In the 1990s we had the battle of the bands as Blur and Oasis struggled to be crowned the kings of Britpop. Now prepare for the battle of the brands as Apple and Microsoft go head to head in a heavyweight bout to establish supremacy in the MP3 player market.

The contest brings together two of the biggest names in technology. They are Steve Jobs — the boss of Apple, the company whose iPod MP3 player has changed the way a generation listens to music — and Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft and the richest man in the world, whose company last month launched the Zune as the iPod’s direct competitor.

Both claim to be the ultimate musical accessory, capable of carrying your entire music collection in one easy-to-use device, and although there are many other MP3 players on the market, the battle between these two giants looks set to define how we listen to music in the future.

The stakes couldn’t be higher: Apple claims to have sold 70m iPods since launch in 2001, and this year alone the iPod has enjoyed global sales said to be worth £3.9 billion. The winner of this contest will also gain dominance of the burgeoning online music stores, with revenues predicted by JupiterResearch to be £74m in Britain this year alone.

Microsoft has always been reticent to make its own hardware, with the exception of the Xbox.

However it is grimly determined to garner a share of this lucrative market, and has spent millions developing the Zune player, reportedly with a team of 230 engineers. The result is a box that holds around 5,000 songs on its 30GB hard disk, boasts decent sound quality, and plays music either ripped from CDs or downloaded from a new iTunes-style online store. The player even says “Hello from Seattle” on its back, surely a riposte to the “Designed by Apple in California” on every iPod.

The Zune went on sale last month in the US for $250 (£127) plus taxes, and has so far had only modest success at the tills. Microsoft has not confirmed when it will go on sale in the UK, but it almost certainly will.

So which is better? To find out, InGear flew two Zunes over from America to pitch them against the current iPod in a head-to-head Test Bench special. Each has been given a score out of five across five key categories, and the results may well surprise you.

THE PRACTICALITY

iPod 5/5
Zune 2/5

One of the iPod’s biggest flaws is its scratch-on-sight polycarbonate and chrome shell. The Zune addresses this Achilles heel by swathing itself in dull, matt plastic armour. The trouble is, this makes it feel like a Volvo dashboard: solidly sensible, but stolid. At 159g, it is heavier than the iPod (136g), notably chunkier, and far less pocket-friendly.

The colourful Zune software proved competent at managing a music library on your PC, but unlike Apple’s it doesn’t let you play music stored on friends’ computers that are linked, even wirelessly, to your own. As with iTunes, Microsoft’s US-based online store is built into this software, and when you plug in the Zune’s supplied USB 2.0 connector it copies your songs from the PC to the Zune automatically. However, the Zune took about three hours to charge and 12 to empty — that’s a shorter playback duration than with the iPod, by an hour or two. Both players have a 30GB capacity, enough for 5,000 songs at decent sound quality.

Bottom line: Despite its tough-guy cladding, the unwieldy Zune takes a spanking from the iPod.

THE FUN FACTOR

iPod 5/5
Zune 2/5

Your mother would like the Zune. She’d nod approvingly at its sensible shape and the choice of soft matt black, white, or sober brown. Music-mad teenagers may be less excited about the understated styling (see below). Compared with the iPod’s sassy nightclub gear, it’s frankly like having a T-shirt tucked into your trousers.

However, what really puts the Zune on the back foot is its ropey controls. At first glance it emulates Apple’s trademark navigational scroll-wheel. But don’t be fooled, because that circular pad is merely a four-way control button, making it slower and more fiddly to browse tracks. With an iPod you can zip through your songs, artists and genres like greased lightning, but the Zune’s buttons will have your fingers in a twist. The Zune does land the iPod a blow when it comes to its 3in screen, though. Bigger, brighter and more colourful than Apple’s, it makes its rival’s 2.5in effort feel like peering through a letterbox. Better still, as you delve deeper into the Zune’s menus, the background zooms in, a clever visual trick. Nevertheless, this alone is not enough to make the difference.

Bottom line: The iPod floors its rival in finesse and function.

SOUND & VISION

iPod 2/5
Zune 4/5

Just when you think the Zune is out for the count, it dusts itself down. The Microsoft player sounds superb, which reveals a gaping Apple weakness: each successive generation of iPod has sounded weedier. And once it’s toe-to-toe with this beefy new challenger, it seems sonically anaemic.

From Bach to Basement Jaxx, the Zune delivers more power and aural passion. However, to hear these differences you must invest at least £20 in some decent headphones, as the pair supplied with each player is little short of junk.

The Zune does have flaws: when you rip music from a CD its software causes limitations on the sound quality, and it won’t rip into the AAC format, which sounds better than MP3.

Visually, the Zune bests its foe once again, as its bigger screen is more suited to playing videos.

Bottom line: Once you’re ready to rumble, the business end of the Zune really does rock.

ONLINE STORE

iPod 3/5
Zune 2/5

Style and navigation aside, the deadliest weapon in the iPod’s arsenal is the smooth manner in which it works with Apple’s slick online iTunes Store. Microsoft wants a piece of this action so badly that it has turned its back on existing partners, including Napster, to create an online store specifically for the Zune player, which it calls the Zune Marketplace.

Tracks may be downloaded from the Zune Marketplace on either an “all you can eat” rental basis for a monthly subscription of $15, or on the basis of purchasing outright for 79 cents per song — as is the case with Apple. You can, however, pay only with Microsoft “points”, which are available in $5 increments only. This initially confusing system works fairly seamlessly. The sound quality of tracks downloaded from the Zune Marketplace might be expected to be substantially better than the modest calibre of those at the iTunes Store, as the bitrate is higher, but in reality the difference is slight and the irritating usage restrictions are similar.

