Customer Reviews

Vtech Preschool Learning Tote and Go Laptop - 2010 Version

5 star:		(113)
4 star:		(59)
3 star:		(29)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(23)

 

 

Wow! I am so glad I bought this. After reading reviews on all of the other "laptops" for children, I decided on this one after thorough research. Most complaints with other parents on the other laptops was about the LCD screen being so small, while the screen on this is perfect for its size and intent. I did not have trouble seeing anything. So it doesn't light up, I'm thankful, that's one less battery to replace. The other complaint I read about the others is that they were loud. This one is not. My children playing with their toys doesn't disturb me though. If they are learning & interacting with the toy, I'm happy.
Another fun feature on this paticular "laptop" is that it has a working mouse. You can click to enter & move it slightly left or right or up & down (it is attached to the pad) to get to another activity or participate in one of the thirty plus fun games that offer pre-K learning & Kindergarten learing...find the shape that is bigger, etc... And yes I played with it to make sure everything worked correctly & to see what & how it would be teaching my children. It does teach & it has been fun for mine. It is a sturdy laptop with more bang for the buck than the rest of the other "laptops with many complaints" out there. You will be glad you purchased this for your little one. I have NO COMPLAINTS with this product. I also get involved with my children as much as I can to show them how learning can be fun. This purchase has been a smart one! Thank you Amazon!!! Go VTech !!!!

Vtech really got it right on this one:

* Durable, rugged construction. After a year of abuse from two young boys, the only issue is the mouse doesn't click well to the left, but it still works OK. Everything else is 100%
* Intuitive. My older son (then 2 years, now 3) figured it out almost immediately.
* Surprising depth. Some functions are more complex, making for lasting play. A year later, and my son still pulls this laptop out for play.
* Highly educational. Our son picked up his letters and numbers early, largely through constant use of this laptop.
* Cheap. the 3-year-old has been showing -- at best of times -- our younger son how to use it. Sometimes they'd fight over it. So we bought another.

You'll see toys that look more like "real" notebook computers on Amazon, but I trusted the consumer ratings (and liked the price) and gave this to my granddaughter for her third birthday. Reports from mom are that she's played with it practically non-stop (granddaughter, not mom) for three days and wants to take it with her wherever she goes. We're all musicians, and even mom's reviews about the functionality and tolerability of the music were positive.

Granddaughter more or less confirmed mom's favorable review by getting on the phone, reciting her ABC's ("alphabet," she corrected me), telling me that her own name starts with L, her Halloween costume starts with M (Mary Muffet), and her baby brother's starts with S (spider). Mom said she was impressed because at least five of the games are still beyond her (granddaughter, not mom), leaving room for further activity down the line.

("Pop Pop" refers to the writer--I forbid the use of the word "grandpa" with respect to my person--if my granddaughter tells me my name starts with the letter G, I'll consider lowering my rating).

Got this for my 2 year old son when I got my own laptop, in hopes it would occupy him with his own and off of mine! It does that. Briefly. He's an active kid and doesn't sit and play with this kind of thing very long, okay, but this doesn't occupy him very long. I'll get my laptop out and he'll run off and get this, sit down, put it on his lap, mess around with the buttons and the mouse for a while, and then he's off to something else (or MY laptop) after about 5-10 minutes max. He's certainly as bright as some of the other reviewers' 2 year olds, but he most certainly didn't pick up the alphabet in some days/weeks and start playing with this thing "correctly." This is NOT a stupid or slow kid, and things like figuring out how to choose exactly which activity he wants and playing it correctly every time are absolutely beyond him. I suspect that anyone with a 2ish year old that did that is absolutely the exception, not the rule.

If you're looking for this for your 2(ish) year old to keep them occupied, you might want to look for something else. If you have a really calm toddler, you can probably use this WITH them to help teach the alphabet etc - it seems to be a good learning tool. But don't expect most kids that age to sit there and figure it out alone and learn that way. Not gonna happen. They're too young. If you want something that they can bang away on pretending to be typing like Mommy on her laptop and pretending to be using a mouse like Mommy does, it's great. (That's why I got it for mine.) But even then, it's limited in its ability to "entertain" them - at least at this age.

