Customer Reviews

Playskool Kota and Pals Hatchling T - Rex

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought this for my dinosaur-crazy 4 year old niece. Before wrapping it, I took it out of the box (a struggle in itself due to the strong and twisted twist-ties) to test it, and to play with it a little to see how it worked. It is really adorable and makes some cute noises. However, being a Playskool brand product for preschoolers, I expected it to be much better than it is. Here are the problems:

It is not really that "soft and cuddly." It is a hard plastic body with a very thin soft "skin" over it.

The velcro opening on the bottom of the skin is way too small and/or poorly placed--it is extremely difficult to reach the switch that turns the dinosaur's setting from dispay to normal, and you can't read the words by the switch. The opening in the skin is barely big enough to access the battery compartment(which requires a tiny phillips screwdriver) if you stretch and pull at it. It is adorable, and they had to know that kids are going to want to play with it a lot--so why is it so extremely difficult to access the switch and change the batteries??

There is no instruction sheet (no fact sheet either) and no explicit description of what the dino is supposed to do, so I don't know if ours is operating normally or not. Here is what ours does in the normal operating mode: If you put your finger on its tongue, it bites down (very gently) and makes a chomping noise. Then it stops for several seconds--which seems like forever to a four year old, by the way. Then it waves its arms and roars briefly. Then another pause--each pause is long enough to pet it several times and pretend to the 4 year old that you are coaxing it to do something else, and convince her not to touch the dino's tongue again just yet). Then it waves it arms and roars. Pause. Then another cute noise. It stops with its mouth open so you can start it up again by putting your finger on its tongue. Why didn't they design it to run through all its paces at once, and for a longer period?? The waiting is frustrating and boring for a little kid, and is going to end up with the toy being broken by a kid who is pressing the tongue too often--I saw several broken ones in Target, and ordered mine from Amazon to make sure I got one that hadn't been played with already.

My niece really loved her baby T-rex on Christmas, so I give it a 5 for appealability to kids, but I give it a 1 for design, and a 3 for durability--so it averages out to a 3. Playskool could and should have done a better job on this.

My 2 year old daughter just found this toy at my sister's house this morning. She hasn't put it down yet. She immediately put her fingers in the mouth. Then she went and found a bottle to put in it's mouth. She has been cradling it like a little baby ever since. I have to get her one of these for Christmas. The noises are adorable. I don't know how durable it is, but I immediatley looked for the switch in the belly to turn it on.

I bought this (along with several others in the set) for my nephew 2 Christmases ago. He loved them, but I was especially impressed when I saw him bring them back into "rotation" (he always brings some toys when he visits my parents) now that he has really gotten interested in dinosaurs. They still look almost like new and have proven to be durable.

Bought for my 4 yr old Grandsons but it kind of wears off. They can only do so much with it. But it is cute.

My wife loves this little thing and when we lost the first one I had to buy it again. Can't really say how much fun kids would have with it. It doesn't move much but it makes a cute baby TRex noise and the arms go up and down. Definitely overprice.

I PURCHASED THIS DINO FOR MY GRANDSON AND HE REALLY LOVES IT WITH IT'S ROAR AND SUBTLE MOVEMENTS AND HE LOVES TO SLEEP WITH THEM AT NIGHT!THEY ARE ADORABLE FOR THE LITTLE ONES!

My four year old son LOVES this toy (and I think it's pretty cool too). He has barely let it out of his sight for the last 4 days! It is cute, interactive, and even sounds like it says "ouch" if it is handled too roughly.

I am a little concerned about durability, due to the "careful not to get it wet" factor. While he knows that it is "pretend", the temptation to try to give it a drink, etc is there.

I agree with the other comment given. Overall - I was given this dino as a gag gift (without box or instructions). After putting in the batteries and noting the "Try Once, Off/On Switch" under the tail - it gave me about 30 seconds of entertainment - and another 20 on figuring out how the dino would start again. Had to log on here to see the instructions for activating the mechanism. Not sure it would really entertain the "troops" in pre-school land - although the cuteness of the little guy is worth it sitting on a desk. I would not recommend it for my niece or nephew; who I know would get more pleasure from bouncing a ball after a minute of play. It is probably a statue looking piece for the dinosaur collection shelf.

I don't know about you, but I don't know too many animals that enjoy having their mouths examined by a 2-5 yr. old sticking their fingers and hands into their mouths. Curiously enough, the animals tend to object, and might bite. For that matter, I might nibble if a small child persisted in sticking his hands into my mouth! The point here is we teach small children NOT to stick their fingers into the mouths of the family pet, and now here is a toy that promotes that very thing!

I bought this toy online for my grandson, so I didn't get to check it out beforehand. At first, he was very hesitant to put his fingers into the T-Rex's mouth to press his tongue to activate the toy (Good boy!). When he finally pressed the dinosaur's tongue, he didn't remove his fingers immediately, and the dinosaur's mouth closed on his fingers. It didn't hurt, but he was startled, his eyes became huge and he froze, uncertain what to do now that the T-Rex *had* his fingers. He had no trouble extracting his fingers, but he wasn't sure at first he wanted to do it again. Eventually, he thought it was hysterical that the dinosaur *got* him, and I'm sure it will become a favorite worthy of at least a few battery changes.

Playskool's T-Rex hatchling is a soft strokable totally adorable toy that moves it's arms and mouth while making soft roaring and other sounds. It is obvious, though, that the designer at Playskool has not had a child this age, or they would not have used the cutesy idea to make the tongue the switch. My rough and tumble grandson was startled, but I'm sure a more timid child could be more than a little traumatized and some tears would be shed.

This is a great toy to put on your desk at work. I'm not sure I would have bought it, if I'd been in a toy store where I could try it out, instead of buying it online as I did. I guess it could be used as a painless lesson as to what can happen when you stick your fingers in an animal's mouth, but I'm not sure the lesson is worth the pricetag.