[ Music ]
^M00:00:05
>> What's up, prizefight fans? I'm Brain Tong, and we've got a battle between two of the tiniest contenders we've ever had in this week's prizefight. It's an MP3 player slugfest between Apple's iPod Shuffle and SanDisk's Sansa Clip. Our ringside judges for this fight are Senior Editor Donald Bell, Senior Associate Editor Jasmine France, and me. We'll take all three judges scores and average them out to the nearest tenth each round. The final prizefight score will be an average of all rounds using the same decimal system. We're going five rounds strong. First up, please bring in the sexy.
^M00:00:41
[ Music ]
The shuffle is simple, understated, and its metallic finish is nice. I found it to be a little too small, and it really lacks any personality to me. Now, the Sansa Clip is compact, but it reminds Donald of something you might win in a gumball machine, and the actual clip reminds me of something on the back of my niece's toy beeper. Apple stays sexy with the four, and the Sansa Clip gets a 2.7. Next round, navigation.
^M00:01:07
[ Music ]
Apple, no screen and no buttons. Really? We get how the control placement is convenient, especially for people working out, and I do like the playlist support, but lose or break your headset, and the shuffle is a tie clip. The Sansa Clip's screen is really small, but the text is super sharp. The control pad looks like a scroll wheel, even though it's not. But it still works fine, and there's even volume control buttons. Sansa scores with a four, and the Shuffle gets a two. So let's average two rounds, and the Clip leads by four-tenths of a point. Round three is compatibility.
^M00:01:44
[ Music ]
Both players are Mac and PC compatible. The Shuffle supports tons of formats, audio books, and podcasts, but only works with the resource hungry iTunes. The Sansa Clip supports just about every format, except for AAC. You'll get audio book and podcast support here, too, but you can drag and drop files directly onto the device. Big kudos there. The Clip takes this round with a four point seven and the shuffle gets a three point three. Next up, the sound and science.
^M00:02:17
[ Music ]
The shuffle is touted as the best sounding shuffle. But since you have to use Apple's headset with controls, until there's an adaptor, can you really tell? There's no EQ control, and the voice-over feature is a necessity and not really revolutionary. The clip had better sound quality for two of our three judges. We like the standard USB port on the device, but throw in a five-band custom EQ, FM tuner, and voice recording? This one's a no-brainer. SanDisk throws another huge blow with a four point seven, and the Shuffle gets a three. Now, after averaging four rounds, the Sansa Clip is almost a point ahead, and it's really gonna take a miracle for the Shuffle to come back. The final round is value.
^M00:03:01
The shuffle is $80.00 for four gigs. Now, that's pretty standard, but you can find other players with more features. Really, the appeal here is the fact that it's virtually invisible, and that's worth something to some people. The Sansa Clip is about $60.00 for four gigs, but its features make it the best bang for buck out of any MP3 player on the market. Sansa keeps the beat down going, with a four point seven, and the Shuffle gets a two point seven. So let's average all five rounds, and in this fight, SanDisk just kept raining haymakers on the Shuffle. No surprise here, the Sansa Clip is your prizefight winner, four point two to three. Now, even though Apple leaves with a black eye after this fight, it probably won't have any long-lasting effects on the iPod brand as a whole. I'm Brian Tong. Thanks for watching, and we'll catch you guys next time on another prizefight.
^M00:03:58
Whoa ha.
^M00:03:59
[ Music ]