In addition, the Marketplace feels slow, searching isn’t easy, and the choice seems limited. Microsoft claims to offer 2m tracks compared with Apple’s 3.5m.

Bottom line: Despite technical merits, the Zune is beaten by Apple’s slicker online manoeuvres.

SPECIAL FEATURES

iPod 3/5
Zune 4/5

“Beaming your beats” is how Microsoft describes the Zune’s secret weapon: its built-in Wi-Fi. Zune owners — let’s call them Zunesters — can wirelessly beam tracks from one player to another in order to share the delights of, say, a rare Charlatans remix, without a computer — no matter whether the track is downloaded from the Marketplace or ripped from a CD. This idea of sharing songs and forming a Zune community is central to the company’s marketing plan — the device even flashes up with a “welcome to the social” when you switch it on.

This works well, but there are snags. First, you may play a shared track only three times, and this must be within three days. And even if you listen to only one minute of a song it counts as a complete play. Sharing annoyingly interrupts whatever you are listening to, and if you leave the Wi-Fi switched on it saps the battery.

The iPod has its own special counter-moves, of course. These include an alarm clock, purchasable games, easy access to podcasts and the ability to store general data files. However, the Zune’s decent built-in FM radio is probably more useful for the majority of people.

Bottom line: A close points decision to Zune.

THE VERDICT

iPOD 18 ZUNE 14

So can this clever pretender deliver a mortal blow to Apple’s iPod, the reigning champ of pocketable audio? The answer is: “almost certainly not”.

True, Microsoft beats Apple in the sound stakes and its video is better, while the FM radio comes in handy and it is fun to share songs with fellow Zunesters.

But if the next-generation iPod sports a bigger screen, a beefier amplifier and built-in Wi-Fi, the Zune will very soon be on the ropes.

And you can bet Apple is working on these functions now and possibly an iPod phone too. The iPod’s classy scroll-wheel navigation and superior software make it a more effortless experience, and for many, a cooler one. This is at the heart of Microsoft’s dilemma: the Apple brand has cachet, and the iPod is more chic.

The worth of Zune’s sharing features will be determined by the eventual number of Zunesters. Initial US sales haven’t been stellar, and should that performance be repeated in Europe, Bill Gates’s hoped-for social revolution will end up a damp squib. In the past Microsoft has dumped platforms that haven’t sold well, so be wary of investing a probable £200 in a device that could rapidly become irrelevant.

So, nice try, Bill, but you’ll have to do better to really rattle Steve’s cage.’

Jargon buster

Bitrate Quality of a digital music or video file, expressed in Kbps Codec Types of compression. Microsoft has its own standards (WMA and WMV) while Apple uses a variant called AAC Compression When music is “ripped” from a CD (see below) it is also routinely compressed, for more convenient storage

DRM (Digital rights management). Restrictions that govern how legitimately purchased music files may be used

MP3 The most popular and flexible compression format used for digital music

Ripping Converting CDs into digital files for storage on a computer or MP3 player

Wi-Fi Wireless technology in computers (and some gadgets) for transferring files

Vital statistics

MICROSOFT ZUNE ($249) www.zune.net

Size/Weight 112 x 61 x 140mm/159g
Wireless features Built-in Wi-Fi (802.11b/g)
Hard drive 30GB
Screen 3in LCD (320×240 pixel resolution)
Radio Built-in FM radio with RDS
Key formats MP3, WMA, WMV, JPEG and AAC
Battery life 12hr, 3hr charge time
Online store 79c per track or $15 monthly fee
Sound quality 192kbps in WMA format

APPLE iPOD (£189) www.apple.com

Size/Weight 104 x 62 x 11mm/136g
Wireless features None
Hard drive 30GB (larger size available)
Screen 2.5in LCD (320x240 pixel resolution)
Radio Not built-in (optional accessory)
Key formats AAC, MP3, Audible, Apple Lossless
Battery life 14hr; 4hr charge time
Online store 79p per track or £7.99 per album
Sound quality 128kbps in AAC format

Teen test

Hunter Skipworth

My rail journey to work in the morning is perhaps what I look forward to least in life. That, and when I find out one of my mates has got the same pair of shoes as me. But not today. Today, I had a Zune in my pocket and I decided to conduct a little experiment.

In full view of the packed train, I kept changing the tracks, getting the Zune out of my pocket and seeing how iPod owners reacted.

It was great seeing how disappointed all of them — the 60-gig yindies — looked when I flashed my Zune with its big screen and neon colours. I tried listening to all different kinds of music, even the loudest “I hate my parents” stuff was crystal clear. And the black headphones were great: I felt like an individual again.

So how do they compare? At first the Zune seems a blatant rip-off from the iPod design — only not quite as good. It has something that resembles a wheel but isn’t touch-sensitive; it has minimal controls and a really basic interface.

But the Zune does have some features that put it ahead. First, you can set any photos you have as a background and, second, it has a good radio. But for me the clincher is the Wi-Fi connection: it means I can share music with other Zunes.

You know when you’re comparing your phone with your mate’s, saying “Mine can do this”, and then you lose because his has a 10-megapixel camera on it and loads of pictures of his girlfriend who’s also better-looking than yours. Well, imagine being able to say, “My MP3 player has Wi-Fi”, so you’d win big time.

All this excitement ended when I wanted to put some music of my own on it, instead of the awful selection that comes pre-loaded. This is where the iPod triumphs very, very easily. It was like Windows 98 all over again. I began to feel ill — you know, when “illegal operation” appears and you just want to eat your keyboard. But despite this, it’s just so close. Zune is chunkier than the new iPod but then its screen’s bigger. It’s heavier, but then it has an FM radio — and Wi-Fi.

The problem is that they are both good in their own ways: iPod equals style, Zune features. I would go for Zune, though, if for no other reason than none of my friends has one.