CrunchGear

I would say battery life is a major factor here. The Nano has no wifi to drink up its juice so will most likely last longer, although the larger Zune may be able to balance it out…?

I just found a contest where you can win a new 16 GB nano. Apparently it just started because I was the first one to enter. All you gotta do is think of a caption to a pretty funny photo. Check it out:

http://www.macblogz.com/2008/09/09/caption-contest-win-a-brand-new-16gb-ipod-nano-you-pick-the-color/

The Nano uses a Lithium Ion battery which has been known to degrade slowly over time at a far faster rate than the Zunes battery (which is also a Lithium Ion, but it’s got two extra cells), and the Zune’s wi-fi can be quickly turned off when you don’t use it. According to Microsoft, the Zune 8 and 4 (so I suspect the 16 is the same) lasts 30 hours of music, although a test by CNET as I recall came out with like 26 or something. With wi-fi it’s known to shorten about an hour, so not a huge amount. The second gen Zunes have halved the screen refresh rate from 60 to 30 (although the human eye can’t tell) and also cut the processor from a core speed of I think like 450 mhz (the iPods are like 200 something) to 399 mhz.

Radio? What’s that? I vaguely remember my grandpa talking about it.

What’s a zune…?

I’m a shallow, metrosexual, technosexual kind of guy, so I won’t even give that Zune a second glance. Not pretty one bit, that one.

The featurelist of the Zune is quite impressive. But wifi, really? You can’t really use it for much else than connect to your media library and do that zune-to-zune thing, can you? So it’s quite markedly different from the wifi use of an iPod Touch or just about any cell phone with wifi.

Nice to see Microsoft giving Apple a fight though.

The WiFi on the zune is actually really cool because you can search and listen to ANY song in the zune marketplace. It’s not just your own media library but the big mother lode library in the cloud.

you forgot to mention all the third party support. good luck trying to find that for the zune.

To call a winner show bias regardless of who you pick in this race. Number of checks does not tell the tale for all or even most people and your list is far from complete. Here are some that might sway a few people.

Video output: Yes ipod, No Zune
Microphone: Yes iPod, No Zune

But the real difference is the ecosystem. iTunes vs Zune Market and iTunes has the edge there for most people. Bottom line, the two products are very similar and it will come down to what feature you can or can’t live without. From my perspective the two big advantages for the Zune:

Wifi sync (social is not interesting to me really) and radio (which becomes less interesting every day). Subscription (again not my cup of tea but for some)

For the iPod:
iTunes, Good cross platform support, size, video, style, interface and accessories. (flipping it around sounds like fun but not a deal maker)

Bottom line for me is that you have to be more than a me too to take on the leader and this Zune is not enough for me.

there is video output
and at even greater resolution
on the zune

leaving out the Touch hides the fact the Zune is hopelessly stuck inbetween the Nano and the Touch market-wise. for just $70 more now you can buy the vastly superior wifi Touch with all its apps, etc., while Apples targets the Nano at the simpler media playback function with an optimized feature set for the many people who want just that and not wifi. by trying to do some of both, the Zune winds up being the best of neither.

and as doug mentioned, the list of features chosen to compare was certainly incomplete (with downloads double-counted to boot). as if accessories are irrelevant? and come on, the Zune Marketplace better than iTunes? by what measure?

nice try.

The Zune has the touch beat? You’re kidding, right? Can I check my email or browse the web on a zune? Can I download any of thousands of software products? iPod touch is a platform, basically a palm pilot and iPod combined and easier to use. The Zune doesn’t even come close to competing with that.

It has it beat as a music player. Everything else is fluff.

Sorry, but I don’t need my music player to have a bunch of useless apps. There are better devices out there for that purpose.

If it’s going to add features, the important ones are music related.

Hope you have really big pockets.

Why?
There are a lot cheaper ways to accomplish what these iPods do.

iPod touch beating the Zune 80 or 120? Laughable. If you want an all in one device, go for the iPhone, the iPod Touch is basically an iPhone without the phone, which is like a TV without channels to watch. Also I never recall paying 250 or 260 something for 32 gigs of memory. I’d fill that up (as would most people who are serious enough to buy a real PMP) in a few weeks not counting my current library. Zune pass is flawless in delivering new music for 14 dollars a month and you can simply Dock your Zune with any radio and it downloads your new content automatically, also yes, the Zune is the second best selling PMP ever, following the iPod, third party support is becoming ever more apparent, stop by like Target or Wal-Marts electronics section, Ive seen Zune cases and iHome’s with a Zune adapter coming out more and more.

finally an unbiased article.

