Having become accustomed to the idea of carrying around 7,000-odd songs in your pocket, it could be hard to get enthusiastic about the concept of a slimmed-down iPod that can only hold a fraction of this amount of tunes. Just why would someone choose an iPod Shuffle?

For a start it's small (barely larger than a cigarette lighter), can hold up to 240 tunes and is relatively cheap - the 1Gb model is £99 and the 512Mb (120 songs) version costs just £69.

Best of all, it's phenomenally simple to use. Slot it into a USB port and use iTunes to either create a random playlist from the tracks stored on your PC, or drag and drop individual songs across manually.

Play, pause, volume, fast forward and rewind functions are all handled very neatly by the iPod mini-style controls on the front, while a slider on the rear sets the device to random (hence the name Shuffle), plays tracks in order or turns the unit off. And that's pretty much all you need to know to operate the little chap.

The Shuffle is by no means perfect, however. There's no screen, which means that browsing through tracks and tweaking settings is impossible. And, while Apple has addressed the loudness (or lack of) problems that many iPod owners have complained about, the Shuffle sounds, if anything, a little too beefy in comparison - and there are no sound settings to help compensate.

Depending on personal listening preference, this may not be a problem, though, and the Shuffle has other benefits to consider. It's versatile (you can use it for portable data storage as well as music), it has a long battery life (up to 12 hours), conveniently recharges via USB and, of course, it comes with those trademark white earphones. All in all, it's hard not to like the iPod Shuffle.

Prices:
£99 (1Gb), £69 (512Mb)

Contact:
Apple 0800 0391010
www.apple.com/uk

Also consider:
Creative Zen Micro