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
Battery Life
Kicking off our objective benchmarking we have the battery life benchmarks for our MP3 players. Skimping on battery life is one way manufacturers can make a product thinner through a smaller battery, but if the battery life is too low then it works against a device by requiring it to be tethered to a charger too much.
For our tests, we ran each device from a full charge until it stopped playing, recording how long it took. The volume was at a moderate volume, and the device went untouched the entire time. This has a slight bias effect because it results in the screen being turned on less often than under normal usage for music, but the effect should be fairly consistent among the players.
For both the Zune and iPod Touch, WiFi was enabled. For movie playback we used a movie encoded in H.264 at 1.5Mbps 640x480, which is the average resolution and bitrate for a video purchased from Apple's store.
Because the iPod Classic is built primarily as an audio player, this is one of the areas where it shines the most. With 34 hours of playing time (4 hours over spec), it lasts for a ridiculous amount of time that neither the iPod Touch nor Zune can touch. We're confident that 34 hours should be enough for anyone, and if that's not enough the 160GB version has a spec of 40 hours play time.
The original Zune was a power hog, and while Microsoft has improved on it some with the Zune 80, it still fails to break 20 hours, when the specifications for the Zune 80 call for 29 hours. Given that the screen is off for music playback and the WiFi implementation should not be drawing a lot of power, we're left to wonder if it's just an inefficient design, an undersized battery, or if something else is going on. Microsoft has access to the same hard drives as Apple so there aren't many potential candidates to explain the limited run time compared to the Classic.
Finally the Touch performs well enough but still can't touch the iPod Classic. At nearly 22 hours it provides enough run time if all you're doing is listening to music, but 22 hours is probably going to be an overestimate of actual run time due to all of the other (power sucking) functionality of the Touch. We had expected a bit more out of the Touch given that it is a flash based player.
For video, screen size becomes a matter of importance. It should be unsurprising that the iPod Classic, the device with the smallest screen is the winner here with 6 hours. But as we feel the screen size is too small to be practical, we'd consider this a hollow victory for Apple.
We follow this with the Touch, which is definitely not a hollow victory for Apple at 5 hours and 30 minutes. The Touch has the biggest screen of all of these devices, so to come in so close to the Classic is a very good situation for the Touch. We suspect what it loses due to the screen is picked up from being a flash based device.
And finally we have the Zune, which has the worst of both worlds with a large screen and a hard drive. While the Zune could claim to trail the Touch in audio, it's nowhere close in video. 3 hours and 15 minutes will get you a movie and some music time, but we'd call anything under 4 hours uncomfortably short.
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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.