Apple iPod shuffle 1 GB Purple (2nd Generation)

This was a birthday gift to myself, I filled it with gospel music and listen to it at work and when I go for walks. It's great, and easy to use.

It would be hard to review an item that I never received. The seller of this item is a scam artist. He took my money and never sent the product.

I find the iPod Shuffle is perfect for the gym where it clips easily on a shirt - no carrying case required. It's tiny but holds more songs than I've ever needed to put on it at any one time. For people like my friend who keeps his entire music collection on his iPod, the little Shuffle just won't do. But I only change my playlist occasionally, or sometimes listen to an audio book or a podcast, and I can keep everything on the original CDs or my computer and change it as often as I want. Creating playlists and uploading music using the computer interface is quick and easy. It has only 2 modes - either play the tracks straight or shuffle them, and the buttons are easy to use even without looking. A single charge seems to last nearly a month for me - but I'm mainly using it at the gym.

The tiny size is nice, but it has it's drawbacks. My kids have an adapter that plugs it into my wife's car, and when it's separated from the headphones it's so small that I've lost it around the house several times. The kids have left theirs in jeans' pockets, and they don't survive a trip through the washing machine. The little earphones produce great quality sound, but they're not particularly long-lived (my first pair blew a speaker after only a couple of months but the iPod store in the mall gave me a new pair for free - otherwise replacements are $30).

But overall, I love it. It makes that half-hour on the eliptical go a lot faster. It's amazing to compare it to the Walkman with cassette I had in the early 80s - a huge improvement.

My wife loves her new shuffle. It has more room for more songs and that is exactly what she wanted. She has had absolutely no problems with it.

Does what every other mp3 player should and it's surprisingly small.

However, The software for this iPod has a terrible USB driver for Windows. Let's put it this way: to transfer music from my PC to the iPod, I have to unplug my USB mouse connected in another, completely unrelated port. Naturally, I'm not the only one with this problem. (I found this solution after 5 minutes on Google)

The hardware is ok, but I would avoid iTunes at all cost. (Search for alternatives, there is plenty of them)