SweetPea3 2 GB MP3 Player for Kids (Blue)

First off, the review from Robert S. Tobias sold me on this player. I had been looking everywhere for a simple mp3 player for my two-year-old and finally found this thing.If you read some of the negative reviews, I'd urge you to ignore those because I believe their experiences are unusual. I'm going to run through a list of all of the features of this player below.Battery life: Unless you have a faulty one, the battery life on this thing amazing! We received our player on September 19th. My son has listened to at LEAST one hour of music EVERY DAY and the battery it was packaged with died on October 24th. And it was just one plain, old, generic, AA alkaline battery! They say fifty hours and that's probably correct. I can't wait to see how long my NiMh rechargeable electronics battery lasts.**As for replacing the battery, screws are really the only way to keep a kid from opening the battery panel. Sure, they're small, but not any smaller than the batteries on other kid toys. They're still two to three times as big as the screws you would find in eyeglasses.**Loading music: It's not at all hard to load music onto the player. It comes with a USB cable. (Side note: these days you usually have to go out and buy your own USB cable.) You plug one end into the player and the other end into your computer. Your computer (PC or Mac) will show the player as a portable drive (like a flash drive). Open up the "drive" and navigate to the folder you want to put the music in, and then just drag and copy from your music folder.**I suppose if you only know how to load music externally using the iTunes sync feature then you might be a little confused, but it's truly not hard.**Music shuffle: This is the ONLY downside to this music player. It does not have a shuffle feature, it only plays music or audio in rotation. What I learned is that it plays the music in the order it was loaded onto the player, so you can "manually" shuffle by placing the music in a random order in a folder on your computer and then loading all the songs. Kind of a pain, but at least I know how to "game" the system.Kid's controls: There are three buttons on the player: Backward(RW), Start/Stop, Forward(FF). All easy buttons to use. For backward(RW) and forward(FF), a short press jumps a track, if you hold it down, it rewinds or fast-forwards.Display: The display shows you the track name, playlist, battery level, volume, and track number.Parental controls: The parental controls are a fantastic idea, and accessing them is only frustrating if you're impatient. Hold the backward and forward buttons simultaneously for about 6 seconds, until the display says "Menu>". Release the buttons and then you'll have access to parental controls. The very first option is for volume. Press backward or forward to adjust the volume somewhere between 1 and 10. Then wait 10 seconds and it will automatically exit the menu. You can also control headphone volume independent of the speaker volume. It also allows you to switch between one of three playlists and there are several other various controls.**It's been suggested to put a childproof lock on the controls, instead of holding two buttons for 6 seconds. I'm pretty sure that's harder and more complicated. And definitely more clunky. Holding two buttons for 6 seconds is much more elegant and makes better use of the existing design. Also, on the back of the player it reminds you how to access the parental controls in case you forget.***Other nice features: You can purchase an A/C cable if you don't want to use batteries. It has a headphone jack for use with headphones or to plug into your car stereo. You can also turn on automatic shut-off and it will turn off the music if it's been playing for a specified length of time. I also like that it comes with a USB cable and that the display turns off after a few seconds if it's not playing.

I'll start by saying that we might have bought a lemon. Perhaps I would echo some of the enthusiastic reviews if I wasn't sending my dead unit back.I'll also add that when it did work, my 16 month old loved it.However, there are some problems with this player's design. I understand that making the SweetPea difficult to use makes it hard for your kid to mess it up, but why make it so frustrating? Changing the volume takes 5 separate steps. Replacing the battery involves finding a small screw-driver and removing 2 tiny screws. That's not a problem if the batteries last a while, but if they die frequently, it's a real chore. Want to change play-lists? Well, it's back to the child-proof menu system and several steps later you're done.A suggestion for the SweetPea4: Put a child proof switch on the unit that shuts off access to the controls. That way your kid can't crank the volume to 11 without your help, but you can actually make some adjustments to the device when you need to without invoking menu system. The current user interface is very frustrating.Again, if all of these compromises had meant that the device was indestructible, they would be easier to overlook. The fact that ours died after only a couple of weeks of light use is disheartening.Update: Interesting to see Anne C's comments. Unlike Anne, I have had no such luck with the company. When I contacted them, they told me to take my problem to the reseller. Still waiting for my replacement unit. I will update again when it arrives.Update 2: My replacement unit has arrived and so far... It works! Battery life seems much improved, and all the basics are good. I still wish there was an easier way to make simple changes like switching play-lists, but I guess I am in the minority here. If set-it-and-forget-it truly meets your needs, and you don't foresee making frequent adjustments, then the SweetPea3 fits the bill. I still think there is room for improvement, and I'm hopeful for the SweetPea4.