Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/2423
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
With the Christmas tree chopped up and the New Year's resolutions made (and probably broken) the holidays are officially over and the new year has begun. But if you're on the receiving end of a gift from one of the 60% of Americans who purchased a gift card as a present this year, the Christmas season may not be quite over. Now you need to decide what to do with those gift cards and they probably won't be to a place like Newegg where you can geek-out on exotic hardware; instead you're shopping retail.
So what do you do with those gift cards before they begin to self-deduct? If you're thinking of an MP3 player, then you're in the right place. We're re-launching our coverage of MP3 players here at AnandTech, and to start things off we have a roundup of high-end MP3 players from juggernauts Apple and Microsoft, who between the two control the vast majority of the high-end high-margin market for MP3 players in the United States.
Apple of course needs no introduction in the MP3 player market, as while they were originally a couple of years late to the game they have managed to become the unlikely 800lb gorilla in the MP3 player market. iPod has very nearly become synonymous with "MP3 player" in common vernacular, a short-but-succinct summary of Apple's dominance (and a possible trademark nightmare for the company in the future). They're the company to beat, they have no desire to hide this, and they have no intention of letting it happen.
Meanwhile we also have Microsoft, a far newer competitor that has done surprisingly well or surprisingly poor in the market so far, depending on who you ask. Their first Zune was panned by critics for various perceived inadequacies and the Zune did not dislodge Apple from being the king of the hill as Microsoft had hoped. Yet on the other hand, the first Zune was enough to catapult Microsoft to the #2 supplier of hard drive based MP3 players in the United States, shooting past entrenched players like Creative practically overnight. They came nowhere close to beating Apple in the MP3 player market, but they got closer than anyone else in recent years and are willing to throw the money and leverage that is Microsoft to try again and again.
It has been no accident that Microsoft has chosen the past year to break in to the MP3 player market. Issues of company diversification aside, as an established market the MP3 player market has in the past year finally matured. For Apple this is a troubling news, as they must now compete with themselves to sell new iPods since they can no longer bank on market growth to keep their sales high. Meanwhile for Microsoft this is great news, as Microsoft's is often at its best when it's time to compete in a mature market where breakthroughs are slow and the risk of competitors blind sighting them is low.
The MP3 players we will be looking at today represent the shifts in product styles that come with that maturation. From Apple we have the old guard and the new guard; the iPods Classic and Touch respectively. From Microsoft we have the Zune 80, a product that is both the old and new guards at the same time, striving to fix what ailed the first Zune in the process. How do these MP3 players stack up? Let's find out.
iPod Classic
The iPod Classic (6th generation), as the name implies, is the latest successor in Apple's long line of mainline iPods.
If you're looking for a major change in hardware or design from the previous 5/5.5G iPod, you're not going to find it here. Apple knows when they've hit a good thing, and has changed the Classic very little over its lifetime; other than some minor tweaks it's still practically the same design as even the original iPod. With the addition of video with the 5G iPod in particular, there is little left that's practical to add, leading to the hardware capabilities having gone virtually unchanged with this revision.
Underneath, the iPod operating system has received a major GUI facelift with the Classic, which is the focus of what's new with this model. The previous text-based UI has been split down nearly the middle, with a right-pane for graphics to go with most of the menus. Frankly we don't have much nice to say about the UI, so we won't beat around the bush on it trying to say something nice before we go in to the negatives.
There's nothing wrong with the new UI, but the change doesn't bring about anything useful either. It's a very good analogy of Apple's own two-faced nature when it comes to UIs: half of Apple earns all of the praise it gets for what it's done with its UIs over the years for the iPod and OS X, and the other half completely ignores the good practices they've built and tries to be cutting edge for the purpose of being cutting edge.
We hope we're not spoiling things too much for this review when we say that we still think the Classic has the best UI out of all of our MP3 players (in so much as they're comparable), but Apple has definitely shot itself in the foot here. One of the cornerstones of the iPod design that enabled Apple to blow right past their early competition was the vastly superior UI, a minimalist design that was very effective and worked very well with other cornerstone: the scroll wheel. At the end of the day Apple has traded roughly half the horizontal resolution of the iPod's screen for useless graphics, and while it's still better than anything else out there we saw a better UI in the previous iPod. This is a very good lesson in not trying to fix something that isn't broken.
In spite of managing to make the UI worse however, Apple hasn't affected the core functionality of the iPod Classic. The iPod started as a audio player and while Apple has since added features it's still a top-notch audio player. The credit here goes to the scroll wheel, which after 7 years is still the benchmark for input on a MP3 player thanks to the high level of precision it affords and the buttons being so close together for easy reach. Combined with the hierarchical design of the UI, the Classic is the easiest to use among all of the MP3 players we're looking at today, particularly when it comes to blind navigation.
Meanwhile the technical abilities of the Classic when it comes to audio are fairly standard, but there's nothing wrong with this. All of the usual audio formats are supported (MP3/AAC/Audible) along with AIFF/WAV/Apple Lossless for lossless file formats. However open source software proponents will once again be disappointed to find that the Classic doesn't support OGG Vorbis lossy audio or the popular FLAC lossless format.
Where the Classic falls short however is where every other ancestor of the Classic has also fallen short: everything else. For video and photos, the Classic's 2.5" 320x240 screen is simply too small to be practical to watch videos on. The resolution is appropriate for the screen's physical dimensions, it's the physical dimensions that are the problem. With widescreen material in particular the screen just isn't big enough to allow you to watch from a comfortable distance. It's a shame too, with hard drives going up to 160GB there's plenty of space for video or photos, you just can't see them without a magnifying glass.
As has become the de-facto standard for MP3 player video, the Classic supports H.264 and MPEG-4 Simple Profile for its video codecs. For compatibility purposes the Classic can handle video up to 640x480, although any self-encoded content at this resolution would be wasteful given that the screen is only one-quarter of this resolution. Since the Classic can't handle AVI containers, DivX/XviD encoded video is out, even if the device does support the MPEG standard those codecs are based on.
