Just to recap from my last post, I sold my 5.5G Video iPod. I’m (as per my wife) supposed to be getting a Touch for Christmas. I sold the 5.5G now since the more people learn about the new Touch, Classic, and Nano the more the 5.5G Video will lose its luster and resale value. I had to act fast after the new iPod announcement if I was to achieve maximum return. I did; I got back $225!

Since my original plan was to jump on the Touch as soon as it hit the shelves, I’d only be iPod-less for two weeks. Now that my wife has promised a Christmas delivery, I suddenly find myself being without tunes-on-the-go for the next 3 months. Ouch!

This is unacceptable! I figured I’d pick up a cheap little nothing of an mp3 player to hold me over. I wanted something comparable to the Shuffle. I couldn’t find anything that was worth the money. Almost every junky little mp3 player I looked at that was “disposable” just wasn’t worth the money for what you get. I’d rather spend the little extra and have a Shuffle that looks awesome, makes a really great backup iPod, and has resale value.

I also looked into building my own. It would be a really cool project. I looked at a couple of kits. One that I found was almost reasonable at $72. Great if it works, but no guarantees or resale value. For $7 more I can have a Shuffle. If I wanted to just build it on my own, the parts were supposedly $30. I could only find one site that sold the mp3 decoder. That was $20 alone. The rest of the parts (not to mention shipping) were about $40. Don’t forget, I’d still have to etch my own board. Totally not worth it.

Believe it or not, at $80 the Shuffle is the best value for the money. I decided to just go with it. I ran out to the Apple store today on my lunch break and picked one up.

It’s awesome! I can’t believe they can cram so much iPod into such a tiny case. It’s totally worth the $80. The only bad thing I can think of is that I dipped into the Mac Pro piggy bank!