Why did you buy it?

I'm a long-distance runner and it's good to have music playing to keep pace with. The more upbeat the music, the faster I finish races. The Shuffle was an obvious choice because it's so tiny. Most of the other MP3 players were dull-looking and bigger.

What does it do for you?

It plays for days without a recharge, which makes it great for runs -- you don't have to worry about whether you plugged it in the night before. I find it frustrating that I can't see the track names, but that's only a problem when I've loaded a new album that I'm not familiar with. Most of the time my eyes are on the horizon anyway.

Would you recommend it to others? Why?

Yes and no. If you need a really light MP3 player, then there's not much that looks as good and takes up as little space as this Shuffle. On the other hand, I sometimes want to know what I'm listening to. The easy way to solve the problem is to get an iPod mini for casual listening, which is what I think I'm going to do. I'll just save the Shuffle for when I'm running.