Besides media player functionality, the Classic also throws in a few utilities and games. The story is much the same as it is for video, with this extra functionality just not well suited for the device. The utilities (Clock/Calendar/Alarms/Notes/Stopwatch) and games (iQuiz, Klondike, and Vortex) are designed well, the problem boils down to the scroll wheel which just isn't designed for this kind of use. The wheel as a limitation means most of the utilities can't accept and store new data and the games are made either overly simplistic or hard to play. The wheel works great for media, but not for anything else. If you want real PDA functionality in an MP3 player, you should be looking towards the iPod Touch whose touch screen offers the kind of input system required to make these features work.
The build quality of the Classic is excellent, and we can identify no significant outstanding flaws. The dimensions on our 80GB unit are a holding-comfortable 4.1in x 2.4in x 0.41in and the weight 4.9 ounces. The Classic is thin enough that it's pocketable in big pockets, but some users may find it a bit bulgy in smaller pockets. The matte coating of the front is fingerprint-resistant, but perfectionists will have a problem with the chrome rear, which is both a scratch and fingerprint magnet. An inadvertent drop of 4' on to a tile floor produced no problems with our Classic, although it did contribute to the quickly scratched-up back.
If we have one real problem with the Classic, it's the included earbuds. While we use our own set of headphones regardless, Apple's standard earbuds included with all of their iPod products are nothing but incredibly cheap. The sound is mediocre, the fit is wrong, and they fall out very easily. Considering that most consumers will not buy separate earbuds for an iPod and that the MSRP on an 80GB iPod is $249, Apple would be much better off including better earbuds. There's just no reason they need to be this poor.
iPod Touch
Earlier we called the iPod Classic the old guard, and for good reason. The iPod line started as just an audio player and that's what the Classic does best. However it's also at an evolutionary dead end, it isn't practical to expand it to both be a more functional device and also the iPod Classic at the same time. The next step requires a clean break from the old guard and so we have the new guard, the iPod Touch.
Fundamentally the iPod Touch is a stripped down iPhone. It has the same ARM processor, the same 512MB of RAM, the same version of OS X, the same 3.5" touch screen and many of the same applications. The Touch is for all practical purposes a very small PDA/computer optimized for media use. If you've read our iPhone review then you already know what to expect, otherwise keep reading.
Whereas the iPod Classic was the natural evolution of the iPod line, the Touch is practically unrecognizable as an iPod. The large touch screen eliminates the need for all buttons except a single home button, marking the end of the iconic iPod scroll wheel. You almost can't compare the two, they're simply such different devices that it's an iPod in name only.
Besides the large touch screen, as the new guard the Touch hardware also has a few other key differences compared to the old guard. In spite of being a high-end player in the price range of hard drive based players, it's flash memory based Coming in at $299 for 8GB and $399 for 16GB, it's $50 more expensive for 1/10th the capacity of the two respective iPod Classic models. This makes the Touch a gamble for Apple, compared to other players it's ridiculously expensive for the capacity it has.
Given the space needed to support the large screen, the more powerful electronics, and a larger battery to drive all of this we can see why Apple went with a flash based player, but there will be a lot of customers who will not want the Touch due to this issue. We're left curious just how big an Touch with a hard drive would be; based on how the iPhone has been received, we could see something up to the size of the iPhone still being practical, especially since the Touch is starting out at only .31" thick.
With that said since it's an iPod and supposed to be primarily a media player, we'll jump to the more pressing question of its media player abilities, before getting in to the utilities and the subtleties of the hardware design. For playing audio, the classic iPod hierarchical navigation system is still in use, but with modifications for the touch screen. It's good to see that Apple decided to not rock the boat too much here, as the hierarchical navigation system is still every bit as good on a touch screen as it is the scroll wheel.
Unfortunately we can't say much else that's nice about the music UI, and it's not for a lack of trying on Apple's part. The touch screen just isn't a great replacement for the scroll wheel; Apple was tasked with replacing the perfect media player control and couldn't do it. A touch screen means we no longer have blind navigation and the touch screen can't offer the kind of precise controls the scroll wheel can, meanwhile the bigger screen isn't doing anything more for us.
Volume and song position are particularly bothersome, as the screen is only a good three-thumbs wide, making it easy to adjust something incorrectly or requiring more time and concentration to adjust something to precisely where you want it. It works, probably as well as Apple can ever hope to achieve, but it's definitely not as good as the scroll wheel.
We also are not very impressed with cover flow, the alternative UI that allows browsing songs by cover when the music application is open and the Touch turned on its side. It looks pretty and it's easy to use, but we're not sold on it actually being useful. On the one hand it's extremely reliant on having cover art for all of your songs, and on the other hand it's extremely reliant on you knowing the cover art for every album is to make efficient use of it. Text may not be as fancy as artwork, but in the digital age cover art just isn't as meaningful when we don't have a real copy of the art anyhow. We'd really like to have an option for a widescreen UI when the Touch is turned on its side, it would help us deal with the volume and song position issues we mentioned previously, due to the fact that we could have longer volume/position bars.
Other than these issues, the Touch is a competent audio player. The format support is the same as the Classic and the audio quality is the same (we'll have more on that later in our benchmarking section) so on a technical level it's just as good of an audio player as the Classic is. If it wasn't for the fact that the Touch used a touch screen and had to forgo the scroll wheel, it would be just as good as the Classic. The touch screen is the Achilles Heal of the device that drags it down as an audio player.
