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Dorian Gray
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Paris, France
 
2005-10-22, 09:27

Quote:
Originally Posted by Matsu
I wonder, are they solid performers as thumb drives? You know, not fussy about what and how they're connected.
Quote:
Originally Posted by revolution
How effectively do they work as a pen drive?? and do they work from PC to Mac as a pen drive??
The shuffle works flawlessly as a flash drive. I ordered mine the day it became available on the UK online Apple store in January, and have used it almost daily since. It's been plugged into USB 1.1 and 2.0 ports, into USB hubs and keyboards of various descriptions, into Windows 98 (with the appropriate driver), 2000 and XP systems, into public library, internet café and university computers, and into my own iBook. Not once has it failed to mount.

Data transfer rates for my 512 MB shuffle are ~2.5 MB/s write and ~3.5 MB/s read over USB 2.0, so slower than the fastest dedicated flash drives but for practical purposes, fast enough that it makes no difference. Incidentally, I've yet to come across a computer that doesn't physically allow the shuffle to fit at least one USB port, although I know such computers exist. But it's not a common problem.

Quote:
Originally Posted by hobbit.2
Once a 'partitions' is full you cannot store any more music/data on it, even if the other 'partition' is completely empty.
This is incorrect. It is true that you must choose the music/data balance, but this is only used to limit the amount of music sent to your shuffle in iTunes (either manually or with Autofill). So if you choose to use half your shuffle for music and half for data, your shuffle will not allow more than half its memory to be used for music when you transfer tracks to it in iTunes. But the reverse is not true! If you select, say, 128 MB for data and 384 MB for music, but you only put 100 MB of music on it, you will be able to fill the rest of the memory with data. You can fill the entire free space with data no matter what proportion you have allocated for music. (If this sounds complicated it's because I am explaining it badly, not because it's a difficult concept to understand when you use the shuffle!) This is very useful when you have an unexpectedly large amount of data to store when you're away from your own computer.

Quote:
Originally Posted by hobbit.2
You need to reformat the shuffle (delete all data) to change that setting.
This is also incorrect. You can adjust the allocation in iTunes any time you want even while there is music and/or data on the shuffle.

Quote:
Originally Posted by hobbit.2
But it is worth noting that the shuffle has the best audio quality of all iPods, it uses a different chip which in tests demonstrated superior quality.
The sound quality of the shuffle is simply fantastic. I had been using a very good Sony CD Walkman before I got my shuffle, and its output sounds dead compared to the brilliant sparkle of the shuffle. I was extremely surprised. I really cannot recommend the iPod shuffle enough. It's as close to perfect as any product I've ever used.
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