Customer Reviews

LeapFrog Tag Junior Book Explorer

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

My two year old daughter absolutely loves books so I thought she would really enjoy the tag junior. My four year old daughter has the original tag (which is wonderful too!) and the younger one was always trying to get into it. I was so excited when I heard they were coming out with the junior version.

I had no problems setting it up yesterday. It took about 5 to 10 min to install and to download the audio from our PC. After it was ready to go, my two year old played with it for only a few minutes and I was a little disappointed. But I sat with her and showed her how to use it and then today she took her two books (the one it came with and I bought the Dora one also) and sat alone and played with them for a bit, about 3 or 4 separate times today. It was so cute! She loves it now! I can't wait to get more books.

Although it is built for little hands, it is still a little hard for her to hold, but I think she's getting the hang of it. The books are very short and I wish they were a bit longer, but she doesn't mind. When you click on the pictures, unlike the original tag, they say different things each time which is nice. Each picture goes through about 2 or 3 sayings before repeating the sayings.

Overall, I love this product and so does my two year old and I look forward to buying more books!

My 4 1/2 year old daughter already had the regular tag and we love it (as does she). I had reservations about the Tag Junior because to me, it seemed to be a bit of a waste. My daughter had received her regular tag when she was around 3 years old, and immediately got use out of it. So, as a result, I didn't see the need to get the Tag Junior which would really only bridge a short period before my son would be ready for a regular tag.

Despite my reservations about this product, my wife and I put this on my 2 year old son's Christmas list and he got one.

I'm disappointed to report that my reservations were correct. Is it easier for a 2 year old to handle? Yes. However, I just find that at this age the child needs help with the tag either way, and you're just better off using the regular tag.

I was also disappointed to find that the USB connector is located within the battery compartment (requires the a plastic screw to be turned) and also very difficult to access. I find it very poorly designed. The plastic screws are not built to be opened constantly. If you have several books and you are frequently adding and removing books due to the small amount of memory, I could see these wearing out.

The USB connector on the regular tag is on the outside of the unit covered by a rubber cover which is easy to remove and the connector is right on the surface, unlike the Tag Junior which is sunken in a bit and as mentioned, within the battery compartment.

If you don't mind using the Tag Junior for a short period, then upgrading to the regular tag, it's still a great product. On it's own, if the regular tag wasn't also available, I'd probably give it 4 stars.

My son is 1 1/2 and loves books so I thought I would try this out. It is very sturdy and has held up to him dropping it several times. It is also very easy for him to hold and use. You can personalize the reader so that it greets your child with his name when you turn it on, ex "Hello _Timmy_" VERY CUTE. My son loves hearing this every time he turns it on. He has already mastered using the reader with the books. One note, if you buy extra books the reader will only hold information for about 5 books at a time. Also, for each book you need to download the information into the reader from the internet. This was a very easy process for me that realastically took no more than 5 minutes, but it is an extra step that you have to do. When you place the reader on different parts of the page it will respond with either a sound effect or mulitple quotes from the characters. Some of the books have questions which require the child to follow instrucitons like finding all of the Pooh's in the book, etc. This will continue to challenge him as he gets older. Overall, my son loves it and plays with it at least once a day.

If you are familiar with the Tag by Leapfrog the Tag Junior is the perfect companion for the younger crowd. My son is almost 3 and enjoys using his Tag junior. I had no trouble downloading the software from Leapfrog's website and getting the audio on the unit. I have even switched out the books numerous times without a hitch. I like that Leapfrog made this toy to fit his hand and to manuever the device just exactly as he naturally wants to. He really enjoys the ABC Orchestra book as well as Curious George to use with it. I just wish Leapfrog would provide more memory to store more books on the device.

I originally ordered this for my almost 3 year old, but I soon decided to pass it on to my younger neice. After playing with the available books, I realized that my daughter had already mastered the skills that they covered. Consequently, she lost interest quickly. Furthermore, as she has been holding a crayon accurately since 15 months of age, the chuncky design of the Tag Jr. book pal was actually more awkward for her. Conversely, my 18 month old neice is thoroughly engaged by the interactive books, and the design of the reader is easier for her to manage.

Therefore, if your child has not yet developed fine motor skills and is still in the introductory phases of learning colors, numbers, etc., I think this is an excellent product. If they are closer to the 3 year mark and have a longer attention span, my suggestion would be to purchase the regular tag system and, if the books are too advanced, purchase some Tag Jr. books to fill in the gap. The tag system is reverse compatible with the Tag Jr. books.