Yet on the other hand the Touch's video abilities put the Classic to shame; unlike the Classic it's clearly designed for video use. It still suffers from the general control issues brought about by the touch screen, but unlike the Classic the nearly device-sized screen makes watching videos practical and something that you'll actually want to do with the device. With a resolution of 480x320 (twice that of the Classic) and a 3.5" screen, the Touch is extremely comfortable to watch videos on. It's not quite perfect because of the control issues, but it's very close.
Incorrect formatting
Correct formatting
We did find an issue with letterboxed videos however; with one of our test videos encoded at 640x480 the touch proceeded to completely cut off the letterboxing, distorting the image. We don't have any other videos that this occurs on so we can't gauge how prevalent the issue is, but never the less it's there and bears mentioning.
iPod Touch, Cont
Beyond its traditional media player abilities, the Touch also includes the full suite of iPhone applications, which were missing-in-action initially but Apple has since corrected the bungle on their part and new Touches are shipping with them (we're less happy however that owners of older Touches have to pay $20). The iPhone's excellent Safari browser is included with the Touch and functions every bit as well as we'd expect. The 480x320 screen of the Touch means that it's not a perfect replica of the desktop web browsing experience in spite of Apple's claims otherwise, but otherwise it's very easy to use. The jump start on web application development thanks to the iPhone launch means there are already numerous AJAX web applications that have been developed specifically for the iPhone/Touch that extend the usefulness of Safari and the Touch as a whole.
Also included are the YouTube player and the iTunes WiFi Music Store. The YouTube player loses some practicality in the transition from the iPhone, due to the fact that the Touch only includes a polyphonic tone generator instead of a (larger) speaker. This means that anyone wanting to share videos will also need to share their earbuds, something few of us are generally willing to do.
As for the iTunes WiFi Music Store, Apple doesn't pull any surprises. Given that the device has WiFi abilities it would have been a significant oversight not to include a store - something a lot of users have been waiting on their MP3 players for some time now - so there it is. Like everything else with the Touch that is a translation of a Mac OS X application, the UI has been structured specifically for the Touch and works well given the device's abilities. We would recommend keeping the Touch close to your wallet however, it's easy to quickly forget that you can rack up the music bill quickly with the Touch when buying music.
Rounding out the applications are Apple's personal information management applications Calendar, Contacts, and Mail, along with the general use applications Clock, Calculator, Stocks, Weather, Maps, and Notes. Because these applications were all originally designed around the iPhone, they do lose some of their usefulness on the Touch due to the lack of EDGE capabilities, but especially with the proliferation of city-wide WiFi in some areas it's hard to say they're hobbled in any significant way. If you want to know our thoughts on these applications we'll save on the redundancy and point you to our iPhone review, there has been very little chance in application functionality since that was published. Although Apple was late in including the full iPhone application suite with the Touch, the end result is that finally doing so is to their benefit: the difference between having the applications and not is the difference between an artificially hobbled media player and one of the best PDAs we have ever used.
The design of the Touch's hardware straddles the line between that of an iPod and that of an iPhone: the back is traditional iPod chrome while the front is Spartan with the touch screen and the single home button. The entire device is a fingerprint magnet, and both the chrome and the screen make fingerprints very obvious; this is a bit of a change from other iPods where the matte scroll wheel isn't a fingerprint problem. Granted, it's not really possible to make a touch screen that isn't a fingerprint magnet, but perfectionists will probably have a heart attack. For the rest of us Apple includes a polishing cloth that will no doubt see a lot of use. We do have a minor gripe about the location of the headphone jack however, it's on the bottom which means the earbud plug jabs in to our palm. It could have been put at a location to make the jabbing worse, but it could have also been placed at the top which to us seems like a more sensible location in every way.
The build quality of the Touch is generally excellent with only one minor flaw. Because of the chrome back, a small plastic "window" exists near the top-right corner of the device to allow the WiFi radio to communicate uninterrupted; this itself isn't a problem but on our unit the window isn't flush with the chrome, making it possible for the chrome at the edge of the window to catch on things. Otherwise the Touch oozes the usual Apple design polish, with a very solid design that is hard to break, including the glass screen which judging from the iPhone is virtually unbreakable.
Given all of this however, the Touch isn't perfect; Apple did a good job with the hardware but the software is lacking. On top of the issues we've outlined earlier with the touch screen controls, there are a few more things we believe Apple didn't deliver on quite as well as they could have.
Apple's lack of imagination in using the Touch's WiFi is very obvious at times. Wireless synchronization is not supported and while this is a boondoggle for security issues, Microsoft made it work for the Zune which is plenty of proof that it's possible. Such a feature is definitely useful, especially for minor transfers such as PIM data where the data set is small and there may not otherwise be a need to recharge the Touch at that time. The lack of internet radio abilities is also a disappointment; we have no doubts the Touch's battery wouldn't be able to pull off the play time it can with regular music files due to the power requirements of the WiFi radio, but that should be up to the user to decide if they want to bother with the feature. We certainly would like to be able to listen to our favorite internet radio stations given that the device already has all of the necessary hardware.
Next is how the Touch interfaces with a host computer. Unlike the iPod Classic line, the Touch is not a USB mass storage device but rather a custom device requiring a device driver. This means the Touch can't be used as a portable USB hard drive like the Classic can (although this is admittedly less of an issue with the Touch's much smaller flash memory) but it also means the Touch is only supported by a limited number of operating systems. Apple has never officially supported Linux but since prior iPods have been USB mass storage devices, it has been fairly trivial for capable Linux programmers to write their own programs. This isn't the case for the Touch, where a quick check on our part didn't come across any drivers for it at all. Furthermore Apple was extremely late to the game for supporting Vista x64, it wasn't until this month that they finally released a version of iTunes with a 64bit driver. Given what's happened we can easily see the driver requirements for the device continuing to be a problem for the Touch and its successors.
Out final gripe is once again the earbuds. We didn't like them with the Classic, we still don't like them with the Touch. With the 16GB Touch featuring a $400 MSRP, the issue has moved beyond annoying and towards simply silly.
