New iPod shuffle: Four great alternatives

Round-up by: Nate Lanxon

Last updated: 31 Mar 2009

The world's opinion on the new buttonless iPod shuffle is divided. For some, it's the epitome of portable hotness. For others, its suppositorial appearance neatly matches its usefulness. So here are four alternatives to consider, all of which let you use your own headphones.

Creative Zen Stone Plus
It sounds better than the iPod, it's got a cute little screen and an FM radio -- features many people find useful, and the reason we gave it a significantly higher score than the shuffle in our review. There's a version that includes a speaker as well, and an even cheaper version that does away with the screen entirely.

SanDisk Sansa Clip
Another affordable and dinky competitor to the shuffle is SanDisk's Sansa Clip. Like the Zen Stone Plus, it's got a small LCD screen and uses the conventional Album > Artist > Song structure for organising your music. Add to that an FM radio, decent sound quality and support for a range of audio formats.

Sony NWZ-B133
No round-up would be complete without a Sony offering. Walkmans are arguably some of the best-sounding players on the market (once you've upgraded the headphones that come in the box, that is), and the B133 is a decent £30 offering. It's got an LCD screen, drag-and-drop file support and a USB plug built right in.

iPod shuffle second-gen
It was by no means the perfect MP3 player, but for active users and commuters, it hit a number of nails on the head. It's still available, and for just £31 from Apple in a 1GB capacity. For this reason we have to continue recommending it, and for numerous other reasons, it's arguably still the better iPod shuffle.