Almost As Invisible As The Music It Plays
Written: Jan 06 '07 (Updated Jan 06 '07)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: a clip-on that stores 1GB of songs for 1/3 the cost of an iPod
Cons: no screen
The Bottom Line: For those who just want to take music with them, with the least amount of fuss, this is the device to buy.
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| bilavideo's Full Review: Nokia N73 Smartphone |
There was a time when the Shuffle was the poor man's iPod. All that changed for me when the price dropped to $79, storage went up to 1G and the whole device was reduced to a snap-on accessory the size of a quarter.
Wow.
I bought my youngest son one of these and he's still thanking me. With the average music download coming in about 5k (Apple says it's 4k, but that's like relying on GM for reliable stats about the fuel efficiency of a Hummer), you can easily load the device with 200 songs, or the equivalent of about 20 albums - three times that amount if you jettison the crappy stuff.
The Shuffle cost me about a third of what I'd pay for a fully-functional iPod, but without the screen and with only 1/30th the memory. Not that long ago, when the Shuffle was twice as large, with half the memory, that would have been - and was - a deal-breaker. But the reduction in size and the doubling of memory changed everything. It made this the perfect little happy gift - something under $100 and simply too much fun to not appreciate.
The loss of that screen is not to be underestimated. Without a screen, you can't scroll through a play list, or use this device as a watch, a game player, a device for storing notes or contact information, or do anything meaningful with the device - other than listen to music. On the other hand, that's the point. With the accompanying iTunes software, you can download, or upload, your songs to your computer, monitor them the same way you would if you had an iPod and transfer them to this device - which is about 1/6th the length and width of an iPod, and only about half as thick. To put it in other terms, it's about a third the size of a Nano, which makes it easy to drop into a pocket, clip to your shirt or jacket and otherwise stash on your person. It's the closest you'll come to having weightless, burdenless, music at your disposal - that is, until they make an iWatch, an iRing, or iPhones that fit into your ear (without wires) and all you to change the song with a nod of your head or a spoken command.
With this degree of miniaturization, it's frankly weird to go back to my 80GB, which has all the amenities but which feels more like a brick in my pocket. Don't get me wrong; I'm an American male; I HAVE to have the monster truck of digital media. But when I look at the elegance and ease of this unit, it's not hard to see the advantages of something as Zen as this.
There's at least one benefit of not having a screen: This thing runs forever. I asked my son how long it goes between fill-ups and he looked at me like the doddering old fool I know I am. He has no idea how long he can go because he's never run out of battery power. Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying the thing runs on solar power (Now, that would be an idea). But this generation of Shuffle has a little docking unit that lets it get a recharge will it's updating songs right off your computer. Because it has no screen, and no hard drive, the only way it can discharge its battery life is by playing songs. Thankfully, the amount of energy expended by playing songs off a flashdrive is a fraction of the energy lost whenever the iPod's screen lights up.
But the proof is in the pudding, so I sat down with my son's Shuffle to give it an audio test drive. At the bottom of the device are two tiny little buttons: The one on the left lets you switch between a predesignated playlist and a random "shuffle" of your songs (You could easily sit through 12 hours of music without hearing the same song). The one on the right simply turns the unit on and off. Next to it is a tiny green light, the size of a head on a pin. I realize I must delight easily but I enjoyed watching that light come on, just because it's so tiny and so intense (The light goes off within three seconds to prevent draining the battery). These buttons hug the bottom of the unit, sticking out just enough to be handled like the letters on a Braille newspaper. This is a device designed to be navigated by touch alone.
I can't tell any difference between the sound quality on this unit and the sound quality of my iPod. I rocked out with its tunes as much as I would if it had a screen and a hard drive. Maybe it's the fact that I was listening to System of a Down but I got the distinction impression, from the ringing in my ears, that Shuffles are as useful for blowing your eardrums as anything else. On more delicate material - Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons," "Phantom of the Opera," Outkast - the clarity of playback was impressive. This unit's weakest link, in terms of sound quality, will be the specific set of headphones you use. The podPhones that come with it are perfectly adequate but I wouldn't mind hooking this unit up to a nice pair of Shure E4c's.
With other choices available, including the Nano, the iPod and a variety of other brands and models, you'll want to purchase what you need. If video is important to you, as well as the other functions available on fully-equipped iPods, this is not the unit for you. If, on the other hand, your needs are satisfied with music on an extremely portable platform, this may be the value you're looking for. I know of no other digital media player that can match this kind of miniaturization at this price.
My son is happy, and for me, that's the bottom line.
Recommended:
Yes
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Member: Bill Kilpatrick
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