What to  choose: An exhaustive comparison of the iPod, Zune, and little of the Iaudio portable media players

Welcome to another of the famous tech reviews! In this review, I will detail, in complete circle.

Now, I know that the iAudio was never reviewed on the site. I just did not feel like I knew enough about the player, and I did not want to give false information to my readers. I have, however, felt and briefly used an iAudio x5, thanks to --- my cousin.
Please also note that all opinions are of myself. You can use this review as a guide to which player you should buy.  
So let's begin. There are three major areas  which I consider important in an mp3 player:
•packaging and materials received in package
•interface/features

•usability and firmware
 
Without any further adue, let's start with the first major category: packaging and packaged materials.

The Zune:
The Zune is available in Black, White, and Brown colors. Pink zunes might also be available in some store locations.

The player itself comes in a nice square box, made out of thick cardboard. IT's really cool. The cover of the box slips off, like a mask, revealing another, smaller box within. on the front of this box is a little compartment you can open. The box also has a taped down flap, which contains your Zune. The front compartment contains the cd (enclosed in a cardboard-like shell), a Zune case, and the manual. If you look at the sides of the front compartment you will notice two separate "slits". One of these contains your headphones (tangled up with a twisty wire), and the other contains the US charger (also tied up). 

The materials: The case itself is made out of soft material, and placing / reinserting the Zune does not cause scratches.

Interface: The Zune is quite simple: you have a circle, located near the end of the player. I should also note that one end contains the headphone jack while the other a slot for USB charging. The player is facing the correct way when this charging slit is at the bottom of the player. Back to the circle: The enter button is melted into the player, meaning that it does not stand out. You navigate the menus by pressing the circle to your liking: up to go back a menu item, left/right to go back or forward menus respectively or to switch tabs (see the Zune menu guide). Pressing enter let's you activate an item.
 
Features:
The Zune runs on a 400 MHz processor with 64 mb of ram. It has a built-in fm tuner and built-in wireless card (54g). The processor is of the XScale  type and uses the freescale power manager. The hard-drive has a sata IDE, and is manufactured by Toshiba. During playback, songs are loaded into ram separately: You play a song, but only that particular song is in ram. This in turn can cause short hard-disk life + more use of the battery as the disk has to be spun up before a song can be played every time.
 
The Zune can play videos, show pictures, and play movies. It also has a feature which let's you send files via it's builtin wireless adapter. You can also use the fm tuner, which has very good reception to listen to your favorite station in fulltime stereo.

Usability and firmware:
The Zune uses the Windows CE portable media center edition with it's own firmware built by Microsoft. The firmware itself is lightweight and is fast to load on the processor.
Currently, Rockbox, which is an open-source and free Jukebox player is not supported by the Zune. This leads to you having to memorize  the menus if you are blind or cannot otherwise read the screen.
Video playback is stable, and you can get 4 or so hours out of the battery with Video playback, while Music playback allows you to use the Zune for 13 hours with wireless on and
four hours with it being off. 
The software which comes with the Zune is also easy to use and as of Feb 2007, contains an update letting you use it with Microsoft's Vista operating system. The shell which is used by the software is very similar to that of Windows Media player, letting the blind be familiar with the interface.
As for control, the Zune is very easy to navigate the menus with and select the option you want. 

The iPod video:

Packaging / packaged materials:
The iPod comes in black or white colors.
The packaging is similar to that of the Zune described above ; you get the slip off box, made out of thinner cardboard. one difference might be the way the box is oriented: Although you have the front compartments (which hold the case, manual, headphones, USB charger,  and dock port), opening the box reveals two sides, one containing your iPod, while the  other flap  serves as a container for the front compartment. 

Firmware and features:
The iPod uses an ARM processor (7TDMI ), running at 80 MHz. 
It also contains 32 mb of ram to store songs in ; whatever firmware you use, songs are loaded into ram from the hard-disk during playback to conserve hard-disk life and battery.  
Battery life is about the same, 3.5 hours for Video playback and 13 hours for music.

