No shuffle mode - didn't know that.
925708
I had no idea there would be no shuffle mode.  I've had $15 mp3 players that played shuffle, so it didn't even enter my mind to check.  However, this is my new mp3 player for the time being.  That was my mistake entirely for not checking because it's important for me not to hear the same old songs in the same old order.  Ugh.  It'll be fine for a while until I get sick of listening and tweaking my playlist - which the player should just *do*.
1483301
I love this little player just wish I could figure out how to get it to shuffle the music not very good instructions but exactly what I was looking for thank you
3425166
Make sure to read all instructions and prevent to misused the dive! Like I did, I post before that shuffle did not work and somebody from company contacted me to guide me step by step on how to use the shuffle (works only on single files) in the instructions its pretty well specified how it works and his to use it, but guy like me I don't need the instructions Im pretty much can figure things out (yeah right not this time)
 everything else works, haven't tried all t options, cause I haven't had to used them!
radio Fm works good!
Very practical and light to carry!
By the way the company has an awesome customer service!
4590313
I already owned two of these players, so I thought I knew what I was ordering. I use them to shuffle through many individual pieces at random in a given category, i.e., jazz, pop,Christmas, Hawaiian, etc. and play them through a whole-house (and garden)hi-fi system. Each player provides 8 self-assignable "categories" of music. By the time I discovered that 16 categories was not enough, the price had risen to more than I was willing to pay for another player. When I found this used one on Amazon for a reasonable price I bought it. I thought they were infinitely stackable, but found that only two can be stacked. Fortunately, I was able to connect #3 through the "Auxilliary" input of my amplifier. I can label each CD so that its title shows up on a screen on the player. The instructions say that you can plug a computer keyboard into the player to type the labels, but one is not supplied and I have yet to find one of mine that works. There are many other features, such as fade up/down and other programming. I expect this unit to provide the same reliable service as the ones I have bought in the past.
738271
This unit is pretty good. EXCEPT, is does not shuffle USB flashdrive or SD card plugins. It will play every song in order, no shuffle no random just 1,2,3,4,5,6, etc.. If you plug in through aux or bluetooth, then you can set shuffle on your external device.
2465699
Use case is to simultaneously charge and audio output. However, this usage causes the android Music Player to activate shuffle mode. This has been reported on android forums as well; possibly due to poorly shielded wiring inducing signal interference.
4678476
Why can't anyone seem to be able to create a decent random song routine? These are all the same, constantly reverting to the 1st song in the list? wtf!?
3180213
First, let's get the good stuff out of the way... this boombox sounds reasonably good (well, better than expected at least).  It looks kinda neat (my wife hates it though), has a remote, doesn't waste space with an old-fashioned cassette player, and has a GREAT dot matrix display to communicate with you.
I was thrilled that I had found such a perfect machine.  That is, until I discovered a blatant feature omission... it will not do shuffle (random) play on MP3 CD's.  This is absolutely unforgiveable.
Also, it occasionally "skips" while playing MP3 tracks, but this is only a minor annoyance.
In summary, I'm disgusted that a unit possessing such well thought-out features as the thorough LCD display is lacking something as basic and essential (in my opinion) as random play.  If it did have this feature, it would have gotten a solid 4 stars by me (5 if they could get rid of the skipping problem).
RCA's product designers made a big blunder here, and I will most likely return the unit because if it.
3882401
The secret button on top is pushed to select menu options. Once the end of the selection path is found, don't press anything, just wait for 2 seconds, and it goes into that selection. Also, rapid pressing enters one selection option, and holding longer enters something different. Who would have thought, the button on top, which swings left - right, should also be pushed? In small letters, it is labeled MODE.

FINDING YOUR SELECTION
1-Create Folders, but not multilevel folders. For example, create folders named Songs-1, Songs-2, Songs-3, etc, and then put your different categories of songs inside the appropriate folder. Don't make second tier folders because it's very difficult to navigate.

2-Put a number in front of each song, that way it's much easier to find.

3-Rename all Songs to smallest number of characters as possible, because long names do not fit on the screen, and the screen is very slow to display a long name. A long name travels slowly across the screen at a snails pace.

4-If all you want to do is play songs, and don't care about selecting anything specific, just dump all of them in there, and the player will go down the list and play all of them, from start to finish, or select the Shuffle option, and songs play in random order.

