SanDisk Sansa Shaker 512 MB MP3 Player (Blue)
by SanDisk
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Our Price: $76.06 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $74.95 (click here) Category: Network Media Player See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of SanDisk Sansa Shaker 512 MB MP3 Player (Blue)
Customer Review: My favorite gift--Sandisk scores a success.
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchased this as a gift for a grandchild but liked it so much I kept it for myself. Of course, I could rationalize my selfish act since the child is barely 3 and Sandisk insists the device should not be used by anyone under the age of 8. The reason for the manufacturer issuing the precaution is no doubt the potential harm to young children abusing ear buds. But forget the ear buds: what distinguishes this device from an iPod (apart from its smaller, salt-shaker size) is the built-in speaker. It puts out adequate sound for a musician who wants the companionship of his favorite tunes without the encumbrance of earphones.
As usual, Sandisk makes no claims for its products with respect to Apple computers or iTunes. It works out of the box for an Apple downloader--no installation of programs needed--but most likely offers less storage space. So if you're an Apple person, you may wish to consider the one-gig model. (I've had no difficulty storing 30-40 minutes worth of mp3 files in the 512MB model.) Frankly, this is a novel product, one that fills yet another niche. I hope it catches on and sees a few improvements.
The pluses: Simple, instant, effective, minuscule--whether you're an adult or little kid. Above all, no earphones required, and the claim of ten hours' worth of music on a single battery seems about right.
The minuses: 1. The "shaker" attraction is misleading. I thought it meant a child could shake the gizmo to make it play (great ploy, since kids won't play the CDs I give them); instead, shaking it merely produces weird sound-effects and causes (somewhat erratically) the song being played to be replaced by another song--providing the play switch is depressed. If it played a song whenever it was shaken, it would be great for a one- or two-year-old (on the other hand, then I would have had to give it to my grandchild.) 2. The bottom cover must be twisted loose to insert one AAA battery as well as the storage card but is somewhat difficult to get reseated tightly, especially since it's part of the fast-forward control assembly. For added "security," the bottom cover is attached by a thin "safety" thread that no doubt will be an early casualty.
Perhaps a better-constructed device would be one with a single ear bud (forget the stereo), which would free up more space for batteries, card, and FF control (which could be eliminated for my money), along with a more traditional screw-in cover for the battery compartment. Still, unless it breaks within a week, this mp3 player that contains a built-in speaker yet is smaller than a whiskey jigger is a winner.
Customer Review: Annoying design quirks
Summary: 3 Stars
There's no new ground that I can tread when compared to the excellent reviews by others. So let me focus on the two issues that seem like product killers:
1) It is next to impossible to figure out how to open the cover at the bottom of the player to access the battery and SD card. I'm not tech-illiterate, but I still had to work before I figured this one out. The user manual is pitiful in this regard. The reason for the dilemma is that the twisting force should really be applied to the thin blue/pink area just *below* the Next/Previous track band. Better instructions or finger grips carved into the plastic would have helped. You can see a number of users here who had this very same issue.
2) Once the battery cover comes off, it is perversely impossible to get it to stay in place again. Now, every time you twist the next/previous band, the battery cover is just waiting to jump off the end cap. For now, I seem to have fixed this by throwing my shoulder behind the twisting action required to keep the cover in place. The helpful advice I got from Sandisk support was to return this device to Amazon. The device is quite usable without the battery cover (though it would look unfinished), so I came very close to getting rid of the cover.
3) Another interesting issue is that the supplied earphones can be too large for small ears. Luckily I had a pair of ear plugs that were appropriate and so we switched to those quickly and that saved the day :)
That said, I can't fault the user interface of this product in all other respects - the shaking action is fun, the auditory feedback is great, the volume on the speaker is much louder than I'd suspected, the two headphones jack is a nice touch, and the use of bands rather than buttons makes it a joy to use for kids.
You also cannot argue with the pricing of this device. It comes with a 512MB SD card - so increasing this to 1G is a snap.
The design overall is very kid friendly and I expect this will be a hit with its target segment.
Customer Review: Great MP3 player!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a great MP3 player. It was actually very frustrating for my mom and sister to get the songs onto it, but that was because we first had to convert them to MP3 files.
