Strengths:Designed small, lightweight, sturdy clip for exercising, stylish, better headphones than Apple's previous attempt
Weaknesses:Battery life slightly less than "promised" (but still quite good)
Posted Mar 10, 2008 - For $47 (with at least one merchant) how can you can go wrong with the Shuffle? I bought it for my nightly jogs around the park, and it's exactly what I wanted.
The small design clips nicely onto my running shirt. It's an excellent design, very compact and sturdy. It's a touch heavy, so it barely tugs at the edge of the fabric on my shirt. But it is so tiny I almost forget it's there most of the time.
I own three other (larger, click-wheel) iPods so I was skeptical of the controls on the Shuffle. But the buttons are intuitive and user-friendly.
Sound, as mentioned in other reviews, is vibrant for such a small package. The bass isn't heavy and the treble isn't super high, of course, but overall it's good. The headphones, which look like a redesign from previous Apple headphones packaged with iPods, provide slightly better sound and fit my ears better. I prefer to use a pair of Sennheiser Earbud 300s for greater sound quality, but for exercising the Apple-provided phones are good because I don't have to worry about ruining them.
Battery life is never what's promised, but I've been getting 10-11 hours per charge, which is fine. Also, as one reviewer pointed out there is no USB port, so if I lose this docking station I'll have to buy a new one.
In the end, for this price how can you go wrong? This makes a wonderful present for anyone because it's stylish, useful, and isn't too pricey.
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