Before closing out our thoughts on the Touch, the modability of the Touch bears a quick mention. If you're willing to break your warranty, it's possible to run user-created applications on the Touch by jailbreaking it to allow installation of further applications. Apple will be rolling out their iPhone/Touch SDK in February, but we suspect it will be a few months for developers to catch up, and the application signing requirement (along with what we imagine will be a fee to acquire a key) will be a turn off to some developers. In the mean time the iPhone/Touch community has had over half a year to develop a number of good applications that can be installed on a jailbroken Touch, including a number of games, IM clients, UI customizations, and even a SSH server for your inner-*nix hacker. There's a definite risk to jailbreaking a Touch but at the moment it adds a lot of value to the device.
Zune 80
Last but certainly not least we have Microsoft's second-generation Zune, the Zune 80. If the iPod Classic is the old guard and the iPod Touch the new guard, then the Zune is the missing link, as its feature set includes items from both generations of products, with interesting results.
As the successor to the original Zune (30) which was developed prior to the Touch, the Zune 80 is best described as an attempt to build a bigger, better iPod Classic; AKA the proverbial iPod killer. The original Zune launched with fairly tepid reviews thanks to a combination of poor design choices with both the hardware and the software. Since then Microsoft has gone back to the drawing board and heavily revised the Zune's hardware for the Zune 80, and taken out many of the kinks in the Zune software, which has also been pushed out to the original Zune as an update. The result is that their second generation Zune is immediately a much stronger contender than the original Zune was.
At $249 for the Zune 80, the Zune 80 is clearly targeted against the 80GB iPod Classic which retails at the same price and features the same 80GB 1.8" hard drive. Microsoft seems content to leave Apple alone at the $349 price point for the 160GB iPod Classic.
One of the biggest complaints with the original Zune was the controls, and that's where we'll start. The original Zune used a d-pad in the shape of a circle along with buttons on the left and right sides, something that would seem to be more at home on a Windows Mobile PDA than a MP3 player. The d-pad's successor in the Zune 80 is a touch-sensitive pad (the Zune Pad) in the shape of a squircle. Notably, the Zune Pad is only a single button, emulating the previous Zune's d-pad by reading the location of the thumb when the Zune Pad is pressed.
On the whole the Zune Pad is a mixed bag. The lack of touch controls on the original Zune were a massive mistake and this makes up for it greatly, as it's now far easier to quickly navigate through lists thanks to the ability to flick your finger along the Zune Pad to launch the list up or down. The biggest shortcoming in its design however is the Zune Pad just isn't very accurate. Because the Zune Pad uses touch loaction to figure out what d-pad action it should be emulating (or if it should be emulating a centered button press), we continue to have periodic issues accidentally scrolling up/down as we press the button because the Zune Pad reads our thumb actions as a flick while we're pressing the button. Through a month's practice we've learned how to better work with the Zune Pad to try to avoid such accidents, but we haven't been able to stop them completely. This particularly manifests itself during blind navigation, making that task harder than it should be.
Less significant is the fact that Zune Pad is hard to get a read on in terms of sensitivity; every now and then the Zune Pad is reading small motions as bigger than they are meant to be. Much of this has to do with the fact that the Zune Pad is fairly small (1" diameter) and requires repeated motions to use, so the device has brief 1" motions to decide what's going on. In all fairness to Microsoft, this is a case where they're between a rock and a hard place with what Apple has done. The iPod scroll wheel is simply a fantastic design, it's very comfortable and easy to use, with no significant problems in our opinion and none of the issues we've had with the Zune Pad. But we believe Microsoft can't outright copy the scroll wheel both because Apple's legal team probably won't let the idea go without a fight and because there's a certain level of harm that would come to Microsoft's reputation if it was such an obvious copy.
So what we get is the Zune Pad, to the detriment of the Zune 80. Don't get us wrong, it's not terrible (if you want terrible ask us about a Rio, any of them), it's just not great either; it's better than the first Zune and still not as good as the competition. Ultimately it's not possible to avoid fighting with the Zune Pad at least once, which is a tough sell in the iPod age. We should note that you can turn the touch-sensitive features of the Zune Pad off, which would solve some of our problems, but then we'd just be back to a d-pad.
Moving on, we come to the UI of the Zune. In all honesty we don't have much to say about the UI because we're largely content with it. Its anti-iPod design is rather obvious at times, starting with the white-on-black design compared to the iPod's black-on-white design, but at the end of the day it accomplishes the same things and works out rather well. Hierarchies are very solid designs for a MP3 player interface, and this is what Microsoft sticks to. If you've used any other MP3 player then you're not going to immediately know where everything is, but once you've used one hierarchical design you've basically used them all and will quickly adapt to the Zune.
The only thing keeping us from calling the Zune UI a draw with the iPod Classic's (it's basically incomparable to the Touch) are two nagging issues with it that we're having. First is a matter of design, Microsoft decided to shorten the hierarchy some by making song groupings a horizontal list across the top with the elements appearing below, skipping the need to actually traverse deeper. In practice this saves a short amount of time traversing the UI, but it also has the side effect of not making all of the groupings visible at once. What are the grouping methods and how many clicks/flicks do we need to make to get to the one we want? Because they're not all on the screen at once, you can't tell without going through them all. It's only a problem for new users, but it's a problem none the less.
The other issue we have is with the responsiveness of the UI. Most of the time it's fast, but not always; certain actions such as traversing through the song grouping methods too quickly will result in a UI that feels sluggish - never slow but sluggish. It's not enough to significantly impact the usability of the Zune, but it is enough to be annoying. Who ever heard of a MP3 player being sluggish? It just shouldn't be happening.
