**DISCLAIMER: I know that Shaker is rated ages 8+. My little one NEVER plays with it out of sight of mom or dad's watchful eye. It uses a SD card for its media and a AAA battery for power and the door covering these is anything but secure.**

The Shaker has one benefit for our family that outweighs its shortcomings: the top mounted speaker and AAA battery. See, my daughter falls asleep to a collection of lullabies that she finds very soothing. Up until the Shaker, I was forced to carry the CDs with me whenever we went out of town to visit family and hope they had a portable player with which to use them. Now, we simply let the Shaker do its thing. The hours of sleep saved have been nothing short of spectacular.

Issues: The door on the bottom of the unit that covers the battery compartment and SD card slot doesn't always latch perfectly which can lead to it flopping open (see disclaimer above). The volume control seems to not work very well; it's almost as if there are three set levels - loud, somewhat less loud and terribly quiet. Lastly, though not a big deal for our use, the shaker functionality of shaking the unit to randomly pick a track is hit or miss. This thing probably has the most archaic accelerometer ever built in it.

Otherwise, The Shaker is solidly built, lasts a decent amount of time on a single AAA and produces reasonably room-filling sound with its singular top speaker. A must have for parents in the same boat as we are. Probably less compelling for parents of older children (who'd probably want a more full featured player at this point). And it's been discontinued, so availability is questionable. However, if the use case fits and you can find one, you won't be disappointed.