Friday, February 11, 2005

If the pricey and stylish full-sized Apple iPods are the Lexuses of digital-music players, the new $99 iPod Shuffle is more like the Toyota Echo--a decent performer of the same pedigree that's smaller, cheaper, and a lot less luxurious. The Shuffle did well in our tests, but it isn't for everyone, even if you're in the market for a small digital-music player.

With its random-play ability, the iPod Shuffle offers a very inexpensive and simple way to enjoy music on the go. It is ideal for working out at the gym, for example. But choose it over a full-sized iPod, or a more fully featured flash-memory player, only if you value compactness and low price over features such as an equalizer, an FM tuner, multiple-playlist support, or even a basic display that tells you which song is playing.