Customer Reviews

Vtech - Thomas & Friends Laptop

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I looked at this in the store when I was shopping for a long car ride toy for my 2 year old son and skipped over it because it looked, well kinda lame. The screen is small and basic... the letters on the button keys are small and I thought would be hard to read... so I passed over it.

Then he gets this for his second birthday and it is ALL he plays with for the past month and a half! He knows his letters now on-sight (I didn't work with him at ALL on this) I thought he was just randomly pushing buttons and started hearing more "great jobs" and "that's right" from the laptop so I watched him more closely and sure enough he is picking out the letters it 'asks' for.

There are 30 games with numbers or letters (capital and l/c). There are "which one is different" "which is smaller", etc. type games that involve moving the mouse left or right and clicking. There is also a arcade type game where you guide Harold with the mouse. I would have thought all of these were too difficult for him at 2 years old but he can do a lot more than I thought and really is learning!

Also, he has dropped this thing MANY times and we've had no problems. It has a handle that he likes to tote it around by - and it keeps his hands off our real laptop keys!

UPDATE (10/23/09): My 2 year old is now 4 and he still plays with it; not daily anymore but still often. There are a few more advance games that challenge him still. Even better his new little brother, who will be two in a few months, has started playing with it as well. We've really gotten a long run out of this one... though with all that use in two years I can only remember having changed the batteries once (thank you to whoever came up with auto shut off!)

I bought this for my daughter because she is always trying to hit the keys and move the mouse on my desk top. This is close enough to the real thing and the price is good too. She carries it around everywhere. The screen is pretty small but for her age it's great, adults don't need to play with it. However I wouldn't recommend for a child over 3. Not enough learning activities and the black and grey picture would not keep their attention as much as a younger child (too plain and boring for them).

We got this for our son just before he turned 3 and he really enjoyed it, though he didn't get it figured out for a while. He loved just carrying it around. He's now a little over 3 1/2 and he plays with it constantly, has all the activities figured out and it's really helping him with sounding out his letters, and even spelling words.

When I first saw this computer, I was a little disappointed with the tiny monochrome screen. But my son loves to play with it, and it taught him letters and numbers well before he was two! We're huge fans.

This toy is a really good learning toy, especially for the price. It have many different activties so my son doesn't easily get bored of it. He has learn his abc and numbers and also there's a matching game and which object is bigger game, which i thought was really great. Would buy this toy again.

The fact that the keys are in colored and the screen is not I think made my son bored. Kind of a hassle to set up and get my son interested. Too small of a screen, and it is black and white. Sorry I would not buy it again. It is at the bottom of the toy box.

This was a Chirstmas present for my little boy and has become ones of his faves. He enjoys the music and the sounds from the Thomas the Train show and has already started to recognize some letters and numbers. I love that he has started to become acquainted with the mouse and basic computer operations. This toy has quite a few different activities and games-my son loves them! The only downfall is that in order to do the activities- you have to either push the Activities button and enter the number of the activity or push the numbers at the top. My son is not able to do this without assistance so if he plays by himself he gets a little frustrated and turns it off. It would be nice if the keys did more when not in activity mode. Overall I would recommend for 2-4 year olds especially if they love Thomas!

My son's grandpa bought this toy for him while he was spending some time in the hospital. He was there for 7 days and he played with this computer the whole time! He loved it. He is 2 1/2 and he loves the games. A few of them are still too difficult, but there are plenty on there that he is capable of doing. I am so thankful that someone got him this toy! He has definitely gotten a lot of good out of it!

We bought this laptop for my son for his 2nd birthday. He had another toy laptop that he LOVED to play with, so we went ahead and bought this one so he could learn something as well. He never touched it until we'd had it about 6 months, and even then he would play with it for less than a minute before walking away. The screen is much too small, and the graphics are boring and black and white. It just can not hold his interest. Now that he's almost 3 and we've had it for a year, he still is bored with it. He can not figure out how to select a "game" on his own. I bought this laptop on the recommendation of a friend whose 3 year old loved it, but it's just not exciting enough for my son I think. He is too active to sit and play with this. I wouldn't buy it again.

Geez, this thing has gotten a LOT of use in the last year. My mother bought it for my daughter last summer when she turned 2; here we are turning 3, and it gets played with a ton still. I JUST changed the batteries in it last week -a miracle in itself- and my gal maneuvers it like a pro. Varying skill sets on here, from letter and number recognition to simple spelling, matching, shapes, learning right from left, a phonics intro, and even a make-your-own-music choice, plus many more. Yeah, the graphics are simplistic, but I don't really see that as a major drawback...these are little kids we're talking about here, and if they're learning AND having fun, that's a win-win situation. Can't recommend it enough for traveling, doctor's offices, etc...this laptop has gone everywhere and has been DROPPED everywhere, and it's a total champ. Got an independent kiddo who loves to learn, play quietly or with parents, or just wants to be like mom/pop on the laptop, grab it. I'd be surprised if you regretted it.