SanDisk Sansa Shaker does MP3s for the kids

We've seen plenty of times where good toys go bad, but SanDisk's latest Sansa music player looks like a pretty solid bet. The forthcoming Sansa Shaker features a tubular design with blue and pink color schemes to appeal to the younger set, and aside from sporting 512MB of internal capacity, dual headphone outputs for BFF listening, an SD flash card slot for loading up additional tracks, an integrated speaker in case you've lent out your earbuds, and unique "band" playback controls on the top and bottom of the tube. Interestingly, the Amazon product page refers to a mysterious "interactive Shake feature" to be included as well, and while no hard release date nor price is currently listed, we imagine SanDisk will try to keep this one in the $50 range and get it here sometime before summer.

[Via AnythingButiPod]

[pwcsquared @ Apr 14th 2007 10:59PM]

If you follow the link in the picture, you end up at an amazon site. The first tag for the product is "defectivebydesign". Interesting.

This may sound stupid, but what exactly is a "shake" feature, and why does the design remind me of a thermos?

[Blizzie @ Apr 14th 2007 11:53PM]

At first look I thought it was a blender of some sort.. But I would like to know the details of this shake feature and what it does.. =)

[JohnTitor @ Apr 14th 2007 11:58PM]

probably adds some kind of sound to the music playing

[Jay @ Apr 15th 2007 12:58AM]

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=A0984537

seems to be on sale at Dell.com and you shake to change the song, SD Memory card included... 16MB?

[Taylor @ Apr 15th 2007 2:37AM]

That's what I was thinking before I read that comment, I thought you could change the song by shaking up/down. Makes sense, will go down well with the iPod generation.

If they can get marketing down pat (read: silhoutted dancers), then this can be a decent iPod competitor.

[McGinley @ Apr 15th 2007 5:41AM]

What if its in my pocket when I'm walking?Does it change song with every step I take?What if I drive over a bump in the road?

Ooops.I forgot.Hold Function.

[nadgeneger @ Apr 15th 2007 5:46AM]

kinetic energy! 30 secs shaking = ~4 minutes listening time

[Galley @ Apr 15th 2007 8:24AM]

You're all wrong; they're tiny coffee mugs without handles.

[Ondra Soukup @ Apr 15th 2007 8:25AM]

Nice...shuffle :D

[CarbonFree @ Apr 15th 2007 11:36AM]

"heck i wouldnt give em an mp3 player in the first place, they would get an old walkman and some bon jovi casettes."

And ruin their love for music forever??? :)

[Mark @ Apr 15th 2007 4:34PM]

Oh, I assumed it was for milk shakes.

[ManekiNeko @ Apr 15th 2007 6:32PM]

Damn it, damn it, DAMN IT!

I had a similar idea called the Pop Shaker. It was supposed to look like a bottle of soda, and when the shuffle feature started to repeat songs or played a song you didn't want to hear, you would hold down the "cap" and shake the unit to rearrange the order in which the songs were played. The LCD display would double as a sort of window inside the bottle, and you could tilt the unit while it was playing songs to watch the "liquid" slosh back and forth inside it.

People told me it was a silly idea because if you were jogging, the songs would constantly be interrupted. I guess Sansa either found a way around that or the tilt functionality works differently than how I had imagined it.

JR

[Kevin @ Apr 15th 2007 9:22PM]

I'm just glad to see some new ideas coming through rather than just boring vanilla music players or iPod clones.

If we can have more than just Apple thinking like this then the whole gadget market might get out of its current mode of photocopied products.

[David @ Apr 16th 2007 7:16AM]

it comes with a 512mb card, and no internal memory.

for the shake feature, you have to hold a button while you shake it.

did anyone mention that it has a built in speaker that activates if the headphones aren't plugged in?

and there's no lcd.

[Phil @ Apr 19th 2007 5:38PM]

Why would a parent allow their small child to ruin their hearing wearing earplugs?!?! These guys don't get it. I want an affordable, indestructable, drool resistant MP3 player for toddlers! I use a Phillips ShoqBox for my 19 month old, bit it's got a proprietary interface and is really too big for toddlers to handle well. Also, a toddler mp3 player should allow a parent to lock the controls with a sliding switch. qv: http://www.answers.com/topic/shoqbox