Baby's First MP3 Player

by ThinkGeek

Product Details

• ASIN: B001L10T6W
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #166,058 in Toys & Games (See Top 100 in Toys & Games)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best toy I ever bought my toddler!, March 23, 2009

By 

N. Stauffer - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:4.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Baby's First MP3 Player (Toy)

Before we owned this, we had the BlueHat Toy Co mp3 player which my 18mo son loved, although it broke in about a month and was of FAR less quality than the Sweetpea. This is his #1 favorite toy. We've had this particular player for about 2 months now.

Pros:
-- Durable!! I can't tell you how many times this has been dropped or thrown. It's also water resistant (but not waterproof) so sticky hands don't damage it.
-- Holds 1GB of music and up to 3 playlists. We have playlists for his regular kid songs, his lullabies, and another for holiday music. You can fit so many songs on here that Mommy gets sick of them less quickly.
-- Very easy for very young children to use. My 18mo had it figured out in no time flat. The buttons available for him are start/stop and forward/back. He finds his favorite songs and starts them over and over again.
-- Decent firmware for a kid's mp3 player. (This is compared to the other kid mp3 player we owned, not an iPod obviously.) For starters, when it turns on, it resumes at the same place in the same song that was playing when it was turned off, not at the first song on your playlist, so you don't have to hear that first song ten trillion times. The hidden parent menu includes options for volume control (including a separate volume level for the headphone jack) and an auto-off timer, among a few other things.
-- Adequate sound quality. Obviously there's just one speaker so you don't get a big stereophonic experience, but it isn't scratchy or distorted at all. The only thing that I've noticed doesn't come through very well for some reason is Bert of Sesame Street's speaking voice.
-- Amazing battery life!!! It takes only 1 AA battery. We've had it about 7 weeks and have changed the battery only once, despite HEAVY daily use. The auto-off timer helps with that a lot, I have it set to 10min so when my son leaves it running and gets distracted it doesn't run itself down. Compare this to our previous mp3 player whose batteries lasted about the same amount of time, but took 4 at once.
-- Size. It's perfect. It's about the size of an eyeglasses case with a big handle for little hands, yet is small and thin enough to fit comfortably in your purse, glove box, or coat pocket.
-- You can buy an AC adapter for extended play in a nursery if you like. BUT the adapter won't charge the batteries, just spare them from being drained. We didn't bother though, because the big draw for my son is carrying it around.
-- Easy to load with music. Just drag and drop files in the playlist folders.

Cons:
-- Locks up from time to time. There's actually a firmware update that helps this problem tremendously, but we still get a lockup about every third day. Easy to fix though, just plug it into your computer for a couple seconds, then unplug it again to reset. Or, if you're out and about you can pull the battery, but there's a screw on that compartment so that's less trivial. (See update #2 below for a possible lockup solution)
-- The song title doesn't scroll on the screen. But this is really minor; my toddler can't read and it's not like I can't tell the difference between the Wheels on the Bus and Mary Had a Little Lamb. You'll have all the hundreds of songs memorized before you know it, either way.
-- You can't use songs bought through iTunes because of their proprietary DRM. However, we've had no problems playing songs we ripped from our own CDs or downloaded from Amazon music.


This could be a pro or con depending on your preference, so I'll put it here at the bottom. The volume doesn't get TOO loud. A 7 is about right for normal household use, then we crank it up to 10 in the grocery store or a restaurant. 10 sounds too loud to me in the house, but in a busy place it's loud enough for him to hear without it rising above the background level of muzak/conversation to the rest of us or annoying our fellow diners or shoppers. We crank it down to about 4-5 when the lullabies go in the crib with him.

Also, the display is not backlit. I mention this only because our previous mp3 player was. But it seemed like a useless feature and ran down the battery life so I am not missing it at all.

Overall, $60 seems like a lot of money to spend on electronics for your toddler, but it was worth EVERY PENNY. He uses it every day, it soothes him in the dr office and the grocery store, and it is really holding up well to his daily abuse.

Update May 2009 - Just thought I would mention that 5 mo in, this has now survived a quick bath in the toilet and several tantrums on concrete that caused the case to open at its seam--yet it's still going strong!

Update #2 June 2009 - Well, it finally happened... my son broke it! I couldn't find a phone # for the company so I sent off an email which a REAL person responded to with REAL suggestions within the day! (Not a form letter.) He recommended something to try myself (FYI, in regards to that lockup problem I described above, apparently keeping the songs to 128kbps prevents that), but it didn't solve our problem. (It turned out to be a broken speaker--the electronics and headphone jack still worked--and I was honest about the abuse it had suffered at the hands of my son.) So, he gave me return instructions, and within 2 weeks we had the player back and working again!! This is extra impressive to me because besides the personalized, human response and effective repair, it also went back and forth through the mail from the US to Canada in that time! The only cost to me was the $4 for one-way shipping to Canada. So, now I want to give this 6 stars!! Kudos for a company that stands behind their product!!!

Update #3 January 2010--It has now been a year and this player is still going strong despite my toddler's best efforts to love it to death. He uses it daily and it goes to bed with him every night. He has a little brother now who will be getting one of his own soon. I wish it came in more than 3 colors!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars love it so far, June 30, 2009

By 

Samantha Cooper - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Baby's First MP3 Player (Toy)

This is a sturdy device with exactly the features that I was looking for. The sound quality is acceptable. My 2.5 year old twins took to it immediately. I'm about to buy a second one because they both want to take it bed with them.

One bonus: the kids managed to dunk it in the bath tub a couple days after I bought it. The water was sloshing around inside the device. I shook it out until the water stopped sloshing, took out the battery and all the screws, and left it outside in the shade on a hot day. It dried out completely in a few hours and was as good as new!

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Buy, May 16, 2009

By 

M. Hamel "Should clean more often" (Northern California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:2.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:3.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Baby's First MP3 Player (Toy)

I originally purchased the Playskook Made for Me MP3 player. It was easy to use, and my toddler loved it, but it sucked batteries pretty quickly, so I decided to upgrade to the SweetPea3.

I liked the idea that the SweetPea3 had more space, less buttons, and used just one AAA battery, and was rated for more hours of use on that battery.

It is easy to load songs onto, and easy to use.

It's lightweight, and super portable, and my daughter can feel comfortable using this for a long time because it doesn't look "babyish".

We have been very happy with this!