When you can get multiple gigabytes of data onto an SD card, a 1 GB player doesn't need to be large. The second generation iPod shuffle reduces the MP3 player to its essentials: a clip to attach the player to something handy, a case big enough to hold the battery and the player controls. Even Q-BE's cube-shaped player isn't this tiny.

The controls are obvious; play/pause on the front with previous, next and volume controls on a click wheel around it, one slider to turn the shuffle on and one to choose between playing the tracks in order and shuffled. Splitting the controls makes it less likely that you'll shuffle your music accidentally. There's no screen, so you can't see what track is playing, and the only way to choose what you hear next is to hit the forward and back buttons.

Tiny LEDs turn green, orange or red depending on whether you're playing or charging. They're so tiny that you may have to squint to see them, especially outdoors, and the meaning of the different blinking lights is a mystery until you look them up. The only way to check battery life is to turn the device on quickly. Apple puts the battery life at 12 hours; we measured between 12 and 15 hours in our test, which is almost enough to get through 1 GB of tracks.

The shuffle is easy to control, perhaps because there's so little to control - you can't pick a song except by clicking "next" until you find what you want. There's no hold button; you press and hold down the play button instead, which might be easier than distinguishing one tiny slider from another without looking. There's no equalizer, just a volume control, and the headphones included aren't the new design that come with the iPod Nano; they are older versions with foam pads that some people (including this reviewer) find uncomfortable to wear. The sound quality is inferior to that of the nano as well, which isn't helped if you tell iTunes to convert tracks down to 128kbps AAC to save space. Oddly, the shuffle can play large uncompressed AIFF files, but not the smaller Apple Lossless uncompressed files. Although the sound quality improves with better headphones, many tracks sounded compressed, and there's less clarity to your music.

iPod - Plus Dock

One thing that makes the shuffle so tiny is the lack of connectors. Unlike the original iPod shuffle, which plugged directly into a USB port, the second generation shuffle has a dock. The dock isn't compatible with other iPods, so only shuffle-specific accessories work with it. That means that if you want to use the shuffle to transfer files as well as play music - or even if you just want to charge it at work as well as at home - you need to take the dock with you or buy another. It's small but it's still one more thing to carry.

The easiest way to fill the shuffle is with random music from your library; again, you're giving up control for convenience. In fact, if you want control, pick another player. But if you want the smallest player you can buy and just to hit AutoFill on iTunes and get 1 GB of random music you know you like (because it's in your library), the shuffle is the neatest and lightest way to do it. Then just slide the switch on the side to shuffle, and enjoy whatever tune happens to come up next.