iPod vs. Zune: January 2008 High End MP3 Player Roundup
by Ryan Smith on January 21, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
Closing Thoughts
There are a lot of factors that go in to weighing the value of an MP3 player, so it should come as no surprise that is has taken us several pages to spell everything out and that there is no single conclusion we can draw. All of the MP3 players we have looked at today are great, they're built well and are very usable; most buyers would likely be happy with any of them. But then again none of them are perfect, they all have weaknesses if not an outright flaw in some way. Because today's MP3 players do more than just play MP3s, we have to break down our conclusions based on what whether the primary use of the device is going to be audio or video.
Audio Player
If you're looking at a device for playing audio, then look no further than the iPod Classic. Apple has had 6 product generations to refine the original iPod and it shows in every way. The battery life of the Classic is unmatched by anything else we've looked at, even the iPod Touch can't close to within 75% of the battery life of the Classic. Meanwhile the combination of the legendary click wheel and the iPod UI is effectively as close to perfection as anyone is going to get for usability; the wheel is sensitive enough to allow for minor adjustments while still allowing for anything to be done in one complete motion. Our only problem with the Classic are the earbuds: they're terrible, if you're buying a Classic make sure to buy some real earbuds to go with them.
Beyond the Classic we have the Touch. The Touch isn't a bad audio player, but if the Classic is perfection for an audio player then the Touch is the result of the compromises you have to reach in breaking away from perfection to do something new. The touch screen just can't make up for the click wheel, the flash memory is just too small for the price, the battery life is more than acceptable but the Classic does better. It's a good audio player, but we're looking for the best.
And finally there's the Zune. The Zune has the UI and the audio fidelity it needs to be a winner, it just doesn't have much else. The battery life is just acceptable and could stand to be a lot more. The Zune pad is an interesting concept but when it screws up it's frustrating. The Zune marketplace's payment scheme is awful should you need to purchase something you can't get DRM-free. It's never a bad audio player if you stay away from the Zune Marketplace, but in either case the Classic clearly surpasses it.
Video Player
When it comes to videos, we find ourselves favoring the iPod Touch above all else. The touch screen interface allows for the biggest screen among all of the devices we're reviewing today and the payoff is a high resolution screen with greater clarity than the Zune can offer. Furthermore the iTunes store is effectively the only game in town for TV shows and movies, so there's plenty of content to work with. The Touch isn't perfect, besides the earbuds (again) the 8GB/16GB limits of the device are problematic: although the battery life means you'll never be able to watch 8GB worth of video anyhow, you won't be able to carry a large selection of video. And the viewing angles are extremely harsh.
This is followed very closely by the Zune. Microsoft went in the right direction with the general Zune design (a hard drive based device with a large screen) but came up short in too many areas. The bright, vivid screen is fantastic but the resolution of the screen should have been greater; the screen door effect is there and you will probably notice it. The hard drive means there's plenty of space for video content, but the battery drain from powering the vivid screen and the hard drive means you won't even get in two movies on a single charge. And the Zune marketplace doesn't have any video content beyond music videos, so you don't have many legal options for filling your Zune. Ultimately if we had the higher resolution screen or a longer battery life, we'd be talking about the Zune being the best video player.
Last and certainly the least then is the iPod Classic. It carries over numerous strengths that we noted about it as an audio player but none of this matters when the screen is so small. The excellent UI and best battery life can't offset the strain caused by such a small screen. Its video abilities may as well not exist; if you buy a Classic it's going to be for the music.
iPod Touch: The Future of Integration
Beyond the audio and beyond the video we have the iPod Touch, a device we'd like to say a few more words on due to its unique nature. It's our belief that the Touch is the future and the writing is on the wall for simpler devices like the Zune and the Classic, they will be replaced by devices with functionality like the Touch's. The same drive towards integration that put video on the iPod Classic and results in today's smartphones is pushing the MP3 player market in the same direction. There will always be a market for devices sans cellular abilities due to issues with recurring costs, but will there be a market for a device that doesn't do everything else?
Today the Touch requires some compromises, primarily that of capacity and control. But Apple has already killed a line of hard drive based MP3 players once (the iPod Mini) with a flash-based device and we can't rule out the possibility of them being able to do it again in the future (and if they can't, they'll find a way to add a hard drive to the Touch). Over the years we've used a number of PDAs and the Touch is better than any of them, once the application SDK comes next month Apple will have everything it needs to kill the ailing stand-alone PDA market. They may not be targeting the Touch towards that market but they're going to take it anyhow.