Zune 80, Cont
Ultimately deciding on the value of the Zune comes down to how well it performs its tasks. When it comes to the Zune as a music player, the issues we have with it are minor in practice, and not the kind of showstopper issues that some people have had with the original Zune. Although with the presence of the larger screen you'd correctly assume Microsoft is focusing on more than just music here, Microsoft hasn't made the mistake of neglecting usability of Zune for music, and as such we're generally happy with it when it comes to playing music. If you're the kind of person that isn't bothered by the minor UI/control hang-ups, then you're going to find that the Zune is as easy to use and as effective as any other MP3 player we're looking at today.
On the technological side, we find that Microsoft's choice of format support is odd. On top of MP3 support it adds Microsoft's own WMA (lossy), WMA lossless, and is still one of the few players that supports the latest and greatest MPEG audio format, AAC. On the other hand it doesn't support WAV (admittedly useless, but still...) and audio book users will be disappointed to find out it doesn't support Audible, the de-facto source for audio books. Here the Zune joins the small club of only a few high-profile devices that don't support Audible's format, and this isn't something we'd expect. The Zune store has some audio books, but nothing comes close to Audible's collection at the moment. There's no Vorbis/FLAC support either, not that we'd expect it but it never hurts to mention how nice it would be.
There's also one final downside with the Zune here: there's no equalizer. This isn't a big deal for us personally, we don't find the need for the function on our MP3 players, but there's a good chance we're in the minority here. If you absolutely need an equalizer (although we digress and say you need better earbuds) then you're not going to want the Zune.
On the final upside however, the Zune does something Apple has avoided doing for the entire life of the iPod line and includes an FM radio tuner. Much like the equalizer, we don't see a need for FM radio since the audio quality is inherently inferior to a good audio file, but we can't find any faults in including it. FM tuners are small and easy on the power consumption, so for those users who for whatever reason want to be able to listen to the radio as easily as they listen to their other music, that option is open with the Zune.
Moving on, we have the video functionality of the Zune, one of the unit's real strong points in design. The UI for video is every bit as competent as it is for audio, which means Microsoft only needs to deliver on the hardware to make a solid combination. This is where Microsoft and Apple have diverged some, the iPod Classic isn't focused on video even though it has the ability, meanwhile the Zune is. The 3.2" 320x240 is big enough to be comfortable to watch videos on and it has no problem being bright enough to do so without any eye strain. We'll talk more about the screen later in our benchmarking section, but for now we'll say we're happy with it.
For the Zune 80 the technical side of its video abilities received a massive boost; the original Zune initially only supported Microsoft's WMV video, which for obvious reasons was a poor idea. This time around the Zune 80 supports MPEG-4 Simple Profile and H.264 along with WMV, with their associated standard-defined containers. Like the iPods it supports video resolutions in excess of the screen for compatibility purposes, but also like the iPods it's going to be a waste if you're encoding your own videos.
Finally, in sharp contrast to Apple's decision to add PIM functionality and games to the iPods to round out the devices, Microsoft has gone in a completely different direction with the Zune Social aspect of the device. For those not familiar with this functionality from the original Zune, as the Zune features a WiFi radio it has the ability to communicate with other Zunes in the immediate area. With this ability it can send songs (3 play limit), photos, and podcasts to other Zunes it sees. Microsoft's vision for this functionality is a (meatspace) community where users are sending each other songs, in effect helping each other find new songs by sharing what they like.
While we'd like to comment on the WiFi social aspect of the Zune, the lack of another Zune prevents us from doing so. We don't have another Zune in our possession and we haven't found another Zune (with its WiFi abilities turned on) to test this ability with, so we can only speak of it in theory. Our gut reaction is that this is a waste of battery power to leave the WiFi radio turned on (then again, perhaps we're not hip enough?) but we can't put our theory to the test to solidly judge it.
The other aspect of Zune Social, new with the Zune 80, is a social website approach to sharing music. Similar to MySpace and the like, users can create accounts, see what other people are listening to, and then make comments or recommendations about the music and purchase it for themselves if it's in the Zune store's catalog. We'll be frank here and say that we're not impressed with this aspect of it. Specialized communities are nice, but between the self-limiting issues of only being useful for discussing music and then only for Zune owners, and because there's already a flood of social networking sites, this comes across as very me-too of Microsoft. Since this isn't a feature of the Zune hardware there's nothing being drug down, it's just not a useful addition to the Zune experience.
Moving on to the design of the Zune, one of the major complaints about the original Zune was how big it was (.58" thick), a necessity for the larger screen, WiFi radio, and battery. The Zune has gone on a diet, and for the Zune 80 it's down to .50" thick. In this case we consider .50" the magic number for thickness; anything bigger is going to be too thick and will probably give us problems protruding if we aren't putting it in a baggy pocket, while .50" is just small enough that it passes our tests. It's still .09" thicker than the similarly designed 80GB iPod Classic, so for those absolutely worried about thickness but still want a hard drive, they may be turned off by the extra bulk.
Perfectionists sick of chrome backs on their MP3 players will be happy to find that the Zune uses a brushed aluminum back, which means it isn't the fingerprint or scratch magnet that is the iPod. The only downside to this is that it makes the Zune feel deceptively less-than-sturdy. The aluminum back is plenty strong, but on first picking it up it doesn't exude the same "this is a solid metal back" that the iPods do. On the whole the Zune 80 is every bit as solid of a design as the rest of the MP3 players we're looking at today; we don't have any concerns with it breaking.
Wrapping things up, we have the grab bag of everything else that doesn't fit in to another category. We'll start with earbuds, a sore subject for us when it comes to the iPods. With the Zune, Microsoft clearly gets the idea that users don't want to or won't purchase separate earbuds for their MP3 player, as they include a set of remarkable "premium" earbuds with the Zune 80. Not only is the audio quality of these earbuds immediately superior to that of the iPod earbuds, but these are in a canalphone style using rubber fittings to hold the earbuds to the ear. This blocks out some outside noise and does a great deal to keep the earbuds inside of your ears, our biggest problem with the iPod earbuds. Audiophiles still won't be impressed but otherwise these are great earbuds that most users won't feel the need to replace, and a solid example of the kind of earbuds that should be coming with a high-end MP3 player.
