Face it, if you're listening to music while riding the park, you might find your mp3 player in between your chest and a rail. No matter what it is, it is going to break. At least with the shuffle there's the least possible amount of stuff to break. Even if you do break it, at least you didn't spend that much money on it.

The battery lasts two or three full days of riding on one charge, so you can just leave it in your jacket most of the time and not worry about it.

It's really light, so you don't even notice it in your pocket... its way different than skiing with a full ipod.

If you listen to music when you ski, you need something like this. DON'T think that your ipod will be fine. Trust me it is going to break. Go out and get yourself a little thing like this so you don't have to worry about it.

The shuffle works excellent as an on-hill music device. It gets annoying when you can't see what track is playing. Sometimes when you're looking for that one song to inspire a big trick, you'll be at the top of the inrun skiping songs and waiting to hear it forever. The good part about having no screen though, is its less shit to break.

Once again, super simple. Just a few buttons on a white stick that holds about 90 songs or so. You can listen to them in order or shuffled. Thats it. Sound quality is wicked... I tried out some other mp3 players recently and they sounded like shit. The shuffle has nice rich sound, and if you throw out the stupid ear buds that come with it and get some real headphones you can appreciate the warm, full sound.

It hasn't broken yet. The lanyard thinger that comes with it to hang around your neck snapped though... that was annoying. The device works fine though.

Same as all other apple products the quality is great. This is nice and simple with no bells and whistles.