As you might expect, the Shaker is light on features. It supports only MP3s, and there's no FM tuner or recording functionality. However, as the name implies, the Shaker has a motion-enabled audio feature that makes it part MP3 player, part toy. If you hold down play/pause and shake the device while music is playing, you'll hear a "shaking" sound and the music will shuffle. A different sound effect--the "boing"--can be heard if the player is paused while you shake it. The player also emits some bubbly sounds when it's powered on and off. Sure, this is all a bit gimmicky, but anything that gets kids into digital music at a young age is just fab in my book.
Let's be honest: a plastic MP3 player with a $40 price tag with kid-specific features is probably not going to be a top contender in the sound quality competition. However, the Sansa Shaker really doesn't sound half-bad. I listened to a selection of tracks through a set of Shure SE310s and was frankly impressed by the warmth and clarity of the music. High-end detail was also quite good, though bass was predictably lacking. I could detect some light static in bass-heavy and minimalist tracks and rock tracks sounded a bit muffled, but hey, is your 7-year-old going to be bumping jungle and blasting punk rock? Probably not, and the rousing rendition of "This Old Man" that came preloaded on the Shaker sounded just fine. You can certainly do worse for your children's ears than this player. The rated battery life of 10 hours for an AAA battery is pretty shoddy, but perhaps the player will surprise us in CNET Labs test results. Check back soon for that info.
