At 22 grams and 8.4 x 2.5 x 0.84cm its certainly the small device that users want and it comes in 2 sizes a 512mb version for £69 and a bigger 1gb version for £99, we were quite surprised at the price point as it is competitive with the already burgeoning flash player market.

However when you dig through the specs you start to see that the ice white and simple shell contains a basic MP3 player without any of the extras that are now commonplace on similar devices. First up lets look at the replay capability, the Ipod Shuffle supports MP3, ACC and WAV files, all of the Ipod press quoted the storage capacities based on ACC (apples own compressed format used by iTunes) so be careful you may not get close to the 240 songs pitched for the 1gb unit.

Apple being the kings of marketeering have found a clever way to market the relatively small disk space of the shuffle, by pushing the ability of iTunes to sync with the shuffle over USB 2.0 (or 1.1) and fill up the shuffle with random songs (or by rules or play lists you set). So the limited space becomes as random experience? when you let iTunes fill up your shuffle you don't know what section of your music collection you will be treated to during your morning run!

Where the Ipod Shuffle MP3 Player excels is in its use of the interface developed for its bigger brothers, of course the screen had to go as there is just no room on the shuffles small body, but the click wheel (albeit a small version) remains as the main interface.

The rear of the shuffle houses the power switch which also controls the play mode (in order or shuffled) and the top has the connector for the supplied ear buds, the bottom of the Ipod shuffle is covered by a cap under this is the USB connector which works like a USB storage key meaning the unit is directly connected to your PC.

Battery life has always been the Achilles heel of Ipod's and we have to say that the Shuffle is not immune, despite its small size and low power consumption the USB battery only gives 12hrs of playback, which puts it behind many players that also run small LCD backlit screens! The battery takes 4hrs to fully charge with 2hrs to fast charge to 80% this is achieved by connecting to a USB port.

What is missing from the Ipod shuffle? well many players of this size pack an FM radio to continue the music when you exhaust your collection, also a direct encode facility is often found on smaller players and even a microphone to make the device a Dictaphone. But there is a trade here you are losing some bells and whistles but you get an Ipod at under £100, the iTunes software does make this a very useable device and flash memory guarantees a shock free playback even when really going for it!

Overall this looks like another Apple success, the Ipod Shuffle MP3 Player is sure to sell in large numbers and become the next MP3 Icon in Gyms and Schools all over the country, pre orders are being taken now by our partner Amazon for both models, our recommendation would be the £99 1gb model to get a decent number of tracks on the ice white Shuffle.

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