We suspect that the Touch and its successors will never be as good of an audio player as the Classic is today due to the compromises required in having a touch screen, but the drive towards integration means that customers will accept this and move on. The slight loss in precision is unfortunate, but it will be overcome by the additional features offered by such integrated devices. Apple proved they could avoid the pitfalls of feature creep with the iPhone, and the iPod Touch has managed to bridge the same gap.
Today the iPod Touch is a first-generation Apple product; out of the MP3 players we have reviewed today if we had to recommend just one the Touch would be it due to its balanced audio/video feature set (good at audio, great at video) and PDA functionality, but the pitfalls are there, it could use some refining. Meanwhile Apple will go through the motions of polishing and refining and like the iPod Classic end up with a device that takes control of a market and changes it forever. If the iPhone is the future of the smartphone market, then some day in the future the iPod Touch is going to be the future of the PDA and MP3 player markets.
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ThePooBurner - Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - link
Since the article is on current gen, we should only compare current gen. So you can't say apple is superior because of it's touch wheel when creative has the same. My Zen, the Vision:M is a few years old and can be had for under 200$. For that you get video playback of more formats (and an included transcoder for formats that aren't natively supported) than the Ipod, an FM tuner, a Microphone for dictigraphing, an 8gig jump drive that is seperate from the 30gig main drive, and jump dive like operation for the 30gig main drive, so you can use it on any computer. As far as i know, the Ipod has non of this without buying extra parts. I like the GUI of the Zen better than the Ipod by a lot, though the zune's GUI is actually pretty nice in places. Plus, Creative practically invented sound. I would wager that the sound quality and output, etc. are superior on the Zen compared to the other players as well. My music sounds good n matter what i have hooked to it to produce the sound, be it headphones, speakers, or even a TV. Even sounds great when using my 20$ FM transmitter for playback in my car. Plus my battery lasts for ever. I've gotten fairly close to 24 hours of operation. Granted time depend on a few things, as I've gotten as little as 14 also, but i know that the capability is there to meet the advertised claims, or better. And the 60gig version has even more features than mine does!Actually, other review sites, when my version of the Zen came out, said everything i have said and added "Creative has once again created a superior product to everyone else, but will the market give it the credit it deserves, or will it be like Beta? only time will tell."(that's a paraphrase from memory, so forgive if it isn't 100% exact). In short, the Zen is Better and cheaper than the competition. In every way.
michael2k - Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - link
So you want to compare to today, or a few years old?Because from the Creative web site, only the flash players are in stock. The Vison M, Vision W, and even the Zen are out of stock.
But a theoretical comparison of the Zen M vs the iPod classic shows us that the iPod is smaller and more pocketable, has more storage, and longer battery life. A comparison of the Zen W with the iPod Classic shows that the Classic is still smaller and with a better control scheme, more storage, and better battery life.
Of course what you say about the Vision:M may have been true in 2005 when it was announced... except that even then the iPod was thinner, had greater storage, and similar or better battery life.
So sure the "lead" may jump back and forth every time a refresh is announced, but Apple has "consistently" lead; first with USB mass storage, first with smaller form factor, first with faster connectivity, and first with easier usability. Eventually (2004 really), Creative caught up with their Zen but by then Apple had a huge lead.
So your point, while valid, is also outdated. Look today; if your Vision:M broke, what would you buy? The iPod would be a very strong contender.
yyrkoon - Monday, January 21, 2008 - link
Well I did not read the whole article, and only read part of the closing thoughts, but from what I have read, you guys have your priorities wrong compared to what most of the people I have talked to, and have seen on the web are saying. At least concerning the audio player aspect.A lot of people are wanting a device that is simple as possible concerning putting music on it, and a device that also has good quality sound(read: clean, with no background hissing or hum etc, etc). Anyhow, most of what I have read indicated that people would rather pay less for a Creative Stone, or something similar that was small, played music decently, has decent ear buds, and dead simple drag n drop file transferring. A good portion of these people also seem to want a device that does not cause music to stutter/pause on a device while navigating through menus, or folders while looking for a song, or settings.
The problem with the two reviewed items in this article is that I have read that the software that comes with each device is garbage. And they are not alone, as many MANY devices suffer from the same affliction from what I have read.
Anyhow, Creative has DEFINITELY been in this part of the industry much, much longer than Apple, or Microsoft, and so has Sony(Although I must admit I have not had a Sony Walkman in many, many years, but I still have one of the first Creative MP3 players ever with 32MB of memory on it).
