"Iive been testing the new iPod Shuffle for a couple of days, and, in my tests, it fulfilled -- and even exceeded -- Appleis claims for convenience, battery life and song capacity. Sound quality is so good you can barely believe the music is coming from something so small," Walter Mossberg writes in his latest column for the The Wall Street Journal.

Mossberg found that his iPod shuffleis battery lasted 15 hours and 44 minutes, a good deal longer than Appleis 12 hour claim. He was also about to store 188 songs on the device, 68 more than the 120 Apple suggests, without having to down sample any of the tracks.

The lack of a screen on the iPod shuffle "bugs" Mossberg, who points out that being able to view track information is one of the great benefits digital music players have over CD players, but he acknowledges that athletes in particular who are bound to use the device likely wonit care as much as he does about that feature. Cutting out the screen also has enabled Apple to undercut the pricing of its competitors.

"This is a good product that will enlarge the iPodis appeal, especially with kids, people on low budgets, or people who work out. I imagine some existing iPod owners will also buy Shuffles as sort of add-on players," Mossberg concludes. "And the iPod juggernaut will roll on."