VTech - V.Reader Animated E-Book System - Pink Review

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We were taking a trip to Central America and I wanted to get my 3 1/2 year old a new toy to keep her busy on the 6 hour flight. We had seen the vreader at Target and she always wanted to stop and play with it. She LOVED this toy. I really didn't like the idea of having to buy cartridges for each story, but there really isn't any other option for kid's e-readers. I bought her the vreader and 3 of the story cartridges to go along with it. We purchased Dora, The Little Engine That Could and Mr. Messy and the Missing Sock. What I like best about the vreader is you also have the option of buying an SD card and going on the vtech website to download books. The purchase of the vreader gave you 6 coins you could use to redeem 6 downloadable books. Loading the 6 books could not have been easier. Put the SD card in the slot in the back of the vreader by the batteries, hook up the mini USB cord (comes with the vreader) chose the books on the vtech website to download and a couple minutes later the books are on the SD card and ready to go. There are about 10 downloadable books available right now on the vtech website, including Seasame Street character books, although you may not use the free coins vtech gives you with the purchase of the vreader to download these books. Vtech says it will be adding more books soon.

This toy did reasonably well on battery life. The batteries lasted approximately 6-8 hours of non-stop play if you keep the backlight on the low setting. If you keep it on the brightest setting, the batteries only last about 2 hours. You can also purchase a AC adapter and a car plug instead of running on batteries. The vreader does not have a rechargeable battery like a Kindle. This is probably it's biggest drawback.

The vreader operates by touch screen with ease. The vreader comes with a stylus, but my daughter does not use it. She simply touches the screen with her fingers and has not had any problems working the book in this manner.

I love that the story comes with games as well. A lot of reading comprehension games, vocabulary and spelling games as well. I had fun playing the games with my daughter. She has a Leapster, but this holds her attention a lot more then that ever has. I would recommend this e-reader to anyone who has pre-school aged children. It is a wonderful, fun, and educational toy.

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We are HUGE Leapster fans. All of my children, now 13, 12 and 3 have had a system or more from them. Now, I just got started in the Vtech learning games/toys and the like. I saw this at the store a few times and looked at it, and considered purchasing, except I thought the price was a bit steep. Then, I broke down and bought one, with my youngest daughter's favorite character Dora. Now for my .02 on the products as far as features and learning tools.

Features: This Vreader is amazing. It has a very beautiful screen, a stylus, and is so simple even the youngest of children will be able to locate their favorite part after a few trys. It is even a bit customizable, kids can choose their avatar from a list of options, choose a background theme, and it's simple to get back to the home screen when a child wants to. There are buttons that allow for page turning or kids can use the stylus. It is really a well built electronic device. Those little ones that use an itouch, or similar device, will navagate this in a breeze.

As a teaching tool: The system doesn't have many game/story options unless there is a cartridge in it, or unless a story was downloaded off the internet (onto a seperate SD card, at a small fee for the story). So, stand alone, the product doesn't do very much in the learning department. When you have a cartridge, like Dora Saves the Pigs for example, there is one story that can be read to the child, and/or there are many learning games that go along with the story. Easy to navigate and fun to play, and kids like the technology of it. The games are similar to the games with a Leapster game, all depends on the level of the game. Once more choices are available, I will be happier.

The reason I gave only 3 stars, is that when I compare cost with the educational value I find that we should be getting more learning and interaction with the device for the price. These are currently selling for close to $60, plus $20+ for a cartridge. That may not seem like a lot to some, but back in my day, to get my parent to buy a $100 nintendo system, that had a game I could easily play for months, was out of the question.

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I got this for my three year old granddaughter and she absolutely loves it. It is extremely easy for her to use and she never leaves home without it. She sits with her one year old sister and reads to her. It's teaching her the love of books.

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This is the first time that we bought two different systems for our children (4 & 5). We thought both systems would feed in each other weak areas. Both of our children like both systems. I believe that the leapster explorer is more sophisticated and advanced product given that you can find both systems for the same price. A good analogy would be to compare a regular E Book Reader like the Sony and the I Pad; you can use the I Pad to read books and watch movies, apps, email, etc. etc. etc. The Sony Rader is basically only to read and that's it.

Ease of installation for the Leapster was much smoother than the VReader; both interfaces are similar where you can update, download content, check on progress and watch trailers of other games.

The VReader has a similar layout to a E Book Raader, it has an expansion slot for SD cards which that is where all your downloads go to; Leapster Explorer has no expansion slot but 512 megs of memory.

VReader only has 1 profile available to be set up; so if you have more then 1 kid; this is a big drawback, you can change the name for the profile; but it is still only 1. The leapster has room for 3 profiles and a guest.

VReader E-books are only animated with the cartridge titles and also offer after reading activities and games like 'What Happened', 'Sounds-A-Like', 'Rhymes', and also has a story dictionary. The E-books that are downloaded from their site have nice graphics but no animation and the after reading activity is a lot shorter so you get what you pay for; cartridge titles are from 17.99 to 19.99 and the downloadables are between 2.99 to 7.99 for the premium Sesame Street ones.

E-Books on the leapster explorer has no after reading activities; the layout is designed around the Tag system; however the games are much more interactive than the E-books from the VReader; you can also download 'Leaplets' which are the apps for the leapster.

Uploading the progress on the lapster gave me something even after a few minutes of play; it tells you what games or e-books have been played or read and how long they were played for. The VReader has not given me anything even after reading 2 different books and playing with the after reading activities; I believe is waiting for a certificate which at this time I don't know what is the benchmark.

VReader has a Stylus much like the Sony Reader; but has no lanyard, so it can be misplaced very easily; the leapster explorer has also a stylus which is attached to the device by a lanyard which can be placed on the right or left to acoomadate left handers.

Overall both systems are very nice; I would rate the VReader with a 3.5 and the Leapster Explorer with a 4.5 just missing the 5 just because it is not backward compatible with the previous leapsters (the cartridges are different size) and has no expansion slot. I would come back and add more after a few days of playing with my children.

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We got this for my daughter and she absolutely loves it...it's one of the few things that holds her attention and is extremely easy for her to use. I was going to write a glowing review, but let me leave you with this: this morning, while getting breakfast ready, I asked her if she wanted to watch playhouse disney, her answer, "no I wanna use my book reader." That should be a good enough review for any parent...by the way, this doesn't eat batteries as quickly as many of the reviews say, another bonus.