Cheap VTech InnoTab 3 The Learning App Tablet, Pink

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Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program We bought our daughter her first Innotab the Christmas that they were first released and it was her favorite gift. From the start, I was never a big fan of the touch screen since it was nowhere near as responsive as even a cheap smartphone touch screen, but my daughter was happy with it, and it kept her busy for hours. Biggest complaint for me was that it ate batteries, and the only other option was to tie her down with a power cord.

Her camera broke shortly before the following Christmas, and the updated Innotab offered its own camera so we bought her and her two-year old sister each their own Innotab 2. The Innotab 2 was a mild improvement over the previous version, with a camera, microphone, and a few new apps. Turning the tablet on, the Innotab 1 would load to the user menu in 16 second, while the Innotab 2 took 26 seconds. Overall, it seemed a bit more sluggish, but it had a camera...

Now, the Innotab 3 if finally here, and I was actually looking forward to what they'd offer this time, hoping for a bit more of an improvement over the Innotab 2. No such luck, as the specs on paper were not impressive. 5" screen was reduced to 4.3", slightly improved camera, and a control pad.

OVERALL DESIGN: The Innotab 3 is, like the previous Innotabs, very well built... solid, and looks like it could take a few drops without issue. The new Innotab is smaller overall then the previous Innotabs, however even when my youngest daughter was 2 years old she had was able to handle the larger Innotabs just fine. Not sure if the smaller design is a positive or negative change. The first two Innotabs sported large corner bumpers made of rubber-coated plastic... the Innotab 3, due to its reduced size, no longer has the large bumpers and instead have a sliver of rubber on each corner. It remains to be seen if these reduced bumpers will greatly reduce the ability to absorb fall damage.

The buttons were also redesigned. They use to have three large buttons for on/off, home, and taking a picture, along with five smaller buttons that were flush with the case and easy to press... screen brighter, screen darker, volume up, volume down, and help. The Innotab 3 has only five small buttons for on/off, volume up, volume down, help, and home. They replaced the camera button with an on-screen button that doesn't work anywhere near as well... we've found we had to press the on-screen button several times before it would take a picture. Never had that problem with the Innotab 2's dedicated button. They also dropped the screen brightness buttons, however I don't think my kids ever used them. In addition, the new smaller buttons are concave and aren't as easy to press. My daughter specifically said she didn't like the new buttons, and although the Innotab is not designed for adults, my wife and I hated them.

One new addition is the 4-way control pad. I didn't like it because it feels a bit sloppy. My daughter never used it... not sure if it'll be more useful in future games.

SCREEN: By far the biggest change from the Innotab 2 is the REDUCTION of screen size... when everything is getting bigger and bigger screens, VTech decided to go in the opposite direction, reducing their screen size from 5" to 4.3". (Leapfrog increased the size of their LeapPad screens from 5" to 7" this year.) The screen looks a bit sharper, but my wife and I were VERY disappointed with the reduced screen size. In addition, the video playback seems a bit unnatural. Side by side, the Innotab 2 screen looks smooth, but the Innotab 3 looks a bit jumpy, like it has a lower refresh rate. Not sure how many other people would notice it though.

Another major problem with the new screen is the reduced viewing angle. With the Innotab 2, the screen looks good straight on, but loses a bit of detail and contrast as you turn it. Viewing from a 45-degree angle at any direction, you can still clearly see the screen. The Innotab 3 looks good when viewed straight on, but darkens as you increase the angle of view. At 45-degrees, it's almost too dark to see.

After giving the Innotab 3 to my daughter, she was not happy with the screen size at all. Along with the buttons she didn't like too much, she opted to go back to her Innotab 2 after about an hour of playing with it.

Overall, the screen is nowhere near as good as the Innotab 1 and 2. I have no idea what VTech was thinking when they made this change, but it was a really bad idea, in our opinions.

CAMERA: Despite the 'upgrade' to a 2.0mp camera on the Innotab 3 from a 1.3mp camera in the Innotab 2, the camera is CLEARLY worse. My wife and I both took pictures with both the Innotab 2 and Innotab 3. After sorting through the pictures, every single picture on the Innotab 3 was MUCH darker, being able to see much less detail, even after transferring them to a PC. Taking a picture of our black dog on the Innotab 2, you can see a few features on her... on the Innotab 3, she looked like a black blob on a dark background. Very, very disappointing. My daughter had a lot more trouble with it, as trying to click the on-screen button (that doesn't respond very well) caused a lot of the pictures to be blurry.

