Shuffling Around With Little Purpose At All
Written: Nov 04 '06 (Updated Nov 05 '06)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Least expensive iPod ever. Great styling and build quality. Decent battery life.
Cons: Requires dock (included) to charge and sync. Overall not a great value, even at $79.
The Bottom Line: Perfect for the gym or daily run. For any other use take a look at the better featured iPod nano. The Shuffle is inexpensive, but not necessarily a great value.
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| green-z's Full Review: Nokia N73 Smartphone |
I was a big fan of the original Shuffle. That was way back in the day before the slim iPod Video or iPod nano existed. iPods were pretty clunky and hefty back in January 2005. How times have changed so quickly. The latest iPod nanos weighs next to nothing and has 24 hours battery life! Even the regular iPod has slimmed down considerable and now plays videos. So the question I has is what is the point of the Shuffle anymore. To find out I went out and bought one. (I also own a 5.5G iPod w/ Video (80GB model) and a 2G iPod nano (8GB model).
The new Shuffle is cool looking to be sure. It’s about the side of two pieces of Bazooka chewing gum length-wise. The case is silver to fit in with the current color trend; a nice change from the tired iPod white color of the previous Shuffle. The back has a nifty clip so you can fasten the Shuffle to your pocket or shirt. If you exercise with your iPod this will save you from having to buy an armband or lanyard. The headphone jack duals as a charge/syncing port. A dock is included for this purpose. On the other side of the Shuffle are an on/off switch and a shuffle/don’t shuffle switch. The front of the Shuffle has the same control wheel as the previous version and controls volume, track skip forward/backward, and play/pause.
Using the Shuffle, my experience isn’t really any different from the previous Shuffle or any iPod for that matter. It couldn’t be anymore user friendly. The build quality is solid as well, especially considering the $70 price tag. Battery life is an impressive 16 hours given the thumbnail size of the Shuffle.
Disappointingly the Shuffle ships with the old-style iPod headphones that are prone to pop out of ears from time to time. An odd choice given the Shuffle seems best for the “active” consumer. The Shuffle’s sound is maybe a tad below what the original Shuffle put out, but at $79 you can’t really hope for anything approaching audiophile quality. I didn’t really have any complaints.
One “feature” that bothers me though is the new, included dock. Typically, I like docks since they can prevent desk clutter (unless you have a ton of docked gadgets, of course). But unlike the iPod video and the nano, where the dock is optional, it’s required (at least for now) with the shuffle since it doesn’t have a standard iPod dock connector. That means if you travel you have to bring along the whole dock, not just a cable or folding charger. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to make a portable gadget like this so hard to travel with.
What was so great about the previous Shuffle was that you didn’t need ANY cables or docks at all. You could charge it with any computer that had a USB port. I suppose someone will come out with an adapter, but even if it’s just $10 that is fairly pricey given the cost of the Shuffle itself.
As an owner of the other iPod models the Shuffle seems to be the most demographically targeted. I can only think of two types of consumers who might be interested in the Shuffle: the routine exerciser and the price sensitive buyer (I’ll explain later why while the Shuffle is inexpensive, it’s not a great value.)
I know lots of voracious exercisers and runners that love the iPod, but just don’t like wearing an armband to house it while they workout. And for these people the Shuffle is probably the workout tool they have been looking for. They can dump their music into the shuffle, clip-on, and go. It really doesn’t get any simpler than that. You forget you are even wearing a music player.
There is a second group of people I know who constantly complain that iPods are nice, but they are just too expensive. They might ask me about the new $79 Shuffle, but I’ll be guiding them to the 2GB nano refurbished units Apple sells on it’s website for $99 and the new 2nd generation 4GB nanos for $199.
For $20 more than the price of a screen-less shuffle you get 2x the storage space, a color screen so you can play what you want to play rather than what your player wants to play, and the ability to charge and sync with a standard USB to iPod Cable. As with all Apple refurbished products you get a 1-year warranty, which you can upgrade if you want (but don’t recommend it given the cost). If you are worried about scratching up your nano you can buy a clear plastic skin at decalgirl.com and other places for well under $10.
If you are really worried about scratches, then just upgrade to the new aluminum shell 4GB iPod with its 24 hour battery life, the new improved iPod headphones, and choice of new case colors: silver, pink, green, red, and blue. You also get 4x the storage of the Shuffle. If you want all these features, but don’t need 4GB of storage the second-generation nano also comes in a 2GB model for $149. It is only available in silver. I think even a full priced nano is a better value than a Shuffle.
While the Shuffle is about 3x shorter than the nano the nano is hardly a behemoth. It weighs in at a mere 1.41 ounces. The Shuffle, by comparison, is .55 ounces. But seriously can you really discern the .86 ounce difference? This is why I have to wonder, other than people who have a workout routine, who is the Shuffle really for? Besides the new built-in clip it has no perceptible advantages over a nano, especially when a nano, with twice the storage and other features is only $20 to $49 more than a Shuffle. So my conclusion about the Shuffle is that for runners it’s great. Anyone else who buys one is either a true gadget hound or is just being penny smart but pound foolish.
Recommended:
No
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green-z
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