MP3 player for an 8 year old?

[chickie]

My dd is 8, and she is asking for an MP3 player for Christmas. The Disney Store (online) has something called a Mix Stick for about $40 and a Mix Max Digital Video and Audio Player for about $100.
Does anyone have any experience with these? Or do you have any other suggestions? I hate to buy her an I-pod. (I'm actually asking for an I-Pod myself this year ). I am so technologically UN-savvy when it comes to this stuff - I need all the help I can get!!!
Thanks!

 

[JenH1969]

We bought one for both of my kids last year for Chrismas. We got a very basic one for both of them (11 and 5) but made sure it is expandable. We paid around $30 for it at Walmart. My 5 year old got it as is and my 11 year old got hers with a memory card- she is not allowed to take the memory card out with her- we decided to start with cheap ones as it wasn't as big of a loss if they lost them or didn't look after them. They were both thrilled and still are- HTH, Jen

 

[3littleHalls]

We got my DD a Mix Max($80 at Best Buy) for her 8th b-day. She LOVES it! She even figured out how to download songs from our library by herself. I catch my 5yr old listening to it when she is at school. Picture and audio are good, and holds a lot.

 

[FatElvis]

I bought my 6 yr old one of the refurbished shuffles, when they still had the previous generation $29 ones. She LOVES it - it's been well worth that cost. Since my husband & I both have ipods as well, it's nice to have everything in one itunes library. I'm sure other ones can use that too, I just didn't want to learn two systems .

 

[scrappin]

My husband has a one of the larger IPODs. He uses Itunes to store all his music. My 11 year old had a mix stick when she was 9 and felt it was very kiddish. She added her own money to some Christmas money and bought an IPOD at 10 last year.

My son (7) also has a mix stick. He bought it with his own money - it works great - the draw back is that everyone else in the family has IPODS and uses Itunes and his works with Windows media player. I am giving him a "used" nano I got off of ebay for $50 for christmas this year - it's not new but he won't care - it has a screen, etc.

That is just our experience - I am not technically savy enough to figure out a way around it - except to burn music from itunes to a disk and then load it back onto this mix stick.

Again, the mix stick worked great - has been very durable....we are just an ipod family!

 

[My2Cinderellas]

I received an 8g nano last year for Christmas (2nd gen). DD9 has borrowed it here at home and so when we decided to get her an mp3 we again went with an Ipod for the reasons mentioned. She is familiar with it and we already use itunes.

I bought her a refurbished 2g 2nd gen nano.

 

[debbiet1]

if you dont want to get her an ipod because of the cost you can pick up a cheap but decent mp3 player at walmart. We gave our 7 yr old son one last year because his sister could listen to music with her mp3 on the bus but he couldnt. We just monitor what songs get put on the mp3 player and he's good to go.

 

[Perditamarie]

We got our kids the mix max and love them now.....after finally figuring how to "rip" our existing dvds and loading them to work on the memory cards(as with anything, if you google it enough, the answer will come). It holds a lot of music and books and we have several memory cards w/various shows and movies. It is a great size for kids, durable and I love the expandable memory function. You can even buy memory cards preloaded w/music and movies.

Something to consider.....I read on a BF site that Toys R Us has a 30gb brown Zune, which does music and video for $79.99....don't know if it has the expandable memory and if you get an i pod, will you want to manage 2 diff players.

HTH and whatever you decide, I am sure your 8yo will be thrilled w/ an mp3 player!

 

[SplashMountainMama]

A Disney Mix Stick was DS8's first thing on the Christmas list last year. Santa brought it and he loves it. It's just enough for him. It's simple to use and holds enough songs to keep him happy. He had a blast learning how to download songs. It's a great first MP3 IMO.

 

[Kaler131]

I agree with the others who said to go with an iPod if you will have one too. It will be so much easier than trying to work out two different systems. I have two iPods and I LOVE them! My kids all have the Disney Mix-Max players and they don't really use them. They are always asking to use my iPods!

 

[dis75ney]

I have thought about getting my 7 year old an MP3 player for our trip to Disney in May. I already have a video iPod (30gb) and my husband inherited my 2gb Nano when I upgraded to the video. My problem is that I haven't been able to figure out how to set up two separate music libraries in iTunes, since my tastes are more expansive than my hubby's. I'd be happy to get another iPod (used) from Ebay for my son if I could figure out the multiple library fiasco...

Can any techno-savvy people out there help me? PLEASE????

Thanks in advance!

Stacy

 

[Yensid_MD]

You will need to set each of the iPods to manage music manually. On the opening page you will see where you can click to Manage music and videos manually. Then what we have done is create each persons playlists. Then all you have to do is pull to the iPod the playlists that you want by selecting them from the Music tab.

That is the one minute version. There may be other ways but this is how we do it.