LeapFrog My Own Leaptop, Violet Reviews

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I just received this in the mail today for my toddler and wanted to include some information for those of you debating a purchase. Here is the information from the booklet about the 3 functions and 3 modes of play:

1. Emails--lets you hear from scout and violet, plus 3 personalized emails chosen by you.

2. Music play list--includes instrumental and lyrical that you chose and download to the leaptop. The sing-along is 1 of 5 songs and and the instrumental lets you select 5 from a list of about 15. The character dances along on the screen.

3. Blog--hear the latest blog entries, personalized with your child's name at the end of each.

4. Alphabet mode--introduces letters and phonics. Hear the letter name and sound, plus an animal that starts with the letter.

5. Music Maker Mode--turns the keyboard into a music station. The paw print makes background beat while the 3 rows are: silly sound effects, percussion sounds, and piano key sounds.

6. Animal Mode--Learn about animals for each letter of the alphabet. Press a letter and hear a clue, the paw print reveals the animal it is.

You can also connect to the leapfrog learning path, something I have not yet explored.

My only complaint so far is the length of time it took to download the program from leapfrog, which was about 15 min. The actual set-up only took about 5 min and was very easy to follow. The laptop itself is a beautiful purple, and the outside is a darker purple than the inside, the same color as the keys. There is an off switch with a low and high volume. It also has a standby mode when it has a period of inactivity, to save battery life. It takes 3 AA batteries. The hinged screen is secure, where it won't shut on its own, but not so secure that it can't be closed easily. It is very lightweight and has a handle at the top, perfect for a toddler to carry around. The leaptop is about 9 inches from side to side, small but not too tiny. The mouse, which slides up and down, is used to select the modes. Unlike the laptop other retailers carry in which the mouse can move all directions, the simplicity of this one is perfect for small children. The bottom of the laptop has 4 feet, 2 of which have rubber stoppers so that it won't slide all over a table. The USB port is covered by a sliding, spring loaded cover so it will stay closed and hopefully prevent curious toddlers from playing with it. This leaptop also teaches your child how to spell their name, and is far more interactive than the others I've seen. I would definitely buy this leaptop again, it's everything I was looking for--cute, educational, and fun! I can't wait for my toddler to get her hands on this!!

UPDATE: She played with this for at least 3 hours last night, was the first thing she went for this morning (even picked it over cartoons), and she has probably given it another 3-4 hours this morning. She loves the alphabet mode and I have been impressed by the length of time this has held her attention. She is pretty advanced for her 20 months, but I have been amazed at her progress with the alphabet. What a great investment!

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This toy was a gift and I have to confess I probably wouldn't have purchased this for my daughter because, in my admittedly limited experience, most of toys of this type are not worth the time or the money. This one is different.

Set-up, as a previous reviewer mentioned, was slightly aggravating as installation needed a little tweaking, but I found directions on the website that identified and fixed the problem without too much of a hassle. All-in-all, I spent about 10-15 minutes getting it ready for play, even with the little hiccup (I have some experience with the LeapFrog website as I have Violet the dog too another great toy my daughter loves.

I was pleasantly surprised, however, by the immediate response from my daughter (she had just turned two a few weeks prior) who picked it up and started to play and explore the functions. She was engrossed to the point that she didn't want to open her other presents!

Now, I realize the attention-span of a toddler is a fleeting thing and I fully expected this to be one of those toys that would have a very short shelf-life, but here we are, 3-4 months later and she STILL plays with it on a daily basis. Durability has not been an issue as she has certainly put it through the wringer. She's dropped it, stepped on it, stood on it (I've stepped on it myself) and played with it roughly as toddlers do and it hasn't skipped a beat.

The best of all of this is the educational value. Now, granted, my daughter is a genius (as I'm sure your kid is too!), but after a few weeks of playing, she'd mastered all the letters of the alphabet and was able to generalize and identify (and verbalize) the letters on other items (shirts, signs, etc). As a parent, I was very excited to see such growth so quickly. That alone makes it worth it.

Having read some of the other reviews, I noticed people were criticizing the lack of a color display or the poor volume control, but let's be honest the toy is a little over 20 bucks. What could you possibly expect? What you get, in my opinion, is worth every penny.

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**We actually have the green one, but I think it's applicable to this one as well.** I asked someone to get my toddler this for her 2nd birthday. I thought she might grow into it because I figured it was a little beyond her at the time, and she is just fascinated by my laptop. I specifically wanted one that had a lid that opened and closed like mine. She occasionally plays the songs on it with the music note, but that's it. I have only used the sync capability twice because, if she's not playing with it, there's no use to change the songs or check her progress. She's now almost three. The customer service is poor, I agree. I, like many others I've read about online, have the version that says a jellyfish has "kentacles" instead of "tentacles". I didn't really expect them to do anything about it but I didn't expect them to say I was wrong and mishearing it. I'm not deaf, and I'm sure neither are the dozens of people who also have this flawed version. My main problem with it is the contrast. Even from the box it has always seemed so dark, and there's no way to adjust it so frustrating!. I would have paid more to have it backlit. As it is, she's always drawn to the other laptops in the store (for example the Barbie one) that has a lit and colored display. I just thought I'd put this review in here as someone who's had it a while and can offer a long-term view of it.

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I've given this toy 4 stars, rather than 3, because ultimately it is fun and educational. However, I believe that the promotional sales jargon is deceptive and misleading. It tells you that you can 'choose from 20+ songs'(suggesting that you can have upto 20 songs on the computer, at least), what it doesnt clearly point out is that you can only have 6 songs downloaded from the pre-set playlist and no more songs can be added. Not only do you not get up to 20 songs, the songs that you do end up with are computerized and some are tinny and dont last very long. I also understood that my daughters name would be added into the songs and this is not the case. However, in addition to the 6 songs (5 instrumental and 1 with words that you can sing along to) that you can choose from, there is one additional song that is included that spells your child's name. All in all, this is a good product, I just wish there were more songs and maybe even a colour screen.

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Honestly, I am not sure how educational this toy is, if anything it is mostly a toy that is fun to play with.

Remember that:

You *must* have a computer to have the full benefit of this toy! Hooking it up to the computer allows you to fully access all feature, which includes customization.

My daughters favorite part of this toy:

We customized it so that she gets "emails" from mom, dad, grandma, etc. She loves that it says her name.

It comes with the 3 AA batteries that takes

It can be customized to say your child's name

It has some cute music

It's more fun to play with as a toy so far, not so educational

It may be that my daughter, at 3.5 years old, is too young to get the full educational value out of it. Still, it seems more like a toy that can be distracting rather than an educational toy that allows for fun exploration. It's very noisy too, so keep that in mind :)

So far, I believe we still have the same batteries that it came with so it seems to be easy on batteries (it depends on how much you use it though, daily heavy use may result in short battery life).