I bought this item hoping it would save me some money on batteries... wrong! I only realised after buying it that it can be charged up to 300 times and then after that the battery pack starts losing its life and runs out much quicker than normal. Therefore if you have a child that plays with their leapster constantly or you have several children sharing a leapster and you charge it every 1-2 days the charging system will only last you about a year, then you have to fork out another 15 quid for another one as leapfrog do not sell the battery pack on its own! Another thing i realised after taking it out of the box is the battery pack is really heavy, bulky and BLUE so if you buy a pink leapster it sticks out like a sore thumb on it. I ended up packaging the whole thing up again and sold it online. A much better idea would be to spend the same amount of money on a set of good quality rechargeable batteries and a charger and keep that instead. The rechargeable batteries will last up to 1000 charges (sometimes more if you get quality ones) and if they ever get too old you can buy a new set of four for about £6-£7 (again depending on quality). the only good thing about the recharging system is the fact it comes with an adaptor that you can plug into the leapster and the wall and play while its connected... but then again, AC adaptors can be found online for about £5-£8.