What is the durable MP3 player dedicated to 0 to 8 years worth?

More and more parents, concerned about the well-being of their offspring, are trying to keep their children away from screens. Not easy. Alternative to video: audio. With Ocarina, the Italian company Gianluca (named after its founder Gianlucca Giannini) offers a small MP3 player dedicated to the youngest (from the first age up to 8 years). Sold from 99 euros, the device also boasts the fact that it emits no waves, that its sound volume is restricted and that it is durable. Arguments that can resonate with many young parents.

211 grams of stories

Blue, red, yellow or green, Ocarina has well thought out ergonomics. Pleasant in the hand with its large handle, completely covered with soft-touch rubber, it looks like a rattle. With its four buttons, its LCD screen 3.1 cm diagonally, it is 18 cm long and 3 cm thick and weighs 211 grams. Supplied with a USB cable (but without a power supply unit), Ocarina can be recharged from the mains and has an autonomy of 15 hours of listening.

A multilingual reader

A little light in its content, the “Quick Start Guide” found in the box only gives fragmentary information on the use of Ocarina. We learn how to start the product, navigate through the different audio tracks it contains, etc. But when once launched, Ocarina offers us tales in Italian, we find ourselves a little taken aback. Dedicated to several countries, the MP3 player for bambinos thus integrates 9 playlists and 45 audio tracks. Problem: we quickly understand that not all are in French and that hexagonal directories are mixed, but also Italian, English and German.

Do not panic, before entrusting Ocarina to childish paws, connect the player to a PC or Mac and do some cleaning in its 8 GB memory (which can contain up to 254 audio tracks). Or ten minutes of work. Result: we deleted thirteen unnecessary files to keep only … six.

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“Classical Music” (5 recordings by Bach, Beethoven, Debussy and Engel) are found together; “Fables” (5 stories like Cafi and the Hyena and The musicians of Bremen); “The Suitcase of Talent” (narrated portraits of geniuses like Titian, but also the singer Umm Kalthoum); ” What emotion ! »(5 stories about anger, joy, fear…); and “Sounds of Nature” (ie 6 audio files of natural sound, like those of a river, birds…).

The proposals are interesting in their approach and form, but ultimately remain quite limited in quantity. It will therefore quickly be necessary to consider enhancing the player with more audio content. Songs, music, tales and fables in MP3 can easily be added by simple drags and drops. Need a converter? Here is one, among others.

Interesting: it is also possible to embellish Ocarina with stories that you record yourself. Useful when you are a mom or dad on a business trip to tell your little ones back home about great adventures! There are therefore two solutions: record them directly in the player with a microphone (not supplied) to plug into the headphone socket of the device. Or simpler in our opinion: save them on a smartphone and transfer them to Ocarina via a computer.

The use by the child of the walkman is not complicated. If he cannot read, help him find the soundtrack (s) he wants to listen to. Too bad the designers of the device didn’t think of an on-screen icon system that a little one could easily associate with their favorite stories. He could thus have chosen among a few tales or fables clearly identified by a symbol or a character.

a timer to limit listening

For its part, the maximum sound level is limited to remain low and we can imagine a baby falling asleep in his bed with the sound of a soft lullaby. As a reminder: Ocarina does not emit any waves. While wandering through the menus of the reader, we found a system of timer that it is possible to program from 5 to 60 minutes to limit the listening time, which is a good thing.

Finally, we salute the sustainable approach of the product which is advertised as repairable and can be refurbished, returning to the workshop in Florence, where it is manufactured. Seeming very resistant with its anti-shock coating (but not waterproof), it could thus cross the generations and be transmitted when the siblings grow.