5-If you have both Songs and Audio Books, make a separate folders for them, so that you can select what you want.

6-Battery life is approximately 20 hours on my unit, however, it depends upon the volume level, brightness of the screen, quality of the battery, and type of ear buds.

7-The screen lights up with all these random colors. I changed mine to white light and lowered the brightness setting. This may have had a contributing factor on increasing battery life.

8-Using different ear buds can increase the battery life, or make it worse, depending on the ones you use. When I used ear buds from the 99-cent store, the battery life was increased.

9-I like using "Sony Open-Air Headphones" for improved sound quality.

This product works pretty well, if you want something better, you will have to pay more money. On mine the FM Radio works great, it even has pre-selects for the stations. The Graphic Equalizer can change the sound quality from Normal to Jazz or Rock. In my opinion, Normal works best.
1085424
Simple as that, it doesn't charge my shuffle if plugged on the outlet. it only works when connected to the PC. very inconvenience
3663935
I dislike ipod shuffle when I found this on their web site.

Note: iPod shuffle is intended for use with a single computer. You cannot load music from multiple computers or iTunes libraries onto iPod shuffle like you can with other iPods.

The itunes software is very difficult to use for old people, very slow to load music, and crashes often in my windows xp.
32716
Very nice sounding mp3 player, but I can only give 4 stars because it does not have a shuffle feature, which would be great, because if you have a boatload of music, you're going to have the same band more than once.  But I did find a work around for this, I'm constantly modifying my recordings for better sound quality, and found a nice freeware program called Jajuk, which allows you  make up playlists of all your music, and then you can transfer your music already shuffled onto the player. I just made up a bunch of folders and setup different playlists for each folder, which brings me to the other feature which I find totally cool, is the ability to change out your micro sd card, so all that great music you got can be broken down to what is different genre for each card.  Great for the pool parties ;)
1088068
I rely on my ipod shuffle to update my podcasts almost daily. After many years, battery life dwindled and this 4th gen shuffle was given to me as a present. I've also used Sansa Clip products, and while I really liked their versatility and value, they tended to crash/lock up too frequently for my taste. Thus, my old shuffle was replaced with the new one (mine is blue).

I was really pleased to have long battery life restored. But there are a couple of design features that I felt Apple went backwards on. First, the clip part. The unit is smaller than my previous shuffle ... too small, in fact, because it's VERY hard to open the clip without pressing the reverse button. This sets the current podcast back to the beginning. The second design feature that disappointed was the fact that the embedded firmware does not remember where you are on a given podcast if you use the forward button to go to the next one. As I recall, the previous one would remember your place when you cycle back around to the first podcast. I have also lost my place when syncing the device, though it doesn't always seem to happen.

Other than these issues, it is a good product. Just not as good as the old one, when it was new with a fresh battery.
882988
It does the job. However, features are quite limited. There is no 'shuffle' function (at least I don't see one). There is no user manual, probably on account of its basic design. Still, it does what is says it would do.
1149972
Shuffle only really shuffles first 30 or so songs even if you have thousands on the device.  Menu's are not easy to use or select with touch sensitive buttons.  Device requires computer to be on to charge which is extremely annoying.
2145594
I purchased this player with the intention of putting a high capacity micro SD card in it. I have over 40 GB of music (well over 10,000 songs) that I would like to hear on the go... apparently there is a built in limit of 2000 songs that the player recognizes.  If you try to put more than that on the SD card the player either won't recognize the extra songs over the first 2000 or completely rejects the card altogether.  I was not aware of this at time of purchase and wish this feature was listed in the specifications.
This is a fine little compact player for anyone with a limited library but for those with a broad range of musical tastes it just won't cut it.
212491
i thought i was buying a top-of-the-line music player...

the release of their software that i experienced did not allow for "power scroll" nor did it provide "Display By Artists" (which would have cut down that scroll time a ton).  i have approximately 10,000 tracks, and to display SatrianiJoe, i had to scroll through about 8000 tracks.  *by hand*.

really?  can you say "repetitive stress injury"?  *no thank you*.

oh, and i should have listened to some of the other reviewers - on Day 2, the headphone jack broke...

TwistOneUp