When Apple released the iPod Shuffle, we were, well, underwhelmed. We already have three conventional hard-drive based iPods at Heathen Central (an original 5 gigabyte model; a 2nd-generation 15 gig used by Mr Heathen; and a 20 gig U2 edition Mrs Heathen To Be got for Christmas), and frankly didn’t see the charm.

For long, complicated reasons, however, Apple recently offered to send us a 1 gig Shuffle for free. Not being fools, we said “Sure!” Said schwag/bribe arrived today, and we are compelled to admit our opinion has changed: Shuffle? Very cool.

As at least occasionally gym-going folk, the Heathens have noticed that full-size iPods are, well, at least occasionally unwieldy in workout situations. They’re big and heavy, and not unfragile, as they’re built on hard drives. The Shuffle, on the other hand, weighs almost nothing (0.78 oz, vs. 5.6 for the “conventional” models), but holds plenty (ours is the 1 gig, which will hold about 240 songs — or 20% of the capacity of our original 5 gig, which was even then an absurd amount of music to carry around, let along use in the gym).

The real coolness, though, happens in the one area I could see being a problem: what to put on it? We knew it would “fill itself” on plug-in with a random sampling of one’s music library, but with a wildly eclectic library, that’s sort of fraught with peril (we do not wish to transition from Van Halen to Miles Davis while on the elliptical). What we did NOT realize is that one may instruct the Shuffle to fill itself from any arbitrary subset of the music library, and that it can easily switch between subsets with every docking event.

Add to this the mundane but entirely useful ability to store and transport any type of file, and we think it’s a keeper. Especially at “free.” But probably even at a C-note.