By the way, the new camera is referred to as the 'Wonder Cam', as it now has a couple of options such as frames you can add to photos, however these options are disabled if you increase the size of your photos in the settings menu.

SOFTWARE: The software is pretty much identical to the Innotab 2, with addition of one game, 'Magical Bean Stalk'. Comparing the apps side-by-side between the Innotab 2 and 3, everything looks the same. The music player and video player still have very limited options and are ultra-basic in features. The user menu screen appears three seconds quicker, and a few random actions that were clocked have shown the Innotab 3 is very slightly faster then the Innotab 2, but I doubt I would have noticed it without a stopwatch.

The day after we received our Innotab 3, we had some family and friends over and took the opportunity to pass around the Innotab 2 and Innotab 3... every single person thought the Innotab 2 was a better tablet.

Back when we bought the first Innotab, we put a LOT of thought into whether we should get the Innotab or the LeapPad. Looking back, I think we probably made the wrong choice. The Innotab has trotted along and has now clearly taken the turn towards 'cheaper' and 'simplier', while the LeapPad's price has increased, but has the added enough features each year to make it worthwhile.

Overall, the Innotab 3 is certainly no improvement over the Innotab 2. My daughters will stick with their Innotab 2s for now. Next year, I doubt my older daughter would be interested in an Innotab 4, but I'm sure my younger daughter would be. I hope by then they actually come out with an improvement over the Innotab 2, or else we will be leaping over to the LeapPad...

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I ordered my daughter the Innotab3 for her 3rd birthday because my little brothers have the Innotab 1 and she loves it. It came in today and to say I was disappointed would be an understatement. The whole unit is smaller and thicker which makes it harder for her little hands to hold it. The screen is smaller and the buttons are boring. They took the fun out of the outside of the unit. Sure its pink but it looks so much more grown up then the Innotab2. Lets let our kids be kids. Leave the cutsie hearts on the outside. Luckily Amazon is letting me return this boring looking pink mini fat tablet and i'm planning on buying the Innotab2 for her instead. Oh and one more thing....don't buy the skin it recommends...the innotab2 skin will not fit on the 3. Its bigger by about an inch all the way around.

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I might probably be one of the first ones to get the Innotab 3. I bought it for my kids' birthdays. One blue and one pink. They are nice educational toys to begin with, the main issue is it takes long to load. I don't know how many seconds. My kids are used to playing the tablet or smartphone so loading time is an issue, especially if Innotab wants to catch the attention of small children. I know that I shouldn't expect much for the price, but might want to let future buyers know.

Word of caution: do not buy the Innotab Gel Skin for Innotab 2 under the "Frequently bought together" portion of the product page because THEY WON'T FIT. The Innotab 3 is too small for the gel skin. Don't waste your money.

Overall, it's wonderful, but it might be too early for me to say. They just played with it today.

Honest reviews on VTech InnoTab 3 The Learning App Tablet, Pink

I was hoping this would be a good substitute for my preschooler to use instead of my tablet. It was much slower, the screen seemed really small and the touch screen was extremely temperamental. Maybe ours was defective? Returned it.

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Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program I received this Vtech Innotab 3 last week and was excited because my daughters 5 and 7 have been asking for one so here it is and what a big let down. I first put the batteries in and turned it on, thought is was broken because it seemed to take for ever with the round circle in the screen but finely did start up and I was able to quicly set it up. Next I let my girls play with it for a bit and then the really bad part happened. They asked if they could download a game to it and I said sure. I then plugged it into my macbook and it started to install the program for it but then locked up my computer and it closed out with errors. I then tried to install it again and again and it finally installed but took forever. Next I plugged it in so I could down load a game but it kept saying to plug the device in but funny thing is it recognized it just fine to pull up the info that is on the toy. I tued forever to get it to work but no such luck.

I then figured I would try a PC well pretty much exact same problems such as locking up the pc and all. After about 6 attempts the program installed but same exact problem with the pc not recognizing the toy when trying to down load a game. I went through a complete set of batteries just trying to get it o work. I done and moving on with something else that will hopefully work.

Unfortunately I really don't have any good comments about this Innotab 3 and that is really rare for me to give bad reviews but looks like I ether received a bad unit or just poorly designed. Oh and yes I did try uninstalling the program several times to no avail. Thanks and hope this helps someone make a better purchase like probably a Leapster or Leap pad. I have had very good luck with them.