I think now days, and personally, I would rather have something that is small, but not tiny, sounds decent, has a USB chargeable battery onboard(I dont have a problem taking such a device apart and replacing the battery myself; if and when it is needed), and somethin g that has drag and drop file transferring with the ability to play any music format whether DRM or not. IF this device were an all around media device, then it MUST have the ability to read PDF files. More than 2-4GB on such a device would be a waste for me however, so we are talking onboard flash, and probably a 8-10 hour battery play time before recharges.
TP715 - Monday, January 21, 2008 - link
You might want to take a look at the Cowon D2 and A3. Both have drag and drop and support many audio codecs. D2 is small, available in 2, 4, and 8GB (can increase via the SDHC slot), has USB chargeable battery with 52 hr life and will display TXT files (but not PDF as yet). A3 is probably bigger than you want, but will display DOC and PDF files (with transcoding).Others: AnandTech did mention that this is only the first of reviews on MP3 players, so others will probably be covered. I would suggest they look at Cowon as well as Creative Zen etc. They are available only online, are a bit expensive, and have nonstandard UIs, but they have good audio quality and lots of codec support (incl OGG, FLAC, APE etc.). The also support recording, ie line in.
michael2k - Monday, January 21, 2008 - link
I think 119m iPods sold disagree with you.1) Sound quality (if you read the whole article you will see) on the Classic (and correspondingly Nano and Shuffle) iPods are fine.
2) Drag and drop works fine for a couple hundred megabytes (IE, a handful of folders or files) up to a couple gigabytes of files, but falls way short when there are several to tens to hundreds of gigabytes of files. iTunes is then simple (plug and go)
3) The problems described with stuttering/pausing is new, and will probably be fixed. The first 5 generations of iPods did not have this problem.
Anyway, you're welcome to your device. It sounds like you're describing an iPod Touch, so long as you can stand iTunes.
michael2k - Monday, January 21, 2008 - link
I think you need to recognized that for some people the included earbuds fit perfectly.Freeseus - Monday, January 21, 2008 - link
There's something that I haven't seen mentioned in many of these iPOD reviews that I find very annoying. I'm sure I'm not the only one here. Or perhaps, I simply missed over it as I perused this article (as well as previous ones on other sites).The iPOD UI has significant slowdown/pauses/sluggish "stutter" playback while accessing music, particularly when:
a: attached to a transmitting device (iTRIP, for example)
b: while accessing a long or high-quality song
Many a time I find myself waiting to see the data appear and waiting to see the song begin to play. I don't even need to mention the album art in the new Classic, which suffers the same problem as iTUNES does in general with displaying custom artwork as you scroll through your music.
And in the latest CLASSIC generation of iPODs, the "stutter" is at least twice as bad as it was in the previous generation.
Why has this not been mentioned? I considered getting a ZUNE simply because I was tired of the lacking capabilities of the iPOD's processing/coding. But, I haven't purchased a ZUNE simply because there is no 160gig model.
The newest iPOD classic is a step down from the previous generation. It needs a cleaner, less intense UI and/or some more powerful hardware. End of story.
Ryan Smith - Monday, January 21, 2008 - link
It wasn't mentioned because I never experienced it on the 6G hardware. I also own a 5G where I have experienced it, so I see where you're going, but I have never had that issue with the Classic used in this review.cmdrdredd - Monday, January 21, 2008 - link
I find that anandtech has fallen into Apple's traps like so many others. The iPod is hardly the be al end all of players anymore. Hell, the Zune has a FM tuner which Apple expects you to pay for in an accessory. The Zune also bundles earbuds that actually sound good, no Apple's pack in ear buds are nowhere the quality. Plus, I don't have to do the "safely remove hardware" to disconnect my zune, I can just unplug it. Doing that with your iPod can corrupt it completely. The battery life on the Zune I find better than mentioned here. Turn off the WiFi if you don't use it. On the touch if you use the web features it's necessary, but mostly for the Zune you don't need it. It's not ment to do the functions the iPod Touch does via wifi so having it on is unfair in the comparison. The zune has flaws too like the screen not being very high rez for it's size, and inability to put videos into a playlist. The latter of which is easily fixed via software update.The Zune also has the bonus of not using a case that is easily scratched.I also find the UI to be more eye pleasing than the iPod classic because of the ability to customize the background.
I'm honestly just a little sick of people writing off everything else as an option and telling everyone else to just buy an ipod because it's "cool" or "it's an ipod, duh". That's the same as telling everyone to buy a Wii, even when the Wii doesn't have the games people buy an Xbox360 for.
lefenzy - Wednesday, March 5, 2008 - link
I agree with you about the ipod not being the best, but I've never had an issue pulling out my ipod nano without safe renewal.