Prizefight: Apple iPod vs Microsoft Zune, part 1 Video

Prizefight: Apple iPod vs Microsoft Zune, part 1 Video Transcript

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>> Welcome to Prizefight, I'm Veronica Belmont, gather around everyone. Today we have a Prizefight for the history books, the ultimate battle for dominance. The one you've all been waiting for. In this corner, the champ, weighing-in at 4.8 ounces, the deacon of downloads, the mad monster of music, the Cupertino Killer. Yes, the Apple iPod. And in this corner, the challenger, weighing-in at a hefty 5.6 ounces, the knight of the Northwest, the Windows walloper, the Rager from Redmond, the Microsoft's Zune. Okay gentlemen, as a refresher, there will be five rounds and each gadget is rated on a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being the best. Most points at the end wins. Let's get down to the nitty-gritty. Design is going to be round 1. Touch navigation circles and come up fighting. When you're looking at them side by side, the Zune is clearly fatter. Let's take a look at this handy chart here, so you can see it all laid out. The iPod is slimmer and the Zune is well, kind of fat, but it's not awkward to hold by any means. The screens are also different. The iPod is a small 2.5 inches in diameter. The Zune is a full half-inch larger and that will probably help in viewing movies. I have to say, I think the Zune's a looker. The matte finish of the body is nice and it won't attract any fingerprints. The black iPod has a tendency to get a little smudged. Plus the extra color on the Zune adds a nice touch. But like the iPod, it's all about simplicity. There aren't a lot of buttons on either device to distract it from the real reason you have one of these, your media. What a great first round. A nail-bitter because there are aspects of the design that I really like about both, but nobody's perfect. My judgment is in and I'm giving them each a 4. Deal with it. Whoa! What a tough first round. Let's see if interface will give one of them the upper hand or boxing gloves or something. If I were to give you a war-shock test and say interface and usability, you might say iPod. We all know about the famous scroll wheel and center button navigation and the four built-in quick wheel buttons. The menus are easy to navigate and it has a very clean look to it. Right, right, right we all know. The menu system on the Zune is also really easy to use. At first glance, it looks like a scroll wheel, but that's all showy footwork. Where it really lands the punch is the way it works. Use the Play/Pause button to turn it on and off, pressing left and right will scroll through the different menus and up and down will enable you to go into that menu. It's very intuitive. You can also change the background image of the Zune. Can you do that iPod? No. So, despite the iPod's reputation for a great interface, I prefer the look and customization features of the Zune. iPod you get a 4 and Zune, paces up to 5. Apple fan people, I know you're upset, I can sense you're in a collective anger with me. The Zune is only ahead by 1 point, so let's move on to compatibility. The iPod comes in with two quick upper-cuts. It's compatible with Macs and PCs. Zune can only land one counter punch. It will work only on your Windows machines. Boo! The iPod comes back with a volley of playable file formats: MP3, AAC, protected AAC, Apple Lossless and Audible audio files. The 5G iPod is able to play video encoded in H.264, MPEG-4, M4V and MOV. Unfortunately the iPod isn't compatible with any subscription services. The Zune rallies back with MP3, protected WMA, the Zune kind only and unprotected AAC. The iPod stumbles back as the Zune is one of the only players on the market now that supports both WMA and AAC. Shockingly, Microsoft has dropped support for PlaysForSure, which means that it won't work with any other subscription services. iPod's backed off the canvas. As far as video goes Zune supports WMB and will automatically convert H.264 and MPEG-4 into that format. Rumors say there will be podcasting support on the Zune, but I'm not saying it ain't launched. And there aren't gonna be any videos available at launch either. Both of these players got a little beat-up in this round. iPod gets a 3 for at least being on multiple platforms and the Zune gets a pathetic 2. Hey, what'd you know, it's a tie. These players got a little beat-up in this round. We'll leave this at cliffhanger here and come back next week to see who wins. Stay tuned.