On a less positive note, we're disappointed with how the Zune is interfaced with a host computer. Like the iPod Touch, it's a device that requires a driver to be recognized by the operating system and used, which brings about the same OS-agnostic problems as with the Touch. Microsoft had the sense to support 64bit versions of Windows out of the box, but not Linux or the Mac. It would behoove Microsoft to get the Zune working on the Mac as Apple's market share continues to grow (particularly with laptops).
Unfortunately the driver issues also means that the Zune can't immediately be used as a portable hard drive, which is a much bigger deal for the Zune than it was for the much smaller Touch. An 80GB hard drive is huge, using a MP3 player with such great capacity as a portable hard drive is something that you'll never find on a spec sheet but is something we believe many owners are definitely going to want to do. While we can use a registry hack to enable disk mode, we still need the driver installed and the registry edited on each computer we want to interface the Zune with; it's a very impractical solution. The Zune should have a native USB mass storage device mode like the iPod (even if drivers would still be required to do anything else with the Zune), it's appalling that it lacks this.
Last, we feel Microsoft is really failing to grasp what they can do with WiFi here, even more than Apple with the Touch. We're absolutely thrilled that we can wirelessly sync the Zune, and we're absolutely confused as to why that and media sharing are all we can do. Since the Zune isn't built with the kind of controls or the kind of hardware needed to be a full PDA we aren't expecting a lot, but it has FM radio support but no internet radio support? And what about wireless access to the Zune social service or the Zune marketplace? Even though Apple now has a product with WiFi support this still could be something that could help further set apart the Zune from the iPod Classic, but Microsoft missed their chance here.
Software & Music Stores
The right to call a device great lies not only with the quality of the device itself, but how it interfaces with its host computer. It seems like everybody has their own idea of how to best do this, with wildly different results. When Apple came on to the MP3 player scene one of the things that set them apart was the tight integration between the iPod and iTunes compared to the poor music management applications that most other MP3 players of the time used, and since that day they have set the bar for what a good music management application should be like, and how a media player application should interface with a MP3 player device. If the music management/media player application isn't any good, then no matter how good the MP3 player is the device is going to be a tough sell.
Since then the quality of the music store associated with the management software has also become an important part of the equation, only for the importance of this to wane very quickly in the last few months. With all four of the major record labels having agreed to sell music without DRM(Digital Rights/Restriction Management) protection in partnership with Amazon & others, the kind of tie-ins between MP3 players and their manufacturer's associated music store isn't nearly as important as it was even three months ago. We're not in any way fans of DRM and given a chance to buy music with DRM we will take it every time, even if it's a bit more painful today.
The current legal situation among the various stores is best described as a mess, so we'd recommend avoiding the Zune and iTunes stores at this time. To date Amazon has signed up more labels than anyone else for DRM-free music, with all four major labels selling 256kbps MP3s through Amazon; meanwhile there is still music from those same labels on the Zune and iTunes stores that comes with DRM and at a lower bitrate. At this point it doesn't make sense to shop at the Zune or iTunes stores unless they carry something that Amazon doesn't, the lack of DRM is more important than the lack of integration.
Unfortunately the DRM-free spirit hasn't caught up with everyone yet. Some of the smaller labels still haven't signed agreements to sell their music without DRM and no one is selling video cotent without DRM, which means it's still not completely possible to break away from the manufacturer's store. Until the day that DRM-encumbered media is completely phased out, the music store associated with a device is still an important consideration.
iTunes
Apple has a certain love for ignoring common UI practices, something we've noted before with Safari for Windows and something where iTunes doesn't disappoint either. The application is right at home on a Mac where the UI conventions are right at home with everything else Mac OS X does, but it doesn't fit with Windows for obvious reasons. This doesn't make iTunes a bad application right off of the bat, but new users will spend a bit of time sinking before they learn to swim.
iTunes pre-dates the iPod as it was conceived as a media player, so it should be no surprise that it has a very strong media player presence to it even today. It feels like media player applications are often like politics: everyone has their own opinion, so we won't say too much about iTunes in this respect. In spite of whatever preferences we have for our favorite media player, iTunes works well as a media player.
The real meat of the issue begins when we talk about how well iTunes interfaces with the iPods we're reviewing today and how easy it is to use iTunes at this task. Apple may not have stuck to any of the Windows UI guidelines for the Windows version of iTunes, but the UI they came up with never the less is a solid one. Sending music over to an iPod is as easy as either dragging it over or synchronizing playlists.
Switching to iTunes as a music store, because Apple has the first-mover advantage they can lay claim to the largest selection of music and video files, and had plenty of time to work out the kinks. They were also the first to offer DRM-free music with iTunes Plus, but have since fallen behind Amazon. What's in their favor right now is the design of the store, and their larger selection of music and videos.
In terms of design, Apple is once again the player to beat. Fundamentally the iTunes store is just an embedded HTML-based store (with iTunes including a basic web browser to use it) with Apple having done a great job integrating it so that this fact isn't obvious. That said browsing the store does look & feel like a web browser which is to Apple's benefit. The store also functions as iTunes' podcast browser, which is a bit of an oddity on first glance but the concept of a single podcast being equivalent to a single song in an album works out well in the end. Pricing on the store is generally consistent, with most songs at $0.99 and most TV shows at $1.99; pricing on movies tends to vary however.
