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>> Hey everyone welcome to Prizefight. I'm Veronica Belmont and this is the show where even the little tiniest gadgets fight in an epic struggle for acceptance. And we have two of the itsy bitsiest MP3 players around. The iPod Shuffle and the iRiver S10. You know you love iPod prizefights. Get ready for tiny carnage. So let's get started. Round one is design. Small is in these days. The S10 is just slightly larger than the Shuffle at least in width although both players are practically a choking hazard. The Shuffle comes in many colors while the iRiver comes in black, black and well, black. The Shuffle has a handy dandy clip on the back so you can attach it to yourself for easy access. I'm a little torn. I really like both aesthetically the iPods minimalism versus the S10?s sleek gloss and rounded edges. But the colors and the clip of the iPod are nice additions and make it harder to lose. The Shuffle gets a five and the S10 gets a four. Round two is next, interface. So, yeah it's hard to have an interface when you don't have a screen. But the Shuffle does have some nice controls here and it's easier to skip songs if say the player is in your pocket. The S10 uses the de-click controls like the iRiver clicks. I really love this interface. It's very easy to just push the corners and move from song to song or to move through the menus. It also has a pretty sizable screen for viewing, track and menu information. This round is the S10?s with a four and the Shuffle gets a two. Three more rounds left, features is next. The tiny iPod has tiny little features. We have an on off switch of course up here on the top as well as the shuffle and repeat switch. Otherwise it just holds your play list and one gigabyte of your favorite songs. You need the included cradle to charge and sync it of course. However the two gigabyte S10 has a pretty OLED screen, an alarm clock, an FM tuner and the ability to show bitmap photos. Weird, no JPEGs is odd but it's better than nothing. Neither are feature heavy but the S10 does alright for itself. Dejevu the S10 gets a four and the iPod gets a two. Let's see if compatibility changes things here. That's round four. The iRiver S10 supports MP3, WMA, ASF and OGG and the weird bitmap photo support thing. The iPod plays MP3, WAV, AIFF, Audible and AAC files. No screen, so no photos. The S10 gets a three and the Shuffle gets a four. One more round left, time for performance. The S10 has great sound quality for such a little munchkin. You can choose from many different EQ presets as well. As always use better ear buds than the ones that come with these and either device will sound better. However the Shuffle, sound quality under whelms me. Flat-sound and background hiss don't impress. As for battery life, the S10 has a rated eight hours, and the Shuffle rates at twelve, then we've got fifteen point eight in our lap. For the final round, the S10 gets a four and the Shuffle gets a three. Alright folks here's the final score: The iPod Shuffle has a sixteen and the iRiver S10 racks up at nineteen. A nice first match for the newcomer. If you want to suggest a Prizefight or leave a comment you can do so at prizefight at CNET.com. I'm Veronica Belmont, I'll see you next time.
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