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Kid-Friendly Music Players
When my two year old first discovered my iPod, she instantly became fascinated with the little box that played music. While I enjoy sharing my passion for music with my children, I am somewhat reluctant to let her drag around a $400 piece of technology. Thus began the search for a kid-friendly music player. We tested these three MP3 players designed for kids, and here are the results:
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Sandisk Sansa Shaker.
The best value by far, this MP3 player has a clever function of "shaking" the player to skip to the next song. It also has two headphone jacks so your kids can share and a built in speaker for when the whole family wants to rock out together. Music is conveniently loaded onto the player by plugging in a USB cord and copying existing files from your computer onto the player. The player is available in blue or pink and comes with a 512MB SD card which can be swapped out for even more memory. Ideal for children age 5+.
Drawbacks: This player has no display to inform the listener of what song is playing. The song skip controls on the bottom of the player twist right for next song and left for previous song, but when skipping to previous songs it is too easy to overtwist and undo the the cap which conceals the battery, SD card and USB port. Fortunately the cap is secured to the player so we have yet to lose it.
$28 at amazon.com.
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GPX Crayola WMA/MP3 Player.
Of all the designed-for-kids MP3 players this one most closely resembles MP3 players designed for their adult counterparts. It comes with two headphone jacks and two pairs of headphones (one kid-sized headband and one pair of ear buds), so both Jack and Jill can listen at the same time. The player has 256MB of memory and an SD card slot for expanded storage and even more music.
Drawbacks: This player is a tad pricey and the tiny control buttons on the player's side may be a bit difficult for a young child to operate.
$70 at amazon.com.
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Fisher Price Kid Tough FP3 Song & Story Player.
This music player is designed for the littlest music aficionados. With large buttons and a sturdy construction that can withstand just about any beating your little one could give, the Fisher Price player was simple enough for a two year old reviewer to operate. Comes with 128MB of memory and SD card slot for adding more. Available in blue or pink.
Drawbacks: This player has some major downsides. For starters, the foam covers on the headphones came off the first time we used the player and haven't stayed on since. But most frustrating of all is loading music onto the player. Rather than simply plugging in a USB cord and copying files over, you have to download the FP3 Player software and convert your music into a special FP3 file format -- the only file type the player will recognize. This music-loading process was so burdensome that most parents gave this one a bad mark, but once the music is on there, the kids really loved this one.
$60 at amazon.com.
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-- Heath T. Hirschi
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