I knew that it was only a matter of time before I’d reach the breaking point of hearing Schoolhouse Rock. I mean, I love the fact that it teaches kids stuff but at the same time you can only hear Conjunction Junction so many times before you snap. Annebelle is obsessed with the songs from the CD and never passes up a chance to play them when she’s in the house or beg for me to pop in the CD when we are on the road. I even tried hiding the discs but she sniffed them out like she was part bloodhound. That’s when I knew it was time to get her a portable CD player of her very own. Since she is pretty rough on stuff I wanted something that was going to be able to deal with getting dropped or tossed around. I wasn’t about to spend a huge chunk of change on something in case she lost it or decided to give it a bubble bath [we went that route with a camera already] so the choices were pretty limited. When I saw a Hello Kitty CD Player on eBay and it was selling for $25.00 I didn’t bother with the auction and just picked it up at the “Buy It Now” price.

Emerson Hello Kitty Portable CD Player

I wasn’t expecting to get something that would have a great sound or last more than a few months but this CD player has kept up with Annabelle and all her rough handling. It has all the basic functions that a normal “adult” CD player would have plus it has the anti skip feature. This is something that works well and as much as I hate to admit it, is a necessity with kids. If you are looking for something that even young children can use, this is a great pick. I was concerned with the volume level, I didn’t want something that was going to have a lot of sound to it because kids will be kids and they will play it at the highest setting possible regardless of what it sounds like or the damage that they are doing to their ears. This has a nice sound to it but you can’t really crank it up all that loud. To some people that might be a negative but since this was purchased for a kid, it was a complete blessing. Beside all that, it’s too cute for words!

Getting the CD in and out is pretty simple and in a lot of ways this is exactly like the functions and features you would find on an adult CD player. You pop open the door [flip top] and place the CD inside and it won’t work or turn on until the door is closed and the latch is in place. This is nice because you never know when a kid is going to try to figure out exactly how a CD player works. It has play, search, rewind, stop and pause buttons and yes, it has the hold feature so you can save the batteries! This runs on two AA sized batteries so it doesn’t add a lot of extra weight tot he unit. This didn’t come with an adapter so that you could run it from an electrical socket but Emerson does sell one that you can buy to use with this. Since she is a little ball of energy I can’t see her being tethered by an electrical cord so we’ll stick with batteries for now. The batteries do last about ten to fifteen hours in this, I have no idea why they don’t last longer and I chalk it up to her leaving it on, playing around with it all the time or skipping through songs.

You get a very cute pair of blue headphones with this; on each side there are little Hello Kitty logos and the band is partially clear. These are 100% girlie so even though it’s blue, don’t think that any boy over the age of five would ever entertain the thought of wearing this. They are pretty sturdy and deal well with the “on, off, on, off” wear but they won’t last long. After about a month of using this they started to crackle and pop when she would play a CD; the cord that runs into the CD player took a real beating and the wires were all busted up. This was easy enough to fix, just get another pair of headphones. The ones that came with the CD player are padded [not the “in ear” type] so they are safer for kids to wear. When I started looking for a replacement set I couldn’t find one with a Hello Kitty design and I’m not even sure if they sell these separately. Since Annabelle is still pretty young she isn’t all that picky about her audio stuff so I picked up a cheap pair for her to use and she seemed pretty happy with them.

The Bottom Line

I wasn’t expecting to get something “nice” or that had great sound but this CD player really surprised me. The design of it makes it easy for kids to use, the light blue color and Hello Kitty accents are extremely cute and the sound is a lot better than I expected. If you are looking for a well made portable player for a little girl then this is a great pick and hey, I knoew of a few adults that would love to get these as a gift! For the price this was more than worth it, now I don’t have to listen to Schoolhouse Rock over and over ... now if I could just get her to stop singing the songs while she’s listening to her tunes! There are several different Hello Kitty portable CD players on the marker so if you don’t like the Emerson name there are others to choose from. A great place to check for other options is the Sanrio Online Store where you’ll be able to find more Hello Kitty products than you ever imagined possible! I went with this one becaie of the price and that it had the anti-skip feature to it. So far it’s worked out great for Annabelles needs and it looks like it might just be someting that will last a long time!


As always, thanks for the read!

~^V^~ Freak ~^V^~

© 2005 Freak369


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Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): $25.00
Type of Toy: Other
Age Range of Child: Whole Family