Whoa homie. I’m all for fair comparisons but the touch and zune are not in the same ballpark. sure, the zune might be a great competitor for the nano and I honestly better (as far as features) but I’ll have to agree with MattMan that even trying to compare a mini-internet tablet like the touch with wi-fi, video output, apps, and maps is not only unfair to anyone who actually likes the zune, but seems happily misleading. I’m the first to tell mac fanboys to calm down half the time, but come on Coldewey, you’re lying to yourself and your readers, (as if the readers on this site don’t know every little detail about mac products already), to tell them that the zune has more features than the touch. It’s okay to love the zune, just say you want to be different. But don’t try to sell these people on a chart comparing a zune to one of the cheaper and more affordable niche players like a nano and then go on to say it well below the chart that it competes with the touch. If this was a football, you’d be called on unsportsman-like conduct. Foul.

…finally an unbiased article

Yeah right LMAO, this guy really deserves a Zune - Enjoy!

I do, thanks.

from what I’ve read, the wifi function on Zune is for the “social” (which no-one uses)
since Microsofts own literature recommends that you sync with a cable as the wifi should drain your battery in about 30 minutes. FM Radio - Everyone making an MP3 player brings it up - mainly because it’s in the chipset that they all use. What do you think - is Apple so totally brain dead that they intentionally ignore demand for FM? - Apple could add it in for a few cents if there was the demand. A portable music player is for MY music - not a yammering dj. While YOU may want/need FM, obviously not enough people agree with you to give up the other advantages of the iPods. By the way the pad DOESN’T compare to the Apple “wheel”.
There’s plenty of solid data on battery life - the Apple claims 24 hours, Zune some 14 with the wifi off, about 5 with it on. Syncing the Zune with wifi is S-L-O-W.
Also, hope the songs you bought from the various closed Microsoft music stores play on your new MP3player/computer. Oh, they don’t?. DRM in the way?. And you went and bought another MS player? - fool me once……

The iPod Touch does have FM radio. In fact, it has AM as well as stations around the globe.
Using any one of several third party apps, you receive unlimited radio streaming without reception and static problems. Zune will never have the ability to touch the functionality, style, and innovative features of the Touch. It can hardly compete with the Nano.

Wow Phillip, you really don’t know what you’re talking about do you?

Don’t forget about sharing media (photos, music, podcasts) with other Zunes anywhere and anytime. That’s a biggy. =)

Philip:

You have no idea if anyone uses the “social” because you’ve probably never been on it. You’d know that there are countless of people always on there if you did use it. The pad does compare to the click wheel on the iPod. I’ve owned four iPods before purchasing the Zune 80 and I find that the pad is a more natural way to browes through your collection rather than spinning your finger around. Preference, sir.

Syncing the Zune via wifi is absolutely not slow. I simply put it on my dock and it updates podcasts or adds new albums to my Zune in less than a minute. It’s only slow if you’re syncing your entire collection for the firs time. Don’t type about something you don’t know about. Makes you look like a fool.

I have both a Nano 3G (4g) & 8g Zune..Both have there plus and minuses..I will tell everyone that has both..DO NOT let Itunes AAC(any version) convert WMA (any version). I thought the conversion was a real time saver it wasn’t..Compressed algorithm
to another compressed algorithm is really bad..Think Cloning replicate fade or what it really is is data entropy. If anyone out there can relate the sound quality on the Ipod is even rougher and more static without much dynamic headroom.Overall ithink the battery life on the Ipod is better than the Zune. Yet the Album art and titles are much easier on the Zune since I load all albums up on WMP 11 than let it port to the Zune Client which is easier to use..MS should port this over to Mac( The write would take 3-4 day at best).

iTunes vs Marketplace? C’mon. There is no comparison with the content you have with iTunes vs Marketplace. That alone makes the Zune a real loser.

I strongly disagree, trying to find music on the iTunes marketplace is like trying to find a single number cell on a spreadsheet (iTunes even looks like a badly layed out spreadsheet). Zune Marketplace has a far more comfortable and far more usable layout. Example, you search in iTunes and it’s like really slow and only searches your library, search in Zune and because it’s itegraded with instant search (vista) or desktop search (XP) it’s instant for your library and on the other side it pops up replies from Zune Marketplace, searching everything from artist, composer, album, songs, etc. Also Zune has a far more comfortable meta editing, simply right click any number of songs at the same time and you can edit anything, iTunes as I’ve found is nowhere near as easy. Zune is also a much smaller program, 40 megs for the program and 10-30 megs depending on the size of your library for the media database. iTunes requires over 140 megs for the programs, iTunes, Qucktime, iPod support, etc. That’s not even counting the size of the database.

well, i see no one attempted to defend the superiority of the Zune Store, with no movies and MS points. understandable. the Zune Pass subscription is a nice service for those who use its full potential. and they’d better @ $180 per year … for the rest of your life or as long as this second version of MS DRM is supported like PlayForSure (sic) was.

my point stands. the cut-in-half $70 price differential between the new Touch and the new Zune (it was a $140 spread yesterday, everyone seems to have not noticed the substantial Touch price cut from $299 to $229) is so small now that it just kills the Zune. heck, with the Touch and wifi AOL radio (or other Apps web music services) you don’t need FM radio or subscription music at all. there are social apps too for those of you who are into that … and the games …

really, for Xmas, how many teens will ask Santa for a Zune or for a Touch? and if they asked for the Touch how many parents will downgrade them to the Zune just to save $70? i wouldn’t want to be in that living room when they opened it.

