Mattel Juice Box MP3 Player Bundle Pack

KayBee's toy store (and I presume other stores in the future) had this on sale for $16 (the "standard" price is $25) including the Juice Box Personal Media Player, headphones, a few music video media chips, and --this part is crucial!!!!!-- the MP3 STARTER KIT (without that, the player is useless except for playing the juice box media chips) which has a juice box-compatible Card Reader (essential, essential, essential) as well as a card-reader, USB extension cord, Juice Box MP3&Photo Viewer CD Rom, and a 32MB SD card. (It also has a carrying case, which is a nice fabric thingy with good mesh pockets for media chips etc.)

I only bought one at the $16 sale price! I ended up buying another for $22 (it was a display model, so, 10% off, yay) along with a different Juice Box Bonus Pack that was on sale for $15. VERY IMPORTANT: This Bonus Pack only has the player and headphones and six video/cartoon media chips, which y'know is not really a bad deal at all, but it is frustrating if you were looking to put mp3 or image files onto the player.

Since the Juice Box came out in 2004 as a hot holiday item retailing for like $65 plus myriad accessories and chips, getting it now as a budget bulky mp3 player/picture viewer for $16 or even $25 is not a bad deal. The SD chip and USB extension cord plus the headphones are arguably worth the $24, so the MP3 Player Bundle Pack is a nice deal.

Remember, it is bulky and not terribly pocket-sized unless you think the old cassette-player "walkman" devices were pocket-sized. It is about the size of one of those portable cassette players.

Once you follow the instructions and download the CD, getting pictures shown on the screen and MP3 files for yourself is definitely do-able. (Names of the files are displayed for choosing on the color screen, which is nice.)

I haven't figured out how to fast-forward within a song, maybe it's just me.

It has speakers as well as an earphone jack, which is neat, and the sound is not bad. It is comparable to a small portable radio, sound-wise.

Oh! It won't play MP3 items if they are over 128kbps. Not a huge deal, but annoying if you're not paying attention to that.

Minor annoyance: Pictures cannot be put on the SD card for the Juicebox to read unless it's done so through the Juicebox software. Mildly annoying compared to say every other item that allows plug and play kind of ability...