Apple iPod Shuffle 2G

Reviews: Multimedia

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Mark Korff
Kurtis
N/A
May. 6, 2007

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Testing

Before you start using the shuffle for the first time, you'll need to get some songs on it via Apple's iTunes program. In my case, I already had iTunes installed and it was simply a matter of connecting the shuffle to the USB dock, plugging the dock into a free USB port on my PC, then selecting a few songs I specifically wanted to transfer to it, and then selecting the option to randomly "autofill" the rest of the shuffle from a few thousand mp3 files in my music library. A few minutes later I had 205 songs, 14.6 hours of music, and only 2.5 MB of storage left on the shuffle.

The interesting thing about the next week of shuffle use was how many times I ended up discovering a completely new song that I never even knew I had in my music collection. Now, more often than not the song sucked and got skipped a few seconds in, but there were definitely a few gems I came across that I probably never would have discovered otherwise. As cool as it was to discover some of those gems, it also forced me to face some of the limitations of the shuffle's design head on. For example, some of the songs I discovered were so foreign to me that I had no clue as to who the artist was, so when I heard it on the shuffle for the first time the lack of a display showing the song information became really annoying. The solution to this problem was as simple as syncing the shuffle with iTunes, and then browsing through all the 205 songs on it until I found the ones I had heard earlier. This method definitely worked, but it certainly wasn't as easy as just looking at the name of the song on the display of almost any other modern portable media player.

On the other hand, the shuffle's small physical size, hard metal shell, and overall simplicity do make it incredibly portable and durable. The entire device is essentially a clip, so it is extremely easy to! well, clip it to just about any article of clothing. I found that clipping the shuffle to any pocket on my pants or shirt worked extremely well at securing it on my person. The few times when it did slip out of my hands, the shuffle didn't even fall to the ground because it was so light that it didn't even pull the earphones out of my ears and instead just tangled from them. I didn't do any extreme durability testing of my own, but it seems that there are reports of the shuffle withstanding pretty severe falls onto concrete, being stepped on, and even dunked in water (none of which I'm suggesting you actually try), without any loss of functionality.

In terms of audio quality out of the box, the shuffle seems to be right on par with other versions of the iPod which is definitely a good thing. The physical size of the shuffle doesn't do anything to limit the size of the sound it can produce and I found it was quite possible to go beyond pleasant listening volumes with the included earbuds. Like other iPods, the shuffle can also have its max volume limited which is quite a welcome feature should you wish to make use of it. The earbuds provided by Apple are quite capable for being "freebies," but if you're adamant about getting the most out of your investment, you'll certainly get better results with higher quality earphones as is the case with nearly all such devices.

Considering that companies normally overestimate the battery life of their gadgets, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the shuffle actually outperformed Apple's 12 hour battery life rating, and not by just a few minutes, but a few hours. The test was performed with the shuffle set to a normal listening volume and played for 12 and a half hours straight before I had to turn it off and go to bed because I realized it was more likely that I would fall asleep than the shuffle would run out of juice. Testing resumed the next day with another few hours of playback before the battery was finally run down completely after a total of nearly 15 and a half hours of playtime. I can't vouch for every iPod shuffle battery out there, especially since I've read other reports where the battery life was very close to the 12 hour rating but didn't surpass it, but I think it's safe to say that you'll most likely be running out of juice before the shuffle is.

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Page 1: Introduction & First Impressions
Page 2: Testing
Page 3: Conclusion

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2 User Comments

1 - Posted by carolstewart on October 7, 2008 - 1:13 am

i bought a shuffle one year ago. i recently washed and dried it accidently in my ge washere and dryer. gues what it still works.

2 - Posted by Kurtis on October 7, 2008 - 2:07 pm

Thanks for the note, Carol. We don't get the chance to run those sorts of tests usually. :-D

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