There’s a three-page comparison between the iPod Shuffle and Sandisk MP3 on Dave’s: iPaq.
Surprisingly, the Sandisk MP3 actually comes out better than the iPod Shuffle. The author of the review resents the Shuffle for it’s lack of display and decent equalizer. The Sandisk does have these things, and is actually cheaper as well.
Another thing the Sandisk has, which the Shuffle doesn’t have, is an in-built FM player, and a voice recorder. It seems Apple is great at hyping things up, even though there are much better products out there.
He praises it for its sleek design and capacity, but complains that it lacks features. The SanDisk he compares the Shuffle to has a screen, an FM radio, and a voice recorder. Big deal. Isn’t the point of listening to an iPod the ability to hear what you want and not lots of commercials? He also seems to harp on the fact that it uses a single AAA battery, claiming that even Apple admits the rechargable battery will eventually die.
In my opinion, he completely misses the purpose of the iPod Shuffle here. He gives one scenerio where he was looking for a certain song that he could relax to and instead ended up having to scroll through lots of songs looking for the perfect one. The Shuffle isn’t about that. It’s made primarily for people on the go who just want to have music to listen to and don’t need to be looking down every 3 minutes to see what song is playing next.
The SanDisk unit (and probably most other flash-based units) aren’t really competition for the iPod Shuffle. They are alternatives for those who can’t afford or don’t want to spend the money on an iPod or iPod Mini.
Um… Jeremy you could just fill up any flash player with 250 songs and put it on shuffle mode. Which provides the exact same result as the ipod shuffle, for cheaper. Amazing…
This drives me crazy. The ONE thing that people seem to forget when comparing the iPod to any other player is iTunes integration. Name me one other player that sits in that same arena.
The fact that I can rip my CDs in high-quality, download music from the iTMS and just load it on to the iPod is the #1 selling factor for me.
I have a cheap Memorex 128mb player now (with SD slot, so it’s effectively as large as 768mb) with a backlit display–that I essentially never use. I know what I’ve loaded on it and if I don’t want to hear a song, I just go on to the next. I don’t need to see the song name or who the artist is. For what I need a flash-based player for (running, working out at the gym), I don’t need a screen. And $99 for a 512mb player. I paid $89 for the 128mb player I have and that seemed like a deal.
I’m getting a shuffle.
Exactly MacGeek. He keeps throwing up the “supports Windows DRM” argument, but last time I checked, iTunes was leading the pack in online music.
I never understood the reasoning for itunes integration. Drag and drop is so much more useful. You can store your music anyway you want. Now I am basically talking in general with mp3 players, but if you are going for randomness then why do you need itunes? Why do you need any software for that? I suppose it is nice to have itunes pick random songs each time, but that is about it. Also in general I hate how ipods don’t let you organize your music. My friend has an ipod and the only way to get the music back on to his computer is to use some other software. That is so superfluous; you should be able to put your songs back onto your computer.
I was disappointed at Apple for the Shuffle. Looking at Sandisk and other sub $100 MP3 players, Apple could still have made a profit with adding a display and ‘normal’ navigation with shuffle as an option. They’ll still sell lots of the Shuffle because of itunes monopoly and ‘cool’ factor, but I feel cheated. Locking in the customers with inferior products: If no one else, you Apple users should be enraged at this practice!
i dont think that u should buy and i pod shuffle if u dont want to have to look at the music that gonig to play next if u wanted that u just should have bought a cd player with CDS so that u know whats coming up next i personaly like a shuffle BECAUSE the only reason is that i want to go around not know what im going to listen to next but know what im going to listen to unlike any other thing were u now what ur going to listen to next wich to me seems boring but if u like predictability dont get a shuffle if people are that stupid why are they complaning just use comon sense and they will be fine