iPod vs Zune HD: Head to Head, IGN-Style

[Adam Krebs]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://gear.ign.com/articles/105/1055484p1.html' target='_blank'>http://gear.ign.com/articles/105/1055484p1.html</a><br /><br /></div><p>"<em>Not one to go quietly into the night or vanish without a fight, Microsoft relaunched the Zune with the Zune HD, a direct competitor to the iPod touch. The Zune HD was met with strong launch sales and praised by critics, but only time will tell if it will ultimately usurp the iPod in terms of market dominance. In the meantime, we ask this question of you, our beloved IGN readers: Which portable media player is better in your eyes?</em>"</p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/zt/auto/1261546027.usr495.jpg" style="border: 0;" width="500" /></p><p>Oh it's on. IGN, like many other tech sites, has seen fit to pit the two media player juggernauts head-to-head in a battle of brains, brawn, and feature specs. At the bottom of the article, readers voted for their favorite device and discussed the relative merits of the two platforms in the forums. As these things often go, the comments section got a little hectic, but when the poll closed and the dust settled, IGN readers crowned Zune HD champion, eking out its rival a mere 53% to 47%. Booyah.</p><p><img height="24" src="data:image/png;base64,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" style="border: medium none; position: absolute; z-index: 2147483647; opacity: 0.6; display: none;" width="24" /></p><p><img height="24" src="data:image/png;base64,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" style="border: medium none; position: absolute; z-index: 2147483647; opacity: 0.6; display: none;" width="24" /></p>

[Macguy59]

Doesn't seem like a large enough margin to affect market share though. How much (and how long) will MS continue to throw money at the Zune ?

[AndyMulhearn]

...music player only on sale in the US, the winner is.

Drum roll...

The Microsoft Zune HD!

But seriously, there are a lot of fanboys posting to that article suggesting why the Zune HD is soooo much better than the iPod Touch but until Microsoft grow a pair and start selling it outside the US it will remain a complete irrelevance. Number 52 on the amazon.com bestsellers list must be a bit disappointing.

[Sven Johannsen]

I never really have understood the niche that these things are in..or rather don't really see them as in the same one. Yes, they are both media players, but I see the Touch as way more. It seems more like a Pocket PC (the old classic, with touch screen, no phone style) than it does like other media players like Nanos and earlier Zunes. If you call it a media player, I don't see how you can say it is way better than a Zune HD, because it has tons of apps, when apps really wasn't a requirement for a media player...at least for me. It's kind of like saying this skinning knife is better than that one because it has a bottle opener, corkscrew and bubble level. Potentially useful items, but in excess of the initial functionality. I get that MS having enabled apps on the Zune (HD) has clearly pushed the platform out of the media niche and into that other category of small processing units that do lots of stuff and play media, or mayby plays media and does lots of other stuff, but I don't get why they needed to. Semed like they had a perfectly good answer to the Touch if they left the phone out of a WM device. They play media, run, and have, lots of apps, and only needed to be integrated into the tunes side of the Zune Marketplace. I don't get it.

[Jason Dunn]

...but until Microsoft grow a pair and start selling it outside the US it will remain a complete irrelevance. Number 52 on the amazon.com bestsellers list must be a bit disappointing.

Here here! Microsoft's sloth-like approach to growing the Zune internationally is, in a word, embarrassing. It's awful. :(

[AndyMulhearn]

Here here! Microsoft's sloth-like approach to growing the Zune internationally is, in a word, embarrassing. It's awful. :(

I just don't understand it to be frank. What is there that's stopping them? Music licensing agreements perhaps? But even then they could sell the hardware and let people rip their own music couldn't they?

I'm pretty locked in to the iPhone/iTunes infrastructure and a Mac user but I do want someone to be pushing Apple on this as they need to be kept on their toes.

[Jason Dunn]

I just don't understand it to be frank. What is there that's stopping them? Music licensing agreements perhaps? But even then they could sell the hardware and let people rip their own music couldn't they?

I honestly don't know. Every time I ask, the Zune team is extremely tight-lipped about it. I find it baffling, and frustrating. :(

As for selling the hardware without the Marketplace, I don't know if we live in that word any more - I think people expect to have a tightly integrated hardware+software experience.

[AndyMulhearn]

As for selling the hardware without the Marketplace, I don't know if we live in that word any more - I think people expect to have a tightly integrated hardware+software experience.

Well you could use an iPod/iPhone and iTunes without the store. It wouldn't be the same but not a total loss - I have no more than three albums and one film I bought from iTunes, the rest is direct rips of CDs.

But having said that, you're right. It would be a bit of a half-arsed effort without the store/marketplace.

[Jason Dunn]

Well you could use an iPod/iPhone and iTunes without the store. It wouldn't be the same but not a total loss...

Yeah, you and I could do that, but I think the average person isn't going to buy MP3s from Amazon.com, then import them into the Zune software, or do the same with iTunes. The iPod really cemented the expectation that an MP3 player is a combination of a software and hardware experience.

Microsoft released the Zune in Canada in 2008, but without the store, and I didn't recommend it to a single person because without the Marketplace, it's just another MP3 player...albeit one with some really great desktop software.

[AndyMulhearn]

Yeah, you and I could do that, but I think the average person isn't going to buy MP3s from Amazon.com, then import them into the Zune software, or do the same with iTunes. The iPod really cemented the expectation that an MP3 player is a combination of a software and hardware experience.

No, it doesn't work does it.

Microsoft released the Zune in Canada in 2008, but without the store, and I didn't recommend it to a single person because without the Marketplace, it's just another MP3 player...albeit one with some really great desktop software.

I know what you mean. My wife has an iPod Touch. A while back the bought Trivial pursuit for it for almost nothing. Yesterday she bought a new load of questions and an updated software version for another 69pence - the iPod Touch in particular is so much more than just a music player and the iPhone more than just a smart phone IMHO.

Take away the App store equivalent and it's not a contest - Microsoft would be bringing a knife to a gunfight.

[Jason Dunn]

...the iPod Touch in particular is so much more than just a music player and the iPhone more than just a smart phone IMHO. Take away the App store equivalent and it's not a contest - Microsoft would be bringing a knife to a gunfight.

What I always tell people is this: if they want the best video/music/photo player on the market today, get the Zune HD. If they want a PDA that also does video/music/photos, then get an iPod Touch. The Zune HD is a great device, but by being so incredibly late to the app part of the equation, the Zune team has a huge fight ahead of them. :(