Engadget have the story that Microsoft’s upcoming Zune digital audio player will probably have a battery life of around 12 hours for audio and 3.5 hours for video.

It’s worth mentioning, though, that those figures are quoted for having the Zune’s wireless functionality switched off, and the wireless networking is likely to drain a lot more charge.

So let’s compare this to the latest iPod battery life (that’s the big 80 GB video one we’re talking about here). The new iPod is stated as having 20 hours of audio and 6.5 hours for video (playing 640×480).

Now, of course, we always need to take manufacturer’s battery life statements with a generous helping of scepticism, but still, it appears the iPod has the edge here (unless Apple are ‘optimising’ for the benchmarks a bit more than Microsoft dare to). The audio figure is unlikely to make much difference in a real world environment (I’m guessing most people would put their iPod on charge within 20 hours of continuous playback), but the relative difference between the video figures is, frankly, astronomical.

The iPod gives you almost double the quoted video battery life of the Zune and although Microsoft haven’t confirmed these figures, I doubt they’re going to be far off the figures of the first Zune player.

So, is battery life that important? I guess we’ll see - and no doubt that as the Zune evolves as a brand, we’ll see new players with new features and different statistics.