Apple iPod Shuffle review

The original iPod Shuffle didn't sound like a recipe for success.

After all, what use is an MP3 player without a screen? You can't select a track to play, nor see what's being played. The idea of an inexpensive iPod that randomly picked music from your library soon caught on though, and the Shuffle has been a phenomenally popular - so much so that Apple has decided to launch a new one.

The new Shuffle looks more like one of the old remote controls that came with hard disk iPods than an MP3 player. Like the new iPod Nano, the case is made from tough aluminium and there's a large aluminium clip on the back for securely attaching the Shuffle to your clothing. There really isn't much to using the Shuffle - the buttons on the front control playback and volume, and there are two tiny ones on the bottom for on/off and shuffled/sequential playback.

Apple also supplies an equally tiny dock with the Shuffle, but this isn't a mere handy extra. The Shuffle is too small to house a USB port and so its headphone socket doubles up as a dock connector, and the dock connects to the PC's USB port.

Once plugged into a PC, the Shuffle behaves a little differently with iTunes than other iPods. You can still drag-and-drop music you want to transfer, but iTunes also presents an Autofill button that, when clicked, automatically populates the Shuffle with a random selection of tunes. Our 1GB model held around 200 (or 14 hours' worth) of high-bitrate MP3s, but you can elect to automatically convert files to a smaller 128Kbit/s AAC format to make more efficient use of the space. You can also choose between your entire library or individual playlists for autofill.

Sound quality of the Shuffle is very good, although we still don't rate Apple's bundled earphones very highly. Apple reckons the battery is good for 12 hours of playback, although the four-hour recharge time seems a little high. Still, there are no complaints about the price and this is easily the best tiny flash memory-based MP3 player we've seen so far.