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Apple iPod Shuffle 1GB - Silver | 
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| Brand: Apple
Category: CE
Buy New: £27.39
New (20) Used (2) from £24.00
Rating:  87 reviews
Sales Rank: 20
Media: Electronics
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0
Dimensions (in): 4.3 x 16.5 x 11
MPN: MB225ZO/A
Model: MB225ZO/A
UPC: 885909140589
EAN: 5051964079316
ASIN: B000HZFBQQ
Release Date: November 8, 2006
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 Very easy to use December 16, 2006
JA Stuart (Kent)
108 out of 109 found this review helpful
Now, to start with, if you want a player which is multi-purpose, and can play videos and view photos - look elsewhere. This is strictly music only (with the exception of using it as a data drive). It doesn't have a screen, but for me this is perfect. I'm tired of waiting for my other player (Sony NW-HD3) to load up, then I have to troll through various menus, select the song, wait for the hard-disk to spin up before putting in my pocket, and having to take it out every time i want a song change. This for me does exactly what I need. I use it primarily in College and at the Gym. Its great because it just clips on, you turn it on and music plays literally straight away. There are no loading times, even when skipping tracks, and it is very easy to use. There's 5 buttons, all operated by the thumb, and the great thing is, if its clipped to your trousers, you just press the next track button to change songs. Theres no faffing about with menus and selecting albums.
However, it won't be perfect for everyone because of this. If you want all your music in albums, this wont work, because you can only skip through tracks, but ive made a playlist of my favorite songs of the current time, and put that on. I know whats on there too - because they are my favorite songs. iTunes is easy as you'd expect, and the sound is good too, on par with its bigger alternatives.
Now, to clear it up, there is hiss if you use in-ear headphones. I sometimes use my Sony MDR-EX71's, and there is some hiss, not particularly noticeable. But i use the headphones which came with it, which are fine, if lacking in bass response.
This thing looks and feels great, and well put together. Its tiny, smaller than the size of the 'Enter' key on your keyboard, and light too, so if it drops, it just dangles from the headphones and doesn't detach, so it wont hit the floor. Its not noticeable, unlike bigger players which you can feel in your pocket. Some people say it may get lost, but keep it attached to your headphones and there shouldn't be a problem.
Of course, with the dock, it looses portability value for data storage, but to be honest, if i wanted to transfer my data/work files, i use a USB dongle, and not a 50 music player.
Whats more, its cheaper than any previous Shuffles, and at only 55, a cheap way to get in on the iPod market, and noone will call you a cheapskate because it looks fabulous.
excellent machine provided all you want is music October 15, 2007
Gary Hilton (Lancashire)
43 out of 43 found this review helpful
At the time of writing this review there are 68 others already on here, but I thought I would tell you of my own experience with the ipod shuffle.
I go the gym and used to have a MP3 player - just a basic "memory stick" type that I plugged into my computer to recharge and I could drag & drop songs onto. Unfortunately it died so it was time to look for a new one. Now I was undecided whether to buy a basic model by a less well known company, or go for a leading name. It seems to me that if you're prepared to go for a relatively unknown manufacturer you can get a basic mp3 player for half the price with twice the memory, but eventually after much deliberation I plumped for the apple ipod shuffle, swayed by a combination of the reputation of apple & (hopefully) a better build quality.
I have had it just over a week now and I think I have made the right decision.
Yes, there is no screen, but I knew that when I bought it. I know from my prior experience at the gym that I just tend to switch it on and let it play so I didn't really need one. Also, I have a mobile phone that takes pictures, plays videos, games etc and I hardly use any of those features so I figured I wouldn't need a screen to watch tiny videos on. The earphones are great - several reviwers say they fall out but I've used mine on the treadmill, rower, cross trainer, exercise bike and wave machine and they've stayed in throughout! I've got about 14 hours out of it before I had to recharge which is impressive, and although initially I missed the simplicity of the "drag & drop" method of my old mp3 player, its just a question of getting used to itunes and once you have it seems simple enough.
All in all, an excellent purchase and having never had any previous experience of apple or ipods I am very pleased with my purchase.
What I wish I'd known in August 2005. February 11, 2007
T. Edwards
76 out of 79 found this review helpful
I bought a 60GB iPod Photo for nearly 300. Loved it. But it broke after 14 months, a faulty (or mistreated after not being carried very carefully in by bike pannier) hard disk. 160 to get another disc fitted. 240 to buy a new machine. Oh dear!
I really missed having a full sized iPod but couldn't afford a new one. Since '05 I've got a mortgage again and money like that isn't there. I had to have a way of playing music and speech on the go and so I bought the little beauty we have here. And now... I wonder why anyone would want one of the full sized iPods. The 60GB still wasn't big enough for my enormous music collection and I was forever fretting about what I was leaving out. But looking back I realise I could have done with a much smaller capacity machine as I generally listened to a couple of hundred tracks on favoured albums in the year I had it.
