Data-Intensive Sensor Networks (DISNs) are sensor networks where large amount of different types of sensory data are sensed from physical environment and accessed by multiple users through networks such as the Internet. In such scenarios, networks are under heavy load andthe role of an energy efficient medium access control (MAC)9 becomes more significant than a typical wireless sensor networkdue to energy constraints. Rather than evaluating MAC protocols using typical metrics such as comparing energy consumption among different MAC protocols, this paper compares different radio devices impacting on battery life, finding which radio device is suitable for DISNs. In experiments, two radio devices RF230 and CC2420 are compared, showing RF230 is more energy efficient and suitable for DISNs.