MP3 Players for Kids

[farsk]

Hello Everyone!

Ellen is turning 4 later this month and I'd like to get her an MP3 player. For Christmas, I got her the FP Kid Tough camera and she absolutely adores it, and made a mental note at that time to get her the Kid Tough FP3 player for her birthday. I also planned on getting a CD of Disney music (she's forever singing "Once Upon a Dream" and loading that on for her, along with some of her other favorites.

I've been doing some investigating online and have found that Fisher Price uses a proprietary format (FP3 v. MP3) and it says you can load your own CDs but not other MP3 files.

I've also looked at the Disney Mix Sticks which is a straight MP3 player.

Does anyone have any experience with either of these? Or another one that you can recommend?

Thanks!

[KrystalS]

I wouldn't get the FP3 player, just because you can't load MP3s on it. It would probably only last a few years before your DD was too old for the songs they have. I've also heard that its hard to load CDs on it. You have to format the songs to work on the FP3. I would recommend just getting a regular MP3 player of some kind.

[jbrandy]

We have an FP3 player and it is NOT hard to load regular CDs. We must have 10 cd's loaded on DS FP3 player. You just open the software, stick the cd in the player and it loads it. You do need to choose a picture for each song but.....very simple. I personally have an ipod and it's no more difficult than that. Our son loves his player - we even have the speakers for it so that he can use headphones or play it in the speakers. This is very simple for him to use. It drives me crazy because to get to a song you have to push the forward button until you see the song you want but...DS doesn't seem to care at all. The fact that each song is connected to a picture makes it easy for him to know which song is which.

I hope this helps.

Beth
DS 4-4-03
DS 4-18-07

[mom2emma]

We also have a FP3 player and I have to agree that it is really easy to use! I buy a lot of things on itunes in MP3 format. If I want to put them on the FP3 player, I just burn a cd directly from itunes and then open the FP3 program and it converts it into the right format. The only pain is that you have to type in the name of the song once it is in FP3 format.

Bess