One Tween's Take on the Barbie MP3 Player

The PR folks at Mattel are a daring crew. They sent me the Barbie MP3 player for my 10-year-old to try out even after I wrote that she is not a fan of all things pink and Barbie. But since she does love music and spending time on the Internet, she was willing to roll up her sleeves and do some Yahoo! Tech research.

Girls are able to play on BarbieGirls.com without the $60 MP3 player/doll, but when you go to buy furniture, clothes, accessories, you have more options at the online mall if you buy the $60 MP3 player/doll released in July. You can also adopt pets if you have the MP3 player, which hooks up to the computer via a USB docking station.

Here's what my tween likes about the features the MP3 player unlocks in BarbieGirls.com: Buying and moving furniture around her room. Chatting with other girls around the site. With the MP3 player registered online, she could adopt a pet and buy a dog bed and other accessories for the dog she now has. (Not surprisingly, this is a 10 year old who spends lots of time on Webkinz.) But she didn't like that the dog can't do very much other than nap, play in place, and move from one part of the room to another.

As much as she kvetched about the emphasis on girly things and shopping malls, she spent a good bit of time picking out and arranging furniture in her room. (Though sometimes moving the furniture where she wanted it to go proved frustrating.)

Here's what she doesn't like: Girls can only have one room each, though they can make multiple changes to it. There are only three games to play to earn B bucks to spend on the site—a nail fashion game, a music video game, and "Give Ken a Hot New Look." Oh boy, that last one didn't go over big with her. But for every girl who doesn't like to mix and match outfits online, there are plenty of girls who do, so I'm sure there are lots of girls who will enjoy playing the games on the site and chatting with other girls. 

Chat on the site is restricted to prevent girls from saying nasty things to each other or asking each other personal questions, particularly about where they live. But the site's filters can sometimes work overtime, blocking words like "somewhere," "near," but not "live." Still, the aim is good—to provide young girls with a training ground for civil chat in an online social setting.

My take? I'd sure like to see the girls doing more than shopping, decorating, and changing outfits. But I didn't expect anything more, and neither did my 10-year-old.

As for the MP3 player, my tween easily figured out how to download songs onto it. It has 512 MB of memory and holds up to 120 MP3 or 240 WMA-file songs. The sound quality is okay, but this MP3 player is as much about the songs as it is about the fashion accessories to adorn it.

Related: New Barbie Expands Online World for Girls