The iPod Video uses the scroll wheel technology, which uses electrical grids to detect the motion of your fingers on the wheel: Charged  electrical particles are constantly served to the wheel. When skin or other materials which can conduct electricity come near the surface of the wheel, the electricity tries to reach it without success. This in turn gives off pressure and can tell the iPod how (directionwise) your finger is moving.

The click wheel can also be pushed down, left, right, up, or down. Pushing it up/down simply allows you to stop/pause/play the music or video, while pushing it left or right lets you fast forward and rewind. To navigate the menu you scroll with your thumb left or right ; and to complete your response you press the enter key, which is in the center of the wheel and is melted in.

Usability:

The iPod is quite easy to use ; the firmware has self-explanatory menus which let's the user customize the player in the way they want.
It is also possible to use Rockbox and enhance your playback experience with such features as cross-fade and equalizers.

As for the original apple firmware: If you are blind / have low vision, the only good thing about it is that there is a small click sound when moving the wheel. This in turn can help you figure out where you are in the menu -- that is, if you had the time to memorize it. The original  firmware supports equalizers, video playback, music playback, some highly advanced games (additional games may be purchased from the Apple store), and last but not least photo viewing.

iPod nano:
Packaging:
The iPod nano has a very simple and small packaging. It basically comes in a flip-open box in which are your headphones + charger and the iPod itself. Since the nano is very thin and lightweight, there is no need for a huge package box.
The package itself is made out of the apple-style plastic (this is very smooth).

Features:
The nano is probably the best portable media player for those who travel a lot and do not get to a power source very frequently. It's battery holds upto 24 hours of life. The nano also let's you view some pictures with not bad quality. It currently comes in storage capacities of 1, 2, 4, and 8.
If you go to a store, you will find that there are two types of Nanos: The first and second generation. The only big difference between these two is that the first generation is very easy to scratch ; for this reason, there is a sleeve or case included in the packaging. The first generations may also feature slower processors.
In both cases, flash memory is used to retain your songs even if your battery runs flat ; these chips are usually manufactured by Toshiba or Sandisk.

Firmware and usability:
All Nanos include the apple firmware ; if you are using a first generation model, you will have an older firmware. Second generation models include newer firmware and the addition of games.
Firmware use and navigation is exactly the same as in the video. The click wheel is smaller but runs the same way as in the Video. The firmware supports games, but you cannot download or buy them from the Apple store ; in addition these games are of smaller resolution and screen, making them hard to see if there is minimal lighting in the area.
Currently, the Rockbox jukebox is only supported on first generation Nanos. Second generation is planned to be supported in the near future.

The iAudio x5

features and usability:

The iAudio x5 consists of the circle-type of navigation found in the Zune. The enter button, which is in the center, sticks out. It functions in the same way as the Zune does.
As for hardware, the iAudio includes a built-in FM tuner as well as recording capabilities.  It comes in 30 and 60 GB models and the hard-drives are known to last for long periods of time.

Connectivity: The iAudio comes with a dock ; you place the player in this dock. The battery is not able to charger from the USB itself, so you have a separate AC connector for this function. If the player is facing you, the end which you have to place the player in is toward you, while the other end contains a headphone + microphone jack.

Interface:
The player itself has an original firmware, which should suit most peoples needs. If you don't like it, Rockbox is one of the firmware types that is supported. 

Conclusions  :

Based on all the facts above, there is no real "bad mp3 player". Each of the players discussed above have a bright and bad side. The iPod for instance, doesn't contain an FM tuner, while the Zune doesn't contain games or the great click wheel. It is all up to the buyer, if they'd like to have fm radio for instance, on which player is the best. For me personally, the iPod is, as I can use Rockbox with Voice support and not have to worry about which menu I'm in now.

---
Thomas Geczy
June 18, 2007