List Price: $82.99
Sale Price: $49.49
Today's Bonus: 40% Off
FUN FACTOR: After a lot of research, I finally chose the iXL over the vtech vreader for my daughter's 3rd birthday. We had a chance to play with this in a store and thought it might be a better choice for a 3-year-old attention span. This toy has barely been put down in the last 3 days. My 3yo has spent hours playing with it. I also have a 5yo who steals away with it whenever the 3yo is not looking. Last night she sat in her tinkerbell tent and played for more than a hour and half. My 6yo declared that she'd like to have one of these for herself.
EASE OF USE: Back to the 3yo. It took her less than a half hour to master using the iXL. She can navigate between the story, coloring book, MP3 player, and photo viewer without any problems. She has learned how to listen to the MP3 player while drawing and can change songs at will. She loves having her own MP3 player like her sisters and we filled it up right away with barney, elmo and blue's clues songs. It was easy to add songs and photos from our home computer. We only bought 1 extra title for this for now and no one is remotely bored.
THE STORY READER: This part seems to appeal only to my 6yo right now. The other 2 have used the story reader, but are more interested in the drawing and music. It has 2 modes, story and play. During story mode, you cannot turn pages or use the touch screen. You simply listen to the story accompanied by a little bit of animation. It turns the page for you when the page is complete. In play mode you can flip the pages forward and backward, interrupt the story and use the touch screen to make some the the animations come to life. Not super interactive, but cute. You also have the option of selected 1 or 2 words on a page that the reader has highlighted. It will tell you what the word is and say something like "jump. jump starts with the letter j." I am disappointed that you cannot touch each word and have the reader read it like in the vtech vreader, or the leappad.
GAMES: There are games that go along with each story. It comes with 1 game preloaded to go with the included monkey story. That one focuses on number recognition and counting, but is too hard for my 3yo. Ni-Hao Kai-Lan comes with 3 games. 1st one is a cooking games similar to a toddler version of cooking mama; cute, easy, good for following directions. game 2 uses observation skills to take pictures things (ex. take pictures of all the things with spots). game 3 is an arcade style game basketball game teaching letter recognition. None of these are terrible difficult, but are cute. My 6yo especially likes the cooking game.
EDUCATIONAL VALUE: The games each seem to target a specific skill, are cute and not too difficult for younger children. My 3yo may not know her letters yet, but can certainly identify ones that look the same. The stories are not captivating, but my 6yo will sit through them. She says she likes monkey story that it came with because it must changes up the animation just a bit (one time the main character is a boy, next it's a girl, puts my daughter's name up on one of the signs, changes the snack on the table from banana and juice in one story to milk and cookies in another, changes the color of the team jersey, etc.) She also says there is an interactive game at the end, which she enjoys. I also LOVE the notepad feature. It teaches letter writing. It says the letter, then letter sound, shows how to write it, then gives you the opportunity to write it yourself using the stylus. For more advanced learners, it teaches you to write some basic words.
OVERALL: We LOVE this product. If your main goal is to purchase a story reader, the vtech vreader may be the way to go. If you have a child who is a very young, or has a shorter attention span, this one it probably what you want. The fun factor is high on the iXL. I feel like it's educational enough for my 3yo. It's a good introduction to basic skills and following directions, and it really works on fine motor skills, so it's a great introduction to letter writing. Trust me, I am a former elementary teacher, who is now teaching preschool. Tracing and coloring are fabulous ways to get your little learner ready to write letters.
***UPDATE on DURABILITY: I posted this comment on someone elses review, but wanted to add to mine. My 3-year-old has had this for 5 months now and still plays with it ALL the time. She also drops it a LOT. Occasionally the drop is hard enough to knock the battery cover off, even while locked. Still works just fine after all those drops. My only complaint is that the SD card pops out a little sometimes when she drops it. Requires a screwdriver to open the cover, pop the card out all the way out and back in again. When the SD card pops out, she can only play what is on the ixl internal memory. I deleted everything off the ixl, removed the SD card, and reloaded her favorite software (Ni-Hao Ki Lan) so that's the one she can play if dropped. Then I put the card back in an reloaded the rest. It didn't take terribly long to do all that. It was worth it so she isn't so frustrated if the SD card pops out. Just a suggestion. But as for durability, ours has survived a lot of drops.
Also, we haven't had any problems with the software. All of it has installed without a problem. We have Ni-Hao Ki Lan, Disney Princess, and Toy Story 3.
WOULD BUY THIS AGAIN IN A HEARTBEAT.
