No wireless? No problem. Less space than a Nomad? Fine. Lame is out of the question though.

March 17, 2011 10:10 PM

I'm looking for the MP3-player equivalent of the boom-box, a player that has built-in amp and speakers. Can you recommend one?

The hypothetical player would be fore my seven-year-old who has a remarkable knack for breaking things. I'm fairly certain the common solution of portable player plus external speakers would end in tears. She's old enough to need something just as tough as, but more fully-featured than, "My First MP3 Player."

FM radio would be a plus, but not strictly necessary.

posted by lekvar to Shopping (4 answers total)

I've never used them so can't give a recommendation, but I remember this being the gimmick behind a few Samsung mp3 players: I think the 3 year old yp s5 was the last of them?

A quick google shows that there seem to be quite a few aimed at the cheap/kids market.
posted by xqwzts at 2:12 AM on March 18, 2011

Well, you could get something like this and a Nano. The ipod would be entirely enclosed in a compartment inside the radio. As far as the radio itself, it's designed to take an unholy amount of abuse, and should hold up to a 7 year old.
posted by deadmessenger at 6:30 AM on March 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

The first mp3 player we got for our daughter was a Sansa Shaker. It worked great. When she turned seven and wanted to be able to pick the songs, but we still didn't trust her not to destroy her hearing with earphones, we got a Sansa Fuze and an iDog Amp'd. She also has a boom box with an auxiliary input jack, and she plays her Fuze through that while in her room. She's had the Fuze-boombox-iDog set up for two years now and everything still works well.

For a true all-in-one, this Bump thing looks good--plays music via wifi, jack, or SD card.
posted by girlbowler at 7:53 AM on March 18, 2011

I have a Creative Zen Vision which has built-in speakers. There's an accessory you can get that adds a rubber case for it that makes it very durable. One issue is that the control buttons are pretty small.
posted by muddgirl at 9:11 AM on March 18, 2011