LeapFrog LeapPad Explorer Tablet (Pink)

I bought this as a gift for my 3 year old daughter. She loves it as does her 6 year old brother who constantly wants to borrow it. They both enjoy hours of fun using it. It seems to be very solidly constructed and durable - important for the target age group. The activities and games keep both kids absorbed for hours.

I have a coule of quibbles both of which relate to the batteries. Firstly, there are two battery cavities, one at each side of the unit. Each one has a divider which comes between both batteries. While these may be intended to give some additional stability to the batteries they are unnecessary and make the extraction of two of the used batteries difficult and frustrating for an adult and all but impossible for a young child. If the product were out of warranty I would remove them.

The second quibble has to do with battery life which is woefully short. The unit is powered by four double A batteries. I resorted to buying a battery charger and 8 double A rechargeable batteries. The unit goes through 2 sets of batteries every day. The unit's appetite for batteries is insatiable. My advice to parents thinking of buying this toy for a child is that you need to budget for a rechargeable battery unit as well. Otherwise you will not be able to keep up with the demand for batteries. This also raises the issue of why, in this day and age, an educational toy manufacturer is producing a toy that is so obviously not eco-friendly.

In terms of a toy that is great fun and which will keep kids engaged and absorbed for long periods this is first rate. What brings it down is its insatiable appetite for batteries which may indicate that insufficient thought was put into this aspect of its design making it anything but eco-friendly. It appears to me that LeapFrog are passing their responsibility for the environment on to parents who, because of the sheer costs involved in keeping this toy powered will be compelled to purchase rechargeable batteries and a recharging unit.

I have just received my pink leap pad and connected it to the leapfrog site to setup and download apps prior to giving it as a present for my daughter's 6th birthday. It looks really nice, buttons easy, screen is very responsive, camera (once i removed the protective plastic) pretty clear, not tried video. The leapfrog site is really easy to use and I already have my eye on a few more games that look good. Obviously I have only had a little play with it but it looks like a good combination of fun and educational, the marketing really emphasises the educational but the games actually look fun and easy to play. I was seriously considering one for my 3 year old but I don't think she is ready yet. I think 4 is probably an accurate starter age.

This in the whole is a great bit of kit. my daughter really enjoys playing with it and it wasn't that expensive to buy the initial computer. couple of flaws i have recognised after 3 weeks, this computer isn't very well set up for left handed people. The screen rotates when you turn it round but the pen string crosses the screen and my daughter is finding it awkward. The "home" button isn't very well placed, as my daughter is left handed she often presses this button by accident, when in the middle of the game pressing it returns you to the home screen exiting the current game and losing data. Then there is software availability. The app store is very poor and apps are very expensive compared to android and itunes and offer little in comparison to apps i can get for free on my ipad2. Games off the shelf have all the expected characters kids will love but please take notice of the age category or you will be wasting your money. Not easy to explain to a child why she can't have toy story but why the games just can't have an Easy(4-7) medium(5-8) and hard(7+) setting is beyond me. Being limited by the difficulty of each game yet again minimises availability of new games. Plus once they have completed the game you can't re-do it at a more advanced setting so once it's done it's done. it's a good first attempt and sure future editions will address these issues, maybe i'm just being picky but my daughter is enjoying it so i'm happy with that.