iPod Shuffle
Recently, I was talking to a friend who was in the market for a mp3 player for the gym. She sent me a link to a player that featured 128 MB of storage and cost approximately $140.00. Thats a $1+ for every MB of storage space. Ridiculous.
Prior to this conversation, I had it in my head that I hated the iPod Shuffle. I even repeated told Colin that I hated the idea and would never be interested in personally owning one. However, looking around at other mp3 players that could be suitable for my friend’s needs, I realized something. For the same price as a really really sucky mp3 player that had 128 - 256 MB of storage for around $150, you could buy an iPod Shuffle for $99 for 512 MB or $149 for 1 GB. Worst case, that is double the storage of the comparable mp3 players while significantly reducing cost. What do you gain? You gain storage while reducing the size of the actual hardware. The Shuffle is the size of a pack of Trident and weighs almost nothing. What do you lose? You lose the functionality to select a specific song because everything is relatively random (you can choose not to have the Shuffle randomize the songs and play straight through your playlist).
That brings me to the next step in my thought process. Do the pros outweigh the cons? Normally, I would say no. I have always been one to pick and choose what I want to listen to at any given time. I know people who use the Party Shuffle feature in iTunes, but I am not one of them. I have tried and I just can’t bring myself to lose that control. However, with the Party Shuffle feature its sorting through 3,000+ songs in my library, a huge portion of I could care less about and are just in there for the sake of being in there on the off chance someone else may want to listen to them. The Shuffle (1 gig model) holds around 240 songs. With that limited number I can pick and choose a playlist that would only be filled with songs that I really really like, so it wouldn’t have to sort through a whole bunch of crap to get to the good stuff. Also, I would be using this primarily at the gym. At the gym you don’t really care about whats on as long as its good and can make you forget your at the gym. It’s like having a radio with only the songs you want to hear all the time. Also, when your at the gym you don’t have time to shuffle through a list of songs and manually pick each one that you want to listen to at that moment, so the Shuffle fit perfectly to my needs. I underestimated the value of this little piece of a machinery. So, I looked to make amends for doubting Apple in wanting to supply a product that people on a limited budget could afford, while still mainting style and storage space.
With my wayward thinking corrected, I went out to the stores in search of an iPod Shuffle that I could make great use of at the gym. However, I heard reports upon reports of the Shuffle being sold out everywhere. They are being sold on eBay like crazy for well over their retail value. Knowing that, I thought it would be a very slim chance that I would actually find one. However, I went anyway thinking even if it wasn’t there I could pick something else up. My first stop was Target. No luck. My second stop was Best Buy. I was in luck. All the 512 MB models were sold out but they had two 1 GB iPod Shuffles in stock. I still had my reservations about whether or not I would like the Shuffle for an extended period of time. I really couldn’t go wrong tho, even if I didn’t like it I could sell it on eBay and make a pretty good profit.
I brought it home, plugged it in and was hooked. With iTunes, using the Shuffle was a breeze, as you would expect. The Autofill feature is really nice especially if you have a limited library and don’t know how to use Playlists that well. You can also use Autofill on selected playlists if they are over the size of the 512 MB or 1 GIG storage space. I have gotten very used to listening to songs randomly and actually prefer it, when I like every song. Also, I setup my playlists in the order of CD, so if it shuffles to an artist that I really want to hear the whole album, I switch the button to play in order and I can listen to their whole album. Not a perfect solution, but its quick and painless (no searching required and literally takes 1 click of a button), while still maintaining some level of control. The lanyard is alright if you don’t mind the way it looks, but I’m going to be in the market for an arm strap pretty soon. The only one I found so far is made by Apple, so I may have to wait til a 3rd party strap comes out and cuts down the price a bit.
The cost of the iPod Shuffle was well worth it. If you are in the market for an mp3 player but you don’t have $300+ to spend on a full blown iPod or you don’t need 20 or 40 gigs of storage for what you are using it for, then I would highly recommend this product. You may think you can’t get past the randomization, but if I could I think anyone could. Also, it doubles as a drive that you can use as a portable hard disc so you can store files that you need to take on the go. Awesome.
The only “problem” I seem to be having is that the Down (-) Volume button is a little bit harder to push than the rest of the buttons. I’m not sure if this is a common problem or not. If anyone else has noticed this issue please let me know.
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