I have owned the iPod shuffle since it first came out because it was bought for me as a gift. To be honest I dont think I would have bothered to buy it myself as I already owned an iPod Nano. This specific model holds 2GB which is mediocre considering the size of iPhones and iPods now. It is really the cheapest way to avail of an iPod because it is the cheapest available and they can be bought now for just 50 euro.

There have been a lot of changes in the design over the years but one thing always remains the same, this device is tiny and very portable.

Although it is cheap and functions perfectly is does have a lot of downsides. The main one for me is that there is no interface to connect with. You cant scroll through your music by album or artist and pick what you want. The mp3 player only has the control buttons on the exterior that play, pause, fast forward and rewind the music aswell as controlling the sound volume. This is a disappointment especially when you have used an iPhone or another iPod device you will know that being able to pick what songs you want to listen to is key to iPod satisfaction. With the shuffle, if you want a specific song you may have to skip through hundreds of songs to find it. The 2GB can hold almost 500 songs so you can imagine the frustration.

It is a nice design in that it is really small and they have included a clip onto the back of it so its great when out walking. The surface is made of aluminium and you can chose from a range of funky cool colours too.

Sometimes I find my Nano can be a bit awkward to keep in my pocket when walking so I prefer to take the shuffle because I can just clip it onto my coat. Although I only put the music I want for walking onto the shuffle instead of having to trawl through songs so I only keep about 30 songs on it at any one time. This works best for me because I dont worry about it getting lost or dirty because its so cheap!

The dimensions are as follows: Height: 29.0 mm (1.14 inches), Width: 31.6 mm (1.24 inches) so it really is almost the size of your thumb. It weighs only 12.5 grams.

It comes with Apple earphones and also a USB charger so you wont need to buy anything extra. The sound quality is superb and the battery life lasts for a long time and I rarely charge it. According to Apple though the battery life is 15 hours. You do need iTunes to put music onto it so it is essential that you have access to a computer.

Its a nice cheap iPod but I wouldnt recommend it to music lovers because its simply not big enough and not being able to pick exact songs is a big let down. It would be good for kids or for the technology illiterate!