The third generation iPod Shuffle is a major design flaw and not at all user friendly and is best to use if you have multiple portable players and have one more to waste. I got this as a gift, so it was not love at first sight, but what caught my attention was its tiny size - measuring only 4cm X 0.5 cm or about the size of your thumb. Looks like a nice pen drive.(yes it sums up as a memory stick when you have to rummage to find a pen drive)
It must have been a first for Apple to launch such an unworthy product.
It should be understood that the cute size has come at the cost of no buttons on the player. Instead it comes with a remote on your ear phone where in you can shuffle your songs or keep it in normal mode.
To change the song you have to click on the remote mic twice and to go back you have to click thrice. This means you can not use your iPod without the those ear phones otherwise the player becomes useless. You will be unable to control anything.
For that you have the option to connect it with an external speaker or your own ear phone, but then it will continuously play and no one would want that.One can buy a Belkin adapter fort these purposes but then like all Apple accessories it costs a bomb.( about 1800/-) Who cares about all this unless you are an Apple loyalist.(Not me!)
It’s of 2 GB capacity which is adequate enough to keep about 500 - 600 songs.(4 GB is also available) .
A rather useless feature(for non Mac users), though a first in its category would be the’ voice assist and instructor’ - the company claims it will read out the title of the song and all.(Nothing of that has happened except it informs you the percentage of your battery at intervals and when you change the playlist.
Battery life is good - it manages to work up to 6 to 7 hours with a full charge.
Sound quality - Like all iPod earphones, sound is not bad at all, but then at this price you expect something better. Here, we don’t get an option for an equalizer, unless we adjust it for a particular song in iTunes.
My Big Fat Greek Problem - Now when you buy an Apple product, you don’t expect it to malfunction like cheap Chinese stuff. That’s why one pays extra to get a peace of mind. Within 2 weeks of usage, the remote volume didn’t budge. After another few days, songs started changing on their own! It would then stop forever. Restoring did not help either. This occurred due to moisture formation. I went on the official site to learn that these were the symptoms every user was facing. So then I had to contact the authorized dealer(Unicorn Info solutions) kilometers away. Thankfully they replaced it within a weeks time free of charge as it is under warranty.
Till date, that’s 3 months, it’s working great. Now after replacing the ear phones - it has become sort of water proof! It continues working fine even in heavy rains so it doesn’t deter the spirit of listening to loud techno music in the rains.
Now why I like this is because I am an exercise freak. The earphones stay comfortably in your ear after all that sweating. It’s irritating when other ear phones keep slipping off or you have to carry a bulky phone/ music player in your hands which keeps obstructing the user. The tiny size which is smaller than your pen drive can be clipped anywhere at your convenience.
However, if you want better sound quality and to get more attention(if you really want) - have a look at the Sony Walkman NWZ series. I feel it’s a more sensible buy as you don’t have to go through the pains of using iTunes and it has a catchy, youthful styling to it.