This year I was thrilled to receive an iPod Shuffle from my dad for my birthday. Thankfully, as my sister already had one he knew to buy the 1GB one so that's what I'll be reviewing (although the only difference between the 512MB and the 1GB is the memory size so this review will be useful to anyone on the hunt for a Shuffle).

The iPod Shuffle is a revolutionary little piece of technology. To look at it and hold it you'd think it was a plasticy kid's toy or something, certainly not a music player able to store up to 240 songs at one time. It comes in a box the same size as a double CD album and is less than an inch longer than my Wrigley's Extra chewing gum packet, but thinner in depth (height 8.4cm, width 2.5cm, depth 0.8cm to be exact) and only 22g in weight. Perfectly glossy white plastic with only one main feature per side, to describe it as minimal is not even close. To some it'll look cheap and nasty but to others it'll be ultra modern and funky.

SETUP

You put the included CD ROM into your computer and it starts the setup wizard. You are guided through a few pages then asked to plug your iPod in (to a USB port - either 1.0 or 2.0 but if you have a 2.0 port then use that as it's much faster). If you have speakers on your computer you should hear a little 'bong bing' noise to confirm that the iPod has connected with the USB port (and a 'bing bong' when you disconnect it later). It then takes a few moments for your computer to bring up a message to say that it recognises the iPod as a new piece of hardware then the installation wizard continues.

After the iPod setup came iTunes which was 100% problem free and just involved selecting a few options (including giving your iPod a name - whatever you like!) then it was all complete. You then create a new folder for your music in iTunes and drag and drop whatever you'd like on your Shuffle into there. Once they're in there drag and drop them onto the iPod Shuffle directory in the left side of iTunes and wait for them to transfer. It takes quite a while to transfer files if you're using iTunes (between 5-10 minutes if filling the whole 1GB). I was listening to my first tunes within 40 minutes of starting setup and was relatively satisfied. The problems occurred later…

Before your first major playing session, plug your Shuffle into the USB you used for loading songs and leave it there for 4 hours to charge up fully. As with mobile phones, I believe this initial full charge is pretty important to achieve the full potential of the battery in the future, so (after messing around with the shuffle for a bit) don't skip it! It might be worth mentioning that you can't listen to the iPod Shuffle while it's charging via the USB - but for most people I doubt that will be a problem because it's something you'll probably plan to charge up and use when you're out the house.

And a few sequences of indicator lights that you should be aware of:
Green on for 2 secs - means that you've just pressed play
Green blinking for a minute - it's paused
When plugged into USB, Orange = battery charging
When plugged into USB, Green = fully charged
When plugged into USB, blinking Orange = do NOT disconnect
Green & Orange blinking = error

Aside from the music playing aspect there's not a whole lot to say about the iPod Shuffle because it really is a pure music player with few other features. Although saying that, there is one notably decent feature which I didn't expect: it can also work as a flash memory device. Computer geeky speak translated that means you can use it as storage for any kind of file. For example, if you typed something at home but didn't have a printer you could drag and drop the file onto the shuffle in the computer's F drive and take it to someone else's computer to print it out. To do this you will need to change the Data Files : Music ratio in iTunes but this is very easy to do. With regards to playing music, it supports AAC, MP3, MP3 (VBR), WAV and AA so that pretty much covered it for me as I only use MP3s. The manual also tells me that it does not support AIFF, Apple Lossless, MP1, MP2, WMA or audible.com format 1 (what?!)

The player is a joy to carry around, whether you choose to use the lanyard around your neck or place it in a bag or a pocket. Unlike tape players and CD Walkmans in the past it's not heavy large or bulky - you will actually not even feel it's there. I can even put it in the pocket of a tight pair of jeans without feeling restricted or uncomfortable. I couldn't be happier with this aspect of it because the size and weight of music players in the past has always deterred me from using them when walking around. I now keep my Shuffle in my bag 24/7 because it takes up so little space and could be useful any time I had to wait somewhere.

SOUND QUALITY

The Apple headphones included in the package are a decent enough quality and go relatively loud for when you're in noisy places eg. walking down a busy road. The only thing I did notice was that when I used my boyfriend's more expensive Sony in-ear buds there was a lot more bass than with the regular Apple earphones; but I guess that was to be expected because his earphones cost a lot more and sit inside your actual ear which already makes them more intense.

ACCESSORIES

PRICE AND AVAILABILITY

If you are not particularly bothered about having a player which is a bit thicker and bulkier in size then you might be able to get more for your money; but for me the fashionable look, small size and super light weight were the major selling points of the Shuffle.

It gets 4 stars because if I hadn't used my initiative to sort out the file transfer problem by downloading the database rebuilder then I would probably still be having those problems when using iTunes.