Save frustration and follow these steps:
1. Insert a CD or burn songs onto a CD from Itunes, etc. You must do this with Windows Media Player, so you have to have Windows XP, but my family has a Windows Vista and it works on that too.
2. Once the songs are loaded on, right-click Rip and choose Format. Click on that and then click MP3. Now the songs are going to the Library and being converted into MP3 files.
3. Now, plug in the Sansa Shaker with the cord included. Plug it in in the Shaker first, then your computer. With Windows Media Player, something should come up and say "Drag files here to make a playlist to put on 'Sandisk Shaker'".
4. Go to the library and drag your songs over to that panel. After they're all on, click "Start Sync" which is below the text. It should sync quickly and after it says "You can now disconnect the 'Sandisk Shaker'".
5. Disconnect the Shaker and the songs should be on there!
If this doesn't work, make sure you converted the songs to the library and changed them to MP3 files, shown how to do in Step 2.
So, this is a good shaker. It was an awesome birthday present! (My parents bought it for about 30 bucks at Toys R Us). And, it has a lot of room; there's still about 4/5 room left and I've put on a lot of songs! The out-loud speaker and two headphones were nice. Unfortunately, the headphones that came in the package were too big for my ears, but I had my sister's old iPod earphones and a pair of earphones that were just lying around.
I recommend this for ages 8-11 (I'm ten, but I don't think it's childish), my older sister got her iPod at twelve so I think at that age they should have that.
A great player overall, I strongly recommend it!
Customer Review: GREAT little player for kids
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this little player for my 2 year old daughter for Christmas. It's very easy to use. My 2 year old has figured out how to use the player, turning it on/off, pressing play, and switching between tracks. I LOVE that it has a built in speaker so my daughter can listen to the music without being attached to it. The volume seems to be just right...not too loud to be annoying or harmful to her ears, but not too quiet that she can't hear it in the car either.
Because of the speaker, it goes through batteries quickly, but it's just ONE AAA battery compared to 3 or 4 in other players. It also has a carabiner clip to hook the player to a belt loop or backpack. NICE!!!
The player also features 2 headphones jacks, just in case you have 2 kids who want to share and listen to the same track (which rarely happens...so, at this price, I recommend buying two!) :o) I figured for the price of this one (I paid $20), my daughter could lose or break a few and we'd still come out ahead as compared to buying an ipod shuffle and speaker/dock to accomplish the same features the Shaker provides.
It took some tweaking (it's not like my ipod) to get my music to MP3 format. You can download a Protected Music converter (to convert mp4 to mp3 and put it on this player) for free at [...] but to convert the entire song and make it worth your while you have to register the free version. It's around [...] depending on which license you choose. Once you get your music into MP3 format, it's a piece of cake getting the music on the player!! You can also load songs onto ANY Sandisk SD memory card (not just the one that comes with the player).
Truly, this is a great little MP3 player for a kid. If you're looking for fantastic sound quality, the ability to sync to iTunes or media player file and a display screen, you should pay the [...] and go with an ipod!
Customer Review: Good but details need to be clearer!
Summary: 3 Stars
We bought this for a boy who isn't quite ready for a regular MP3 player but too old for the FP3 player. The price is great and I like the sturdiness of the shaker but I really felt a couple of things weren't quite clear enough! Primarily the part where ONLY MP3 formatted songs and stories can play on this. This is a big deal and for those of us who are amatures it can be a BIG fuss. Yes it came loaded with some kids songs but really who wants them? My kids have their own personal favorites and of course they were not MP3 formatted so I had to get an additional program to format them. I also did not like the fact there was no screen for the kids to easily find their favorite tune or story. All in all a good product but it literally took me all night to get it ready to give as a gift since I am not really used to these machines and I had to find a way to format everything to work on this. I only have 1 CD that is MP3 formatted so it was a pain. Also, You can't work with these files in Windows Media Player so I had to learn another way to transfer the files. Not a deal buster necessarily but I probably would have gone with the same MP3 players his brothers have if I had known that I would have to do all this extra stuff. This one is not great for stories but we can make them work. This is not a complaint about the machine itself but the programming/formatting parts. If you already have a lot of MP3 formatted stuff and you are not trying to use any stories, then you will have little or no problems. Everyone I know, including myself, did not have much already formatted MP3 this includes our downloaded songs. It just made the experience more of a fuss than fun.