competitor, we'd probably recommend lookingelsewhere if you're not down with daily recharges.