Apple is clearly positioning the Touch as the killer iPod of the future. this is probably the Classic’s last year, while the Shuffle and Nano are now aimed at the i-just-want-to-play-stuff niche. the poor Zune, just trying to arguably offer some more features than the Nano, is still as always two years too late. and now it’s Touch roadkill.

I expect Microsoft to develop the Zune’s wi-fi along to the degree of web browsing. I also eventually expect either touch screen, or some other improved UI to compete with the touch, currently the Zune is not made to compete with the Touch, it’s a completely different animal. The Zune hard drive models are supposed to compete with the iPod Video Classic and the Flash models compete with the nano’s.

Zune all the way. If this was switched around, Apple fanboys would be all over it. Be honest to yourself, the Zune obviously wins this battle. The features are crazy.

I just wanted to clear up a few mistakes from the Apple fanboys above.

Zune does have video output.
Zune marketplace has MP3. iTunes doesn’t. Zune plays iTunes Plus tracks. Cross-platform support is not better on iPod. And both stores have DRM. It is up to the consumer to avoid buying music with DRM. Zune Marketplace gives away three songs every week (and some, if not all, are in unprotected MP3 format). Does iTunes do this?

The Zune social is quite active.

Saying the Zune pad doesn’t compare with the iPod wheel is simply stupid. They are different, and it comes down to preference. I prefer my 1st gen Zune button to the iPod click wheel, but that’s a preference only.

What does the article mean by dynamic playlists? Zune has auto playlists that generate a random playlist based on set criteria (e.g. specific artists or tracks, albums, etc.). Is this the same thing?

WiFi sync is not slow. It would be slow to fill up your Zune for the first time or making several gigabytes of changes, but that’s not what it is for. Wireless sync is great if you leave the Zune in your car and want to sync up new music or podcasts. It’s great for keeping the Zune up to date, but obviously limited if you want to put 80GB on your Zune in one go.

WiFi can also be used to send music to other Zune users. Great for sharing music. When the new update comes next week we will be able to send pictures and videos as well. Definitely a plus.

I don’t use the radio on my Zune, but Microsoft’s market research shows that many people like it (and people who see my Zune almost always are impressed by the FM radio).

The touch is not a competitor to Zune inmy opinion. The touch is not a device I would use to play music. It has no buttons. It doesn’t have enough capacity. It is too expensive. Comparing Zune to iPod Touch is silly. Compare Zune to iPod Classic and iPod Nano, which are similar.

I doubt it needs to be said, but Philip Day’s battery stats are complete lies, obviously.

Bottom line: neither device blows the other out of the water with superior awesomeness. They are close, and how the differences appeal to your needs and tastes should determine which is best for you.

Zunes have had video and image sharing since the version 1 Firmware. Although I do agree with the UI being far better than the iPod clickwheel, god forbid you drive a standard in a town while trying to select a song. I’ve heard the iPod click wheel be described as “thumb dislocating”.

Umm…Devin, your chart is a little skewed… Zune DOES have dynamic playlists, but not like the ‘Genius’ feature, but they have automatically updated playlists you can easily subscribe to (like the Billboards top 40, Ryan Seacrest’s top picks, TRL, yada yada yada…)

Yes, I’m a Zune fan and proud of it… XD

Statistics don’t lie my friends. Zune only has around 2% of the digital music device market share. Where as Apple is dominating at around 70&. The ipod has proven to be a much better liked product, and has much better customer care then Microsoft could dream of. iPod’s all the way

Agreed, Statistics don’t lie my friend. The Zune is the second best selling Portable Media Player on the planet. The device has gained an overwhelming wave of support since the second gen release. This is aside from the fact that the iPod has had no *real* competitors since it’s release up till the original Zune released in 2006. That’s over 5 years of market domination with an open market filled with other players that at the time lacked any decent amount of storage and many even lacked a screen and where basically cheap small versions of the Shuffle.

FYI, Zune owns about 7% of the market share last time I checked.

Hi, I have made a dynamic comparison table of the new zune and the new ipod nano. The comparison includes around 70 criterias. It’s one of the most complete comparison table available on the internet.
Here’s the link http://www.witeria.com/compare/9/

It should be embedded in this article!