In order to explore the laws and differences of soil water movement between the vertical-pipe drip irrigation and the common surface drip irrigation, two types of sand infiltration and evaporation tests were carried out simultaneously outdoors. And the distribution of soil water, evaporation regularities and transport characteristics of soil wetting front were compared and analyzed. The results showed that: (1) When the irrigation volume was fixed 2 L, the volume and uniformity of irrigation water gradually decreased with the increasing drip emitter flow, while the average water content of the wetting pattern dimensions gradually increased. When the drip emitter flow was constant, the water content of the wetted body in the vertical-pipe drip irrigation was higher than that in the common surface drip irrigation, while the irrigation uniformity was lower. (2) After 7 days of evaporation, with different drip emitter flow treatments, the soil evaporation of the surface drip irrigation accounted for 32.5%, 35.0% and 40.0% of irrigation amount respectively, while the vertical-pipe drip irrigation only accounted for 22.5%, indicating that the vertical pipe drip irrigation significantly inhibited the soil evaporation. (3) When the irrigation amount was 2 L, the migration distances of wetting fronts of the common surface drip irrigation in horizontal and vertical directions decreased slightly with the increase of drip emitter discharge. In the law of the vertical downward movement of vertical surface drip irrigation was similar to the common surface drip irrigation, while the movement in the horizontal and vertical upward directions were opposite. However, with the increase of infiltration time, the transport distance ratios of wetting front in horizontal and vertical direction between common surface drip irrigation and vertical surface drip irrigation showed a decreasing trend and finally tended to be stable. (4) The wetting front migration distance empirical formula, including drip emitter flow and irrigation time, was constructed. And the reliability was verified with the prediction error statistics. That is, the mean square root errors were between 0.24 and 0.27 cm and the Nash efficiency coefficients were greater than 0.985. The research results are expected to provide references for the further researches of vertical pipe drip irrigation.