iPod vs Zune – Battle for your ears:

Zune is the Microsoft’s attempt to get into the music-player market. Though Zune is hyped as a more than iPod, it falls short of iPod in many respects. First of all, Zune lacks the image “Coolness” of owning one. In the case of iPod, you do not have to show you have an iPod, your ear plug shows it. On the features side, Zune cannot do video playbacks and lacks the support for host of audio/videos notably podcast and audio books. In comparing display, Zune has larger pixels that cover its large screen making the display less of quality compare to the iPod’s half inch smaller display.

Zune trumpeted the wifi and radio tuner features but when exchanging songs, it can only exchange songs with other Zunes only. The wifi feature it has cannot connect Internet or the wifi network for exchanging data. Songs received from another Zune can be played only three times or remain in Zune for three days. After the expiration, you have to buy songs from the Microsoft’s music store.

You can use iPod as your data store as well as your PDA. However, Zune is just a MP3 player for which you have to buy songs from Microsoft’s music store with credit points that are harder to figure out how much it cost. For example, 79 points buy a song which costs 99 cents for buying a song for iTune. The Zune music stores also provide subscriptions. However, when subscription expires, the songs you bought with it also expire. Whereas, the iTune music stores provide you with a song for 99 cents and let you have it forever.

The wheel on an iPod is the coolest feature but Zune has only the feature that looks like it but actually is four navigational keys.

So far, a coolest music player has been iPod; Zune does need to make any dent on the coolness of the iPod yet.