Besides laying claim to the largest selection of music among any of the online music stores, the iTunes store's other ace up its sleeve at this moment is video (movies and TV shows). Apple has most of the major studios on board, who are slowly testing the waters for online movie and TV show distribution while trying to not end up in same situation as the record labels. TV shows are purchased, while movies can either be rented or purchased with purchasing working exactly as it does for music, while renting comes with an odd 30days/24hours timer; rented movies can be started at any point within 30 days of rental, but must be finished within 24 hours.
Looking just at the timer on rentals, its clear Apple didn't come in with the bargaining power here that they could weld against the record labels. Even though the traditional video rental store analogy breaks down here since we're dealing with portable media players, 24 hours is still too short no matter how you go about deciding what would be long enough - it's not even a whole weekend. Furthermore the purchase/rental options for movies are wholly inconsistent, some movies can be rented, others can be purchased, others can be rented and purchased, but there's no way to tell for any of this without doing some advanced searching or pulling up a specific movie. The lack of consistency for the iTunes' movie store defiantly weakens what could be a major advantage for Apple.
Zune Software
With the Zune software package, Microsoft has gone in a notably different direction from Apple. iTunes was the media player that was expanded to be a store and sync with iPods, while the Zune software was built in the opposite direction. It's first and foremost a library management tool to synchronize media with the Zune, followed by a store, finally adding a media player. Perhaps this is because Microsoft already has the Windows Media Player or because they felt that the Zune software shouldn't be a media player application too, but either way the most immediate difference between the two is that while iTunes is a bonafide media player, the Zune software treats it solely as an afterthought. You can play some media with it, but for better or worse you're not going to want to.
In terms of design, it should come as no surprise to Windows Media Player users that Microsoft has decided to forgo its own UI conventions for the Zune software package. Structurally the Zune software is a mix of the Zune's own interface and Microsoft's designs, and frankly it's hard to get a good feel on it. The fundamental design is column-based with the UI going through great lengths to downplay this with few dividers among the columns and no row highlighting. Complimenting the UI is ample amounts of polish and effects; everything zooms around or fades in and out compared to the much more mundane iTunes UI.
But the fact of the matter is that Microsoft has attempted to be too slick for their own good here. The fundamental column design was the right choice, but then downplaying the columns wasn't. The downplaying results in a lack of contextual clues as to what's going on and what's important; the net result is that while it doesn't make the Zune software hard to use, it makes it harder than it should be. Polish is important because it attracts eyes in the first place but it should never supersede functionality which is exactly what happened with the Zune software package. We suspect the team that developed the Zune software UI wasn't the same team that developed the Zune device UI, how else do you explain the device UI being so good and the software UI being so bad?
Moving on we have the Zune marketplace, which is tightly integrated with the rest of the Zune software package and shares its same flaws as a result. Other than the flaws the UI inherits however, the Zune marketplace brings about no other great UI flaws of its own. It's easy to navigate and to its credit does a better job of displaying the download status of purchased items than iTunes does.
In terms of fidelity Microsoft beats both Apple and their web-based competition, DRM-protected songs are 192kbps WMA files (iTunes: 128kbps AAC), and DRM-free songs are whopping 320kbps MP3 files (iTunes: 256kbps AAC). Microsoft also enjoys the distinct advantage of the synergy between all of their products (the Zune software, the operating system, and the file format) making it possible to let many applications supporting WMA also play DRM-protected files from the Zune store, something Apple can't offer and something critical to Microsoft since the Zune software package isn't really a media player in the first place.
Given that Microsoft has a successful content distribution operation with their Xbox Live service, the lack of content on the Zune marketplace is odd. Certainly we don't expect them to be able to match Apple's music catalog due to their late start, but their video catalog for the Zune is almost non-existent when the Xbox Live service has a sizable catalog for movies and TV shows. You won't find any of that video content here for the Zune, the only thing you'll find are music videos. We'll cut Microsoft some slack here, the kind of licensing deals required to build any kind of decent video catalog are notoriously difficult to achieve, but still, to have nothing? The Zune marketplace needs movies and TV shows, and it needs them yesterday.
Microsoft does have one final ace up their sleeve however for the Zune marketplace, and that's music subscriptions, something Apple has never offered. For $15 a month, users can purchase a Zune Pass which will let them download virtually anything from the Zune's music catalog (we've been told there are some tracks that are not available on the pass, but we didn't find any) and then freely play them on any authenticated computer or Zune for the entire month. The music then expires should the Zune Pass not be renewed. If you're familiar at all with services like Real's Rhapsody or the new Napster then the idea is the same, with Microsoft using this as a weapon against the iPod in particular rather than every MP3 player on the market. We're not particular fans of this model since you don't get to keep anything in the end, but we can certainly see why it would be useful in the right situation.
Unfortunately we find ourselves having to end our look at the Zune marketplace on a very sour note. For whatever reason, Microsoft has decided to go with a point system for the Zune marketplace (the same one as with the Xbox Live in fact) with users needing to purchase blocks of Microsoft Points which they then spend on music and music videos. The problem here is two-fold: first and foremost there's no good reason to be using a point system. We can guess why Microsoft did it (micro-transactions are relatively expensive) but that doesn't excuse the fact that their competition (Apple, Amazon, etc) didn't have to resort to such a thing; Apple for example gets by on bundling all transactions for an account together and running them through at night. From a design perspective, a point system is a bad choice: it adds unnecessary steps to the process of buying something from the Zune marketplace.
Our second and far greater complaint about the point system however is that it's by its very nature exploiting customers. Microsoft Points aren't even at a $0.01-to-1point ratio, each point is in fact worth $0.0125, meaning each song that costs 79 points is really $0.9875. Points are arbitrary in the first place, so why are they worth anything other than a cent? Furthermore in purchasing points in blocks, eventually when customers quit the service they will not have been able to spend all of their points which in turn means Microsoft gets to pocket the unspent points/money for themselves.