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The Fisher-Price iXL is a handheld touch screen device aimed at 3 to 7 year olds. It has a book form factor and it's dimensions are about 5" x 4" x 1.75" while closed. I don't have an exact weight for it but it feels like it's about 0.5 lbs. It has a 3.5" color resistive touchscreen, and a plastic stylus attached to the toy via a 7" nylon cord. There is an SD expansion slot for additional memory capacity, a light sensor to adjust the LCD backlight, a headphone jack, and a single speaker for sound. The unit is powered by 4 AA batteries (not included).Pros:
Volume control. A must for parents.
Expandable memory.
Locking battery compartment (needs a coin or flat head screw driver to unlock).
Easy to navigate icon based menus.
Each button press or action is accompanied by a sound effect. The kids seem to like that direct feedback.
Music uploaded to the device can be played in the Paint app and the Photo Viewer while your child is coloring.
The Photo Viewer allows your child to paint over your uploaded photos.
Feels durable.
Age range is 3 to 7 years, but both my 2 and 4 year old find it easy to use and fun.
Included device management software for Windows 7 and up as well as OSX
Connects via a standard USB cable, nice if you ever lose the one that came with it.
Comes in 3 colors.
Cons:
It's a bit bulky in size for small hands.
Fairly small and low resolution screen.
The Resistive touchscreen requires the use of the stylus or fingernail, otherwise it requires a firm finger press. Without the stylus my children often find themselves pressing the same button several times before it registers.
Heavy compression on uploaded photos. Even the black and white color book pages I uploaded to the device ended up with a ton of compression artifacts.
The resistive screen sometimes "hiccups" and registers a touch away from your finger or stylus before correcting itself.
We're on our 2nd iXL. The included software prompted us to upgrade the firmware on the device and the update completely bricked it. It would load nothing but a scrambled screen on start up. We replaced it and I've skipped the update since and have experienced no problems.
The battery cover is painted with a design in either pink, blue, or silver. It's easily scratched off.
4 AA batteries provide about 2 to 3 hours of playtime. That's not horrible for AA batteries, but it's not cheap. I recommend purchasing a good set of rechargeables for this.
Additional software titles are a bit pricey. Hovering around $20 isn't horrible, but when you compare it to say Apps for the iPhone which sell from $1 to $10, it seems a bit steep.
Overall Impressions:
I really like the iXL. It's a decent device at a decent price. It would be nice if it was a little smaller, had a little bit bigger of a screen and used capacitive technology rather then resistive, but if any one of those improvements were made there is no way it could be sold at this price point. The included software on the device is easy enough for kids to use and offers a large enough variety of things to do that my children still play with it every day and in two months haven't yet grown bored with it. I'm interested to see if Fisher-Price will offer upgrades to this device via software updates. A digital download store would be nice too.
My kids loved to play games on my iPhone, after buying the iXL I've been able to keep my iPhone a little more to myself.
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Finally, an electronic hand-held for a three-year-old. The iXL actually challenges and entertains my granddaughter. So far she hasn't shown any sigh of becoming "addicted" to playing the games like some slightly older kids with their DS or other hand-helds, but time will tell. The games are not too difficult to master and don't frustrate her but the available titles may not hold the attention of a child older than five.Honest reviews on Fisher-Price iXL 6-in-1 Learning System (Pink)
After doing a LOT of online research, I finally chose to buy the iXL over the Leapfrog Explorer and Vtech Mobigo. I really wanted my daughter to use a stylus to work on her handwriting and the idea of having an MP3 player and photo viewer built in sounded too cool to pass up! She hasn't played with it yet, but I have! I went ahead and loaded pics and music onto the device as well as customizing it, and I must say it is awesome! Previous reviewers are correct when they say the enclosed monkey game is pretty lame but the story is ok and I am really looking forward to getting the princess game on here. As also mentioned by others, there are no problems with the stylus when calibrated as instructed! I can't wait to see my baby girl (she's 3 1/2) play with this for Christmas!! I love it and I am sure she will love it too.Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Fisher-Price iXL 6-in-1 Learning System (Pink)
Looking at the date, you'll see that I'm writing this review at 10:30 pm on Christmas eve. We researched many different games of this nature for our nearly three year old daughter. After much discussion , we decided that the iXL seemed to be a toy that would grow with our daughter and that the educational value was great compared to some of the other system's we'd looked at. We bought it just after Thanksgiving. After reading of several issues that others had with the game, we opened it about two weeks prior to Christmas to ensure that it was working. Everything checked out . Tonight ( Christmas Eve) we were excited to "customize" our daughter's game. We uploaded photos and music with no trouble. Now, once the toy is on and then turned off again, it shuts down and will not restart unless you recalibrate it or reformat it on the computer. Once you do that, the same thing occurs. I am very , very disappointed in the quality of this toy. Fisher Price is a notable and leading brand and I am surprised to see the number of issues people are having with this toy. It's a great idea but poor construction. We will be returning this toy and , after reading other reviews, I am not sure if we will get another iXL or switch to the Leapster or Mobigo. Bah Humbug!
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