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 Physical Controls (7.50)
The Shuffle's only controls are physical buttons. In the ancient times, long before mainstream media players had software-based interfaces, this was the norm. Therefore, a lot is riding on these buttons.
All the buttons have good haptic response, including the switches on its bottom. The halo d-pad might be a bit too thin for some people, but we liked how it was riased to help you finger-find it easier. The individual buttons on the ring could've used some kind of texture or some other means of aiding touch navigation.
Display (0.0)
Typically our display score section has a few subsections that score the display in detail. Since the Shuffle doesn't have a display, we didn't feel like bothering with the rigamarole of subsections, so we consolodated all those zeroes and put them in one centralized location. Not having a screen or software interface means the Shuffle will get zeroes on many, many scores in this review.
Built-in Speakers (0.0)
The Shuffle doesn't have any built-in speakers.
Cable Connectivity (5.00)
There is a single port on the Shuffle: a 1/8-inch headphone jack. Courtesy of the dock that comes with the device, you'll be using this port for data transfers and charging as well.
Internal Storage (0.50)
The Shuffle has 967MB of storage space available, or 0.94GB. The single-Gigabyte player is the bare minimum for modern devices, with most not daring to drop beloe 8GB. While this certainly is not a lot of memory, you probably knew that buying the device. Plus, since it always syncs over random songs, there's really no need to have a much larger library.
External Storage (0.0)
Where would the Shuffle even put a memory card? There's just no room for it.
Battery Life (2.74)
The Shuffle managed to play back music for an average of 9 hours, 8 minutes. For a small device that's meant to be docked regularly (to sync over a new mixed-bag of songs), this isn't bad. Plus, any more battery life and you'd run the risk of hearing the same song more than once.
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