I still love my Shuffle, a year on. The battery life is amazing. Speaking of which, pedants like myself will spot the awkward double-negative on the first page: "The manufacturer reckons you'll get about 12 hours' continuous playback out the gadget. Our testing over the past week or so gave us no reason not to doubt that figure." Sorry (!)

When will they finally bring out the iPhone shuffle which just randomly dials numbers when you press a button.

I love my lil' shuffle - I've got a proper Classic for most of the time, but I wasn't prepared to go running with the classic on a belt loop - the shuffle makes for a brilliant player to attach to my shorts before I hit the roads.

My only issue is having to keep two seperate libraries, one for the classic and one for the shuffle. If they'd let me have two different ipods on a single library it'd be even better.

And to think, I swore I'd never get an ipod - now I have two and never want to move away from them :)

I love my Shuffle. I don't miss the screen at all - I was raised on cassette walkmen and making your own mixtapes, so not having a display telling me what's next is no loss.

As for the irritating dock, you can buy rather handy connectors for about a fiver - myincipio.com/product/IP-300 (no, I'm not affiliated with this lot - I have something that looks exactly the same but came from a different manufacturer).

I have a couple of 1Gb Shuffles for tunes while riding, and they are the perfect tool for that. Easy to attach/pocket/whatever and cheap enough to be practically disposable in the event of rain.

Paris, because she's as easy on the eye as the Shuffle is on your ears.

Not sure what you mean. I've got the same as you - a Shuffle and a Classic. I've got an auto playlist that picks out top rated, non-classical or opera, not listened to for a while songs. My Shuffle's synced to that playlist (which is bigger than the shuffle, so it just picks a random selection). My Classic is synced to the full library. Syncing to playlists is the way forwards.

Hear hear. I agree that it's a criminally underrated product.

I've got a 1Gb, first-gen Shuffle and it has replaced my old portable DiscMan as the choon-delivery system of choice when I'm out cycling - replace the crappy Apple 'phones with something decent and Robert is indeed your mother's male sibling.

I don't find the1Gb capacity limiting either - mine's about 75% full and gives me enough tunage for, say, a 200km ride (usually 10-11 hours on the road for me) even if the battery doesn't have quite enough grunt to go the distance. Currently considering an 8Gb Touch for office use, but for outdoorsy things the Shuffle wins hands down.

As for the 2G Shuffle, just bought one for my sister as a birthday present - my only gripe would be that the colours are a little bit gaudy. Also, I was also one of the 'will never own an iPod' brigade until SWMBO bought me one for my birthday :-)

So theres no difference, other than a price drop, and this warrants a review and G increment?

The clip together with the sturdy casing really is genius. I use mine for audiobooks and my currently favourite songs to shuffle around. Battery life is very good IMO. I had some trouble recharging it unter Win2K, but I got a 3rd-party USB power adapter. That can also easily be packed up when traveling. I'm tempted to buy a second 2 GB one in one of those shocking colours ...

"My only issue is having to keep two seperate libraries, one for the classic and one for the shuffle. If they'd let me have two different ipods on a single library it'd be even better."

I don't quite understand your problem, I have my classic set to sync the entire iTunes library and then have the shuffle sync from a playlist I've created. Or you could get it to pick randomly from your entire library.

Bought a day glo orange one some time back for the gym and jogging and just have in syncing what it can fit from my '5 star' rated songs. Battery life is good normally stick it on charge once a week (never seen the battery warning light). Sound quality is good enough considering the listening environment.

the G increment, refers to the fact that the 1st gen shuffle, some time back now, was a glorified USB mem stick, in nasty white plastic, which went grey very quickly. Pop the cap off, stick it in ur USB and it filled its (meagre) memory with a random choice from your library, available in 512mb and 1gb, if memory serves (which it sometimes doesnt)

So, these are still the same 2G models, but with some 'funky' new colours and a bit of a price drop. A review to tell us nothing has changed, a little unnecessary maybe, but there would be more complaints if we'd had nothing

Gave it away. Crap sound, average battery life, and limited play options. A player for people that hate music basically. I really don't see the point, you can't choose what to listen to, and when it plays something it sound crap.

> cheap enough to be practically disposable

£45 is practically disposable? How the other half live, eh?

I think the shuffle looks like a great piece of kit but couldn't possibly justify the cost. £45 for a 2GB player is appalling. I can buy a 16GB MicroSD card for (just) less than that and stick it in one of those USB-Key style MP3 shufflers that catalogues give away free when you place an order over £10!

Okay, it might look shit, not have the "tactility" of the Shuffle or whatever else but, hey, I'm carrying nearly all my music for less than a shuffle that can only carry a tiny fraction and it will take a AAA Battery.