For the second time I feel compelled to write about a review broadcast on the TV tech programme The Gadget Show, which I believe was unfair.
The review was a comparison of three touch screen based portable media players (PMPs) - the iPod Touch, iRiver Spinn and the Cowan Q5. Testing focused around how easy the units were to use, their audio quality and their video quality.
The first problem I had with this review is the choice of units. The iPod Touch and iRiver Spinn are fine. They are both 8GB flash based players in the same price bracket (the iPod was £170, whilst the iRiver was £149). The third machine, the Cowan Q5, is a hard disk based 80GB player costing £320. This puts it in a completely different class of product to the others and therefore should not have been included.
The second problem is the testing conditions. The claim of the programme is that they were testing audio quality yet they cannot have used the same audio file on all three players as the programme showed the iPod Touch being used to download the test track from the iTunes Music Store. Apple uses a different compression codec for it's iPods compared to other players which will generally use MP3 or WMA. The track purchased from iTunes cannot have been played on either of the other two players so the audio comparison could possibly be influenced any differences in audio introduced by the codec.
Staying with testing conditions, the video playback feature was not tested in the same conditions for all players. The iRiver was only tested outside in a fairly open park area, whereas the other models were tested both indoors and out, with the outside being in a fairly built up area. Call me picky, but the lighting conditions being different could affect the outcome of the test.
I don't understand why The Gadget Show cannot run fair comparisons between products. If I was being cynical I would imagine it would be to skew the result towards the market leader but I have no evidence of that being the case other than the fact that the iPod Touch came out top in this case. Would it have done so if it wasn't running against the Cowan Q5? I don't know. My instincts tell me it would have, but there is now an element of doubt in my mind.
What I do know though, is that I wish the world would loose it's love affair with all things Apple, and realise that there are decent, sometimes better sounding alternatives to the iPod
The review was a comparison of three touch screen based portable media players (PMPs) - the iPod Touch, iRiver Spinn and the Cowan Q5. Testing focused around how easy the units were to use, their audio quality and their video quality.
The first problem I had with this review is the choice of units. The iPod Touch and iRiver Spinn are fine. They are both 8GB flash based players in the same price bracket (the iPod was £170, whilst the iRiver was £149). The third machine, the Cowan Q5, is a hard disk based 80GB player costing £320. This puts it in a completely different class of product to the others and therefore should not have been included.
The second problem is the testing conditions. The claim of the programme is that they were testing audio quality yet they cannot have used the same audio file on all three players as the programme showed the iPod Touch being used to download the test track from the iTunes Music Store. Apple uses a different compression codec for it's iPods compared to other players which will generally use MP3 or WMA. The track purchased from iTunes cannot have been played on either of the other two players so the audio comparison could possibly be influenced any differences in audio introduced by the codec.
Staying with testing conditions, the video playback feature was not tested in the same conditions for all players. The iRiver was only tested outside in a fairly open park area, whereas the other models were tested both indoors and out, with the outside being in a fairly built up area. Call me picky, but the lighting conditions being different could affect the outcome of the test.
I don't understand why The Gadget Show cannot run fair comparisons between products. If I was being cynical I would imagine it would be to skew the result towards the market leader but I have no evidence of that being the case other than the fact that the iPod Touch came out top in this case. Would it have done so if it wasn't running against the Cowan Q5? I don't know. My instincts tell me it would have, but there is now an element of doubt in my mind.
What I do know though, is that I wish the world would loose it's love affair with all things Apple, and realise that there are decent, sometimes better sounding alternatives to the iPod