Ultimately there's no nice way to word this: it's exploitation of the customer, plain & simple. A point system in no way helps the customer, but it is definitely in favor of Microsoft. We can not in good faith recommend using the Zune marketplace to purchase songs as long as Microsoft is using such a explicative system, as a consumer it doesn't make any sense to put ourselves in a losing situation like this when there are better stores out there.
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.
Audio/Video Quality
Digital audio quality has seen a big jump over the last several years. Both MP3 players and motherboard integrated audio have been the beneficiaries of newer Digital-to-Analog Converters that produce better sound with lower power usage and less susceptibility to the kind of EM noise that can be produced by the environments these devices can produce. The result is that while MP3 players aren't (and probably never will be) audiophile quality, they're easily good enough for anyone else. In fact the kind of quality that a good MP3 player should be able to produce these days should be better than most of the earbuds included with them, so there is little immediate room for improvement here.
To make sure all of our MP3 players were producing acceptable sound, we've measured them both objectively and subjectively. For our subjective testing we've listened to each one both through their included earbuds and a set of Sennheiser HD-497 headphones to listen for any problems or differences among them. For our objective testing we turn to the RightMark Audio Analyzer, measuring each device after having been patched in to a SoundBlaster XtremeMusic sound card under Windows XP. Because we don't have a pure reference source we can't create a baseline to compare the MP3 players to, but we're more interested in how they compare to each other.
Frequency Response
Noise Level
Stereo Crosstalk
RightMark Audio Analyzer Summary | |||
iPod Classic | iPod Touch | Zune 80 | |
Frequency response | Very good | Excellent | Very good |
Noise level | Very good | Very good | Good |
Dynamic range | Very good | Very good | Good |
THD | Very good | Very good | Excellent |
THD + Noise | Good | Good | Good |
IMD + Noise | Very good | Very good | Very good |
Stereo crosstalk | Excellent | Excellent | Excellent |
IMD at 10 kHz | Very good | Very good | Very good |
General performance | Very good | Very good | Very good |
As we expected, all 3 devices perform approximately the same. The iPod Classic and iPod Touch are the closest, while the Zune falls ever so slightly behind. RMAA's own benchmarking standards rate the general performance of all of the devices at "very good" which we would agree with. From a mechanical perspective there are no significant problems or differences among the devices.
Subjectively we find ourselves agreeing with RMAA when using our Sennheiser headphones. The perceived sound quality produced by each device is the same among several types of music with nothing sounding off.
The results only change when we move to the earbuds included with each respective device. Earbuds generally lack bass due to their size, but the iPod earbuds in particular have it the worst. Music coming from them just lacks much in the way of bass even with equalizer settings apply and we can't ditch a tinny sensation. It's poor enough that we'd definitely switch to different earbuds.
The Zune's earbuds on the other hand, while still no match to a superior set of headphones, are very pleasing. They still lack bass like earbuds do but it's not even half as bad as with the iPod earbuds. Furthermore we don't get any sensation of them being tinny. As far as earbuds go we're happy with what we got out of them.
Video
All 3 MP3 players start out with an immediate disadvantage in video quality because they only display 16bit color. The vast majority of the time this is good enough for a device with such a small screen, but in the right photos and videos we can see some banding that results from the limited display. Strangely the Zune seems to suffer more from this than either iPod, we suspect it's due to the Zune's screen having the greatest contrast.
We do not have a colorimeter suitable for an MP3 player, so all of our considerations for video quality are subjective.
Touch, Zune, and Classic Image Quality
Among the MP3 players, we have a hard time deciding between the iPod Classic and the Zune for best quality. The iPod Classic's only real weakness is the size of the screen, meanwhile it's the only device to use an LED backlight which means it's capable of a higher level of contrast. Otherwise the Zune is brighter than the Classic at both default and max brightness settings and in spite of the Classic's LED backlight we feel that the Zune is able to pull off higher contrasts. The difference likely comes down to how each is handling gamma, Microsoft particular in an attempt to make the Zune look more vivid, and to our subjective eyes it's working.
On the other hand, the Zune and the Classic have the same screen resolution (320x240) but very different screen dimensions. Both iPods have a pixel density of 163 pixels per inch while the Zune is only 128 pixels per inch. The result is that the Classic has a slightly sharper image, but it's not all that significant. Rather the significant difference is that at a lower PPI the Zune starts to suffer from the screen door effect, it's possible to see the lines separating the pixels and consequently identify the individual pixels (unfortunately this isn't something that's possible to pick up on a camera, you'll have to take our word on it). For many people this shouldn't be a problem, but it's something that everyone will notice at one time or another; personally we find the screen door effect rather distracting. With a 3.2" screen, Microsoft should have gone with a higher resolution LCD. The Zune screen also is more obvious about banding artifacts that result from a 16bit display; this is likely due to the better contrast the screen can produce
Finally we have the Touch, which we've held off mentioning until now. The Touch has the appropriate resolution for a screen of its size (480x320) but the LCD used isn't very spectacular. The Touch can't match the brightness of the Zune, nor can it match the contrast ratio. While the Zune is vibrant the Touch is just plain and the Classic looks a little better than the Touch.
Furthermore the Touch suffers the most from the viewing angle problems that occur in the TN panels in these devices. The Touch simply can't be held very far off-angle before the image rapidly deteriorates, while both the Zune and Classic can be held more off-angle and both deteriorate at a less rapid pace. None of the screens are perfect but the Touch is the only device where you're likely to consciously notice the issue.
Given what we know we'd still pick the Touch as having the best video quality overall due to the higher resolution and less obvious banding, but it wasn't an easy choice. The Zune would be second with the greater contrast and vivid screen helping to make up for the lack of resolution, and finally the Classic below the Zune due to the small screen. The result is that while it's easy to write off the Classic for last place, deciding between the Touch and the Zune is much harder; it's probably something every person is going to want to look at themselves if they're going to make heavy use of the video playback features of the two devices.
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.