22 out of 22 people found this review helpful.
Busy Brains are Good!
Date of Review: Sep 30, 2008
The Bottom Line: This has interested my 4 yo in early math and letter recognition without her realising. She has thoroughly enjoyed this. So has Mummy! A great choice for Christmas or birthday.
I spend a lot of time on my laptop. It lives on the kitchen table. My kidlings do a lot of things on the kitchen table and I tend to live a virtual life online! We build Playdoh mansions and Lego dragons and I write blogs and journals and threads on my baby board, while listening to music and downloading episodes of Charlie and Lola from the UK that haven't aired over here yet.
Now you know I'm some saddo internet freak! There are times though, when my babies want to play with the CBeebies website or Neopets or watch a downloaded episode of the aforementioned show and I just want five minutes peace to try and write a decent review on the last thing we bought for their entertainment! So, electronic entertainment is required. Most often with my bears the TV or portable DVD player won't cut the mustard; they all prefer to do something with their mind instead of letting someone else do it for them. It is then that the Vtech Tote & Go Laptop Plus comes into its own.
What you get for your money
We bought this for Youngest Daughter for Christmas last year, just after her 4th birthday, in the wonderful place known as Kohls. So it was purchased relatively cheaply at $17.99. And pretty much what you see is what you get.
It weighs about 2.5lbs and is made of orange, yellow, silver and blue plastic. It's about 3 in tall when closed. There is a small orange mousemat and a silver mouse, which attach to the right hand side of the unit. The mouse can come off though and, rather brilliantly to my way of thinking, can be moved to the opposite side for a toddler who is left-handed. The mouse is attached to the mat and moves in 360 degrees, though when playing the games, it is the left, right, up and down motions that are important. There is also a blue click button on the mouse, like a Mac (hahahahaha! Vtech are breeding a generation of Mac preferers!).
The yellow lid opens to reveal a silver plastic backed keyboard, with a dimple effect, like the console of a space ship! The yellow keys have the letter keys, with both upper and lowercase printed, in alphabetical order. This is good for learning the alphabet but I'm always worried when these kids hit a real QWERTY keyboard. It hasn't bothered Youngest too much, though, she moves from one to the other fairly easily...unlike me! I always struggle with alphabet set out keypads... The blue keys above the yellow ones are the number keys to 10 (also imprinted with musical notes as this is how you get the machine to play annoying tunes). Three green keys down the side have shortcuts on them: Activities, which takes you to the activities menu; Repeat, which repeats the question; and Answer, which puts the answer in for you, if you don't know it. There are two red keys, one being the on/off switch, the other being the 'Challenge Yourself' key. On the lid is a standard 2"x3" LCD screen (think: graphic calculator) and another red button. This is the blissful sound reducer! Shame it isn't a mute button too!
The black and white LCD screen is pretty clear. When the machine first starts up, there is a little tune, a little monkey appears and says 'Hi there! Let's play!' and then the machine proceeds to scroll through the activities menu. It beeps as it scolls. There are 30 activities and they are all helpfully printed around the screen under their various categories which are Letters, Numbers and Games and Music. You can scroll faster or backwards through the activities list by pushing the mouse left or right. If you type a number, you get a menu box up with a number in it. You can then scroll through the numbers using the mouse or type them in (using the mouse to move from the tens to the units column). Then click the blue mouse button to access the game.
The games are pretty comprehensive. What you see is what you get from the menu too. When it says 'Uppercase Letters', the game is to find the correct uppercase letter. The games get progressively more difficult as the number gets higher within the category and there are ten games in each category.
One of the red buttons takes you directly to 'Challenge Yourself' and this can be any of the games in the machine.
The machine will switch itself off after about 2 minutes of non-play time. This makes battery life very good and we haven't replaced the batteries in the machine since we have had it.
Does the kid actuallly like the machine?
Whoah, boy, and then some! I think this was the absolute hit of last Christmas. She's actually got more playtime out of it than I expected her to, really, as I know that sometimes these kinds of games can be repetetive or beyond their abilities one minute and below them the next. That's what is so good about this particular machine, that it is progressive. She still gets as much enjoyment out of it now as she did when she received it. And now Son is starting to take an interest as well, even though he's only 22 months!
As a teaching tool, it's not the best in the world, but it's certainly not the worst either. I think it has helped with Youngest's understanding of place i.e. things that come before and after in number and letter sequences as well as upper and lowercase letter recognition, much more so than the plain plastic LeapFrog Phonics letter magnets that we also have. With the LeapFrog items in mind too, I love the Vtech machine as its diction is clearer than those of the LeapFrog toys, so the individual sounds of the albeit limited phonics ('Y' is only 'yer' and not also 'ai') are much clearer. Something else that is great about the Vtech Tote & Go Laptop Plus, over some LeapFrog items, is that the praise, when it is due, is appropriate and encouraging. When they get something wrong the little voice goes 'Uh-Oh' which is cute, as that's what a kid would do when they've done something wrong!
We own more of the LeapFrog items but I think all the kids have preferred the few Vtech items we have. We have an Alfie Bear, which they don't make anymore, but both girls loved before he went a bit strange after our basement flooded. We also have a Touch & Learn Phonics pad which is fab, particularly as my mother in law bought it in the UK, so it has an English speaking voice.
All round, this little laptop has proved to be a big hit and I think it will continue to be in the future.
Product Dimensions: 3.8 x 11 x 14.1 inches
Weight: 2.5 pounds
Recommended Age: 3-6 years