All things considered, I think this is an excellent tool for getting young kids excited about reading, but I think the age range is a little off. I will take the liberty of providing an altered age recommendation of 18 months (or as early as the child expresses interest in flipping through books independantly) to 3 years. At 18 months or younger they would likely need assistance, but they would be ready to begin learning many of the skills. By 3, they will have likely mastered these basic concepts and will be ready for the Tag system, albeit with some assistance from an adult.

Final conclusion: Another winner from Leapfrog, but keep your child's current knowledge, attention span, and motor skills in mind when deciding between this and the regular tag system.

I bought this for my 2 year-old son. The most difficult part of setting this up was getting it out of the package and installing the batteries. The batteries fit very tightly which I suppose is a good thing when you're dealing with toddlers or pre-schoolers that might figure out how to open the cover. Otherwise, it was very easy to get the downloads and add the personalization. My son loves books and is very interested in the toy. He giggles every time it says his name! But he is 2 and his attention span and coordination make this difficult for him to operate on his own. He also has a thing for pushing buttons and tends to just turn it on and off if he gets it out on his own. Each time he he gets it out he does get a little better at it but I would say that this is definitely a supervised activity for younger children!

I was a little nervous about buying this since we have a Mac at our house and all the negative reviews seemed say it didn't work for a mac. But I knew that Amazon had a great return policy, so I figured I'd just send it back if I couldn't get it to work on the Mac.

In less than 5 minutes, I had the software downloaded from LeapFrog (they make a version just for Macs), the books installed, the batteries put in and everything connected and working. It wasn't difficult AT ALL. All I did was follow the instructions.

I love that the Tag Junior says different things if my son puts it in the same spot more than once.

Also, one reviewer complained that you have to use a screwdriver to open the battery compartment to connect the USB driver. First, I would say that you can actually use a coin (it's not a small screwdriver slot) which makes it easy to open. Secondly, I'm glad the USB drive is hidden in the battery compartment. When you have a two year old using an electronic product, I'm afraid he would try to shove something in the USB connector slot (he's always trying to shove things in the USB slot on my laptop), so I would say smart design on LeapFrog's part.

Love the product!

I agree with the other positive reviews. My 2 year old daughter and 3 year old nephew love playing with their Tag Juniors and books. Both kids also have the coordinating carry cases that hold the reader and several books nicely.

I want to comment on a few other things I have read:
1) I do receive email, but it's only every few days, and one of them is a reminder to link the system to my computer so I can track my daughter's progress. The emails take a half-second to delete.
2) Someone said that the words on the page get covered by the reader. True- but only if you leave it there. Just tap the words and move the reader. It will continue to read the words until it is done, or your child taps the reader on something else.
3) I would like more than 5 book capacity for the memory, but my daughter likes to read the same few stories over and over, so this isn't a problem for us. In a few months, I will hide the five books she is using now, and I will upload the other books she received.

My only beef with this product is the accessibility of the power and volume buttons. My daughter LOVES to turn the unit on and off constantly (hearing her name is so fun!), and playing with the volume button is another favorite activity. This is understandably for the kids' ease of use, but it's a bit TOO easy. Mommy likes to control the volume every now and then!

Summary:

This toy is way too complicated and in the end only does a marginal job of it's designed task.

To get a book you have to
1) Unscrew the back
2) Put in batteries
3) Plugin the USB cord into tag (can only be done by unscrewing it)
4) Plugin the USB cord into your PC
5) go to a website and click around
6) download an 8mb exe (PC only)
7) Launch this 8mb app
8) Then that app downloads a 32mb application
9) Launch the 32mb app and enter a bunch of demographic information (your name/age/address, same for your kid)
10) Go back to the website and find the books you have
11) Download them to your PC
12) Go back to your PC and download them to your tag junior
13) Close the tag junior up. You can now actually use it

Basically, it 'reads' certain parts of the book. The background of the book has encoding dots (scatter plot barcode) that the TJ reads and then sings about it or talks about it. That applies to anything on the page. The dilemma is when you go to read text (yeah, the whole point of the device). You have to place the TJ right on top of the text for it to read, and in the process, completely obscure the text being read.

Hello leapfrog: How do I build reading skills if my son can't actually see the text being read?

The icing on the cake: Even if you selected 'don't spam me' when you downloaded the book, you still get spam. I have had this thing less than 4 days and have received 6 emails from them. I finally think I have opted out.

First off, I think the documentation provided with this device needs to be updated. The instructions were not clear, and one sentence was listed twice as a possible copy-paste error which should have been caught by during the QC process. My wife and I are tech-savy, but I think someone with less experience could be confused and possibly give up on downloading and configuring the LeapFrog Connect app.
Second, I wish the device has more storage space. The five book limit is silly when you consider how cheap storage is today.
Overall, it's not a bad product. My daughter likes it, and for [...]. I am not disappointed. It just took a little longer than I'd like to setup.