Apple iPod Shuffle (1GB) MP3 Player Review

Conclusion

Well if you haven't guessed it by now, I'll tell it you straight:  I love this thing.  At $99US for the 512MB and $149US for the 1GB model, you cannot go wrong.  It's tiny, does exactly what it was meant to do, and it does it resoundingly well. 

To be honest, I was never bitten by the portable MP3 bug.  I never saw a need for it.  The last time I had a discman was back in high school, and even then, I was only carrying one around to be cool like the other kids.  I never really had a need to carry around music with me.  But now I can hook it up to my car, and I can take it with me when I take public transit once a week, it's great!  I couldn't imagine doing without it now.  Since I got it, I've actually doubled my MP3 collection that was on my hard drive, so that I can have more variety for the Autofill to choose from.  It's like listening to my favourite radio station without all the annoying commercials and banter in between.  My own personal station that plays all the genres of songs I like, and allows me to skip songs that I don't have a hankering for at the moment.  Apple's marketing pitch that you never know what the Shuffle will play next is so true.  If you're like me, and you have gigabytes of MP3s at your disposal, you will never find the time to listen to them all.  So when they're loaded on my Shuffle, I find that I'm hearing all these songs that I haven't heard in a long time (I usually just preview, then archive them).  So it's refreshing to hear some of the lesser heard songs.

Again, the whole no-LCD concept can be a tough pill to swallow, but trust me, get over it so that you can start enjoying what this sexy little gadget has to offer.  I also don't need a built-in FM tuner or voice recorder, blah blah blah.  As I said before, I don't even use the data storage function.  It's about time a company comes out with a product that focuses on one core competency, and doesn't try to turn it into an e-swiss army knife (ok, MAYBE one day I'll have a use for a cell phone that can do my dishes and fold the laundry.  Maybe).

PROS

• Looks / Size
• Sound Quality
• Price (512MB = $99US, 1GB = $149US)
   

CONS

• No LCD display
• Slider Button can be tricky to operate
• Slow transfer rate for a USB 2.0 device

More comparison pics located here.

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