• iPod Shuffle 3rd Generation - Worth Your Money?

    iPod Shuffle 3rd Generation - Worth Your Money?

    Prasad Naik, May 08, 2009 1300 hrs IST

    It's small and it talks. But will that be enough?

    Incredibly small footprint, great build quality, convenient clip at the back, 4 GB of capacity

    No way to control player with other standard headphones, poor sound quality with default earphones, data cable is too short, a bit expensive

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Design and Construction:



The new Shuffle is absolutely miniscule. It is difficult to imagine, after looking at what appears to be like a stick of Wrigley's, that this thing can actually hold 4GB of memory, a battery and the circuitry to run the entire thing. The entire box of the player is itself smaller than that of a soap. Everything else inside the package is smaller as well. There are small user manuals and a small data cable, which is barely longer than the player is. The cable is really short and unless you have a notebook PC, it is going to be really inconvenient to connect the Shuffle to your PC. You will need to shell out extra to get a longer cable from Apple. Thankfully, the earphone cable is long enough.



Design wise, there is nothing really to talk about the new Shuffle. All you get is a small switch at the top, which can turn the player off or put it in continuous or shuffle playback mode. Besides this, it is the 3.5mm headphone jack, which is also the connectivity port for the data cable. At the back is a convenient clip, which lets you attach the player anywhere on your clothing or a bag that you might be carrying. The built-in clip and the small design really make the Shuffle a good choice for those going to a gym.



As for the controls, all the action is concentrated on the earphone cable. The right speaker cord has the controls for the player. You get three buttons, two volume +/- buttons and another button in the middle, which does most of the work. To play/pause the music, you press the button once. Pressing it twice makes the player go to the next track, pressing it thrice makes the player go to the beginning of the current track or to the previous track. To fast forward or rewind within a track, press the button twice or thrice respectively and then hold it there. Pressing and holding it activates the VoceOver feature. Apart from the controls, the earphones are virtually the same as the ones that come with every other iPod or the iPhone. These earphones also work perfectly well with other iPods and iPhone as well as Apple's range of computer.

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Discussion Board
(4) Comments
Coasteering
,Pembrokeshire, on Dec 30, 2009 05:04 AM
After many hours hunting, trial and error i was able to use management software other than itunes. Media Monkey is brilliant, most other software couldn't find its way around Apple's integrated itunes folders in my ipod shuffle 3rd gen, but Media Monkey was awesome, totally recommend it :)
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Angad
,New Delhi, on May 29, 2009 11:42 PM
Apple's played a clever game towards monopoly on the earphone market cuz the earphones have an unknown patented chip in them, which manufacturers would definitely need access to before they can supply 'phones for the shuffle. the least apple could've done is to have put an earphone jack after the controls, like many cellphones. Now we cant use an iPod with speakers too...
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Steve
,Malaysia, on May 09, 2009 12:55 AM
Why apple is so dumb till shorten the data cable in this size.At least laptop user will be in "safer zone",how about PC desktop user they have to reach back of the unit to connect.Not convenient at all.Downloading & transferring media files via iTunes is pain-neck session...How cool it would be if just copy paste the tracks without using iTunes...Apple should consider on this matter
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Rajesh Malvekar
,Karwar, on May 08, 2009 03:28 PM
Thank Q Mr. Pradip Naik, nice review I completely agree with your findings, its poor sound quality with bundled earphone. Even there is no option to go for better earphones, if anybody wants mp3 player I suggest pls. go for Creative Zen Stone Plus 2 GB around 2 k. with better sound quality but don’t forget interface is very slow. Once again thanks TT for alerted people not to go for Apple. Its charming only brand rather than Ipod performance
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