iriver trounces iPod in independent test
By James Cornelius
The iPod range might be best selling media players on the market, but they’re not the best, according to an independent test by Australia’s leading consumer protection organisation, CHOICE*.
In a test of 17 media players, iriver models came first in both the flash and hard-disk-drive categories.
By comparison, the iPod came fourth in the flash category. In the hard-disk-drive category, the iPod came third.
The performance of the media players were assessed on ease-of-use, sound quality, and battery life. The iPods in the test did poorly in ease of use, and the hard-disk-drive iPod did very poorly when it came to battery life.
Microsoft’s Zune media player was not tested because it is not yet available in the Australian.
While Apple might still be the king of cool in the world of media players, this test shows that its competitors are catching up and are producing media players that offer a better user experience.
The takeaway for Apple: watch out.
*CHOICE is a not-for-profit organisation that has been researching and campaigning on behalf of consumers since 1959. CHOICE is fiercely independent and does not receive ongoing funding from any commercial, government or other organisation. Because CHOICE magazine relies on member subscriptions for its survival, we have not provided model information and other details from the test. The full test report can be purchased from CHOICE’s website.
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March 9th, 2007
Ease of use being the navigation of the chosen player or being how trouble-free it is to say connect it to your computer and add music. Since both are very effortless for the iPod, I don’t see how it can have performed inadequately.