Managing the music is very simple. You can randomly fill the device every time you plug it in, but you can nearly as easily fill it with a proper programme of music you choose. All you do is clear the iPod of its contents and then drag a playlist into the iPod symbol in iTunes. You can therefore pre prepare programmes depending on the mood you expect you'll be in that day. And you can still have a huge collection in iTunes to make your selections from. I wish particularly that this aspect of the thing had occurred to me sooner - now my iTunes library is going to be complete, perhaps 100 GB or more, and I'll just take with me what I want that day.
There's a change of mind set with the shuffle. You know you're limited to 966MB as you fill it(not the advertised Gigabyte... why take up the machine's capacity with software and not put that in a printed circuit?), but that's still a lot of music. You tend to plan your playlist a bit more carefully than you might with a bigger machine. After a week I already have my favourite rock, blues, classical and so on set up in playlists of the right size so I can just load and go any morning. Apart form the radio shows I record form off streams (using `Total Recorder' at 128kbs) all my music is encoded at 192kbs so I don't get the advertised 240 songs into my shuffle, just 150... but that is still a long day's entertainment.
Another big change is that the bulky, awkward and fragile iPod is replaced by a few grams of easily forgotten about metal and plastic. It clips to my tee shirt pocket and seems to disappear. You don't know you're wearing it.
There are some drawbacks compared to the bigger machines. Obviously without a screen you can't see what is playing and you can only find a specific track by shuttling forward through possibly hundreds of others... unless you recall where you put them. I do miss the battery life indicator and the bar showing you the progress through the song. There are some less obvious limitations and one of these is that the iPod shuffle is charged using the same hole as the headphones plug into. It is no longer possible to charge and play at the same time. You can't manage the equalisation of the music either but with decent `phones the machine plays beautifully anyway.
The new headphones are an improvement on the old ones, although to be honest they are still poor compared to the array of Sennhieser cans I bought for my old 4th Gen. MX500s for speech when I'm on my bike (I can hear trouble coming). PX100s for comfy indoor listening and CX300s for those times when I still want base response and I want to block out a noisy environment. Incidentally the fact you can clip the iPod shuffle to a shirt pocket or collar means that the old problem of too-short headphone cables has disappeared for good.
Overall five stars is entirely justified for this. (....) is a small price to play for a marvel whose size belies its ability. If I got a year out of it before it died I'd buy another immediately.
One last thing - don't bother buying a case. The aluminuim finish is much less prone to marking and scratching than the soft plastic of regular iPods and, with no screen to damage, the machine stands up well on its own.
first time MP3/iPOD user May 31, 2007
Skizz
17 out of 17 found this review helpful
"Why on earth do I need an iPOD?", I used to think, "It's not as if I listen to a lot of music."
Then last Christmas my sister bought an iPOD shuffle for me from Canada. What a revelation.
This is a great device for the gym: it's tiny, light and easy to wear. I use it to listen to radio podcasts. It doesn't have a hard disk like an iPOD, so the shuffle doesn't have any moving parts. The upshot of this is it's extremely reliable (so I'm told). I've not found it fragile, but I am quite careful with it, having only dropped it once. Yes, it is difficult to shuffle through each recording.
Recommended, especially for the gym and for recordings you don't want to permanently leave on the iPOD.
PS Have seen reviews with poor ratings of this product since I originally posted this. A few more comments.
I would emphasise that it's very difficult to navigate your way around tracks - you really need to use this as a "I play everything in sequence" machine (which is why it's good for listen once and delete).
Comments around style - well, this is all about size. This thing is tiny and light - that's the major advantage.
Durability - dropped it lots of times now. No problems. Have even bent the sturdy bulldog clip - slight problem in that it struggles to fit into docking port. My big belly bent it when I bent over...
2 points haven't been made -
the battery life is good (even when I've left it on by mistake) and it's never run out
you can't delete tracks from the machine - you need to do this from the computer.
ipod Shuffle 1gB March 30, 2007
Ross A. Amesbury (UK)
14 out of 14 found this review helpful
Is this what you really want? I have a 30gB ipod video, it's just too big and heavy for the gym or active use. The new shuffle is brilliant, light, easy controls and a strong integral clip. Very, very light. It can sit on your tee-shirt collar and disappear. But, you have to create a play list that reflects your music taste because there is no screen and no way of selecting tracks other than pot-luck scrolling. At 1gB you're never going to carry your full collection round with you anyway. The claimed 12 hour battery life is for real as well, I got 14h out of mine. As an mp3 for a specific job I can't fault it - unlike the std issue ipod earphones! Get the best out of your shuffle and purchase some Sennhiser CX300 buds, great fit, even when active, a fair price and a massive improvement in base response and ambient noise reduction.
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