20050511

Two more reasons to NOT Buy An iPod Shuffle


Ok, this is a shameless plug for an article I wrote. IMHO there is no good reason to buy a music player without a screen. It's nice to see the other manufacturers haven't bought into Apple's nonsense.
The flash player segment is a relatively crowded market, with many products, from a variety of manufacturers. Apple’s offering is the minimalistic iPod Shuffle, with no display and a minimal feature set. The iPod Shuffle has no FM radio, plays only MP3 and AAC files, and has no recording capability. Other companies are building feature rich electronic, all in one, “Leatherman” audio devices. I had the opportunity to test two of the latest feature-rich offerings. They are JetAudio’s iAudio 5, and Lexar’s LDP-600. Both support a variety of music formats, record voice, and have built in FM radios. In direct opposition to the iPod Shuffle, they both have displays with multiple colors. While each does cost more than a Shuffle with the same capacity, let’s see what the extra bucks buy, and if it’s worth it.

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