I have 2 big complaints with this product. The first is what other reviewers have mentioned: The sound level defaults to medium (should default to low!!), but worse than that, when the sound level button is pressed, the really, REALLY annoying monkey on the screen starts screeching (my husband says it sounds like a super loud annoying cricket) and does not STOP until a different key is pressed. Even if the cover is closed. Wanna guess what button my little boy likes to press the most? And then walk away. Arrgh!

Second, I realize he's slightly below the minimum age for this, but still. The battery compartment on the back has NO screws holding it closed. It simply snaps shut. He delights in turning it over, opening it, and yanking out the batteries - faster than I can leap up and get him to stop. This is simply DANGEROUS. Unless the toy is for 5+, they ought to be securing those compartments shut. I don't get it.

All in all, I think it's a good learning tool, and with a fairly calm kid or a slightly older kid, I think they'd learn a good deal from this and have fun doing it. But if you're reading this because you're thinking of buying this for a 2 year old or thereabouts, and hoping they're going to learn all this stuff all by themselves just by playing the game, I don't think it's likely. And if you have an active ("busy") toddler, don't expect this is going to hold their attention for all that long.

My daughter always wanted to play with my laptop so I picked this one up for her on her 2nd birthday (August). And by October, no joke, she knew every letter of the alphebet. This laptop comes with 30 different games, one of which shows you an upper case (or lower case) letter and the child needs to correctly push the correspoding letter. My daughter is now 2 years, 7 months, and in preschool. Her teachers are amazed that she can correctly identify every letter they show her (upper and lower case). Sure we sing the ABC's and I can't deny that she is very smart but I sincerely attribute most of her alphebet knowledge to this little laptop and I highly recommend it. Thanks VTech.

Santa brought this item for my 5 1/2 year old son. He LOVES it. He was so excited to get it and he still plays with it daily. I love that it is a learning toy and that he can figure it out on his own, so I am not hearing "MOM can you help me" every 5 minutes. The mouse is a bonus that I think is GREAT! Makes it more "real" to the kids because they have a mouse like mommy's computer. All in all I would buy this again.

This a great educational toy & my son has really enjoyed it. He loves having his own computer since he can't touch mommy's or daddy's computer. He has also learned so much! I bought this toy because it was less expensive than the Fisher Price Laughtop & because it seems to have more activities & games. My son's had this toy for about 9 months & it has taken a beating...it has been durable. I bought it for him when he was 2 & he immediately caught on. This toy would be a lot better if the screen was lit up (with a neon green light) like the Fisher Price Laughtop. VTech's screen is just black & white which makes it hard to see. I also wish they had an AC adapter hook up because having to buy batteries over & over again can get quite expensive. I think there should be more toys with the option of using batteries or an AC adapter (have both options on the toy)...let the parent choose. I understand most of the time manufacturers go with the battery option because it's supposed to be safer for the children. However, if the parent is supervising his/her child, using an adapter should be no problem & not a safety hazard. Also, the detachable mouse on this toy can be very annoying because it comes off very easily. My son carries his computer by the mouse instead of by the handle. Thank God it still works! If it weren't for the 3 cons I mentioned, I would've given this toy 5 stars instead of 4. We are now planning to buy our son the Fisher Price Laughtop. We will be buying it from Amazon because I've found it's cheaper here than in any other store. We'll see how it turns out & I will definitely write a review for it. I still think the VTech version has more activities & games though.

My 3 year old got this for Christmas and she loves it. It looks like Mommy's computer and she can use it instead of trying to "help" me with mine. The screen is a little small and it's not color, but my daughter doesn't seem to notice or care.

There are a variety of games and exercises to try ranging from easy to hard, so it will hopefully keep her attention for a while yet. Some of the games are geared toward learning to use a "real" PC or laptop, such as games to control the mouse, etc. Others are more for learning alphabets/numbers/phonetics and things of that nature. I can't tell you all of them because, honestly, we haven't tried them all yet. There is a little room for improvement (with the size of the screen, etc.) but that being said, we're into February now and she is still playing with this on a daily basis so they must have gotten something right!

I finally opened this Christmas present up to familiarize myself with it before giving it to its intended owner. Now, I'm returning it.

It was intended for a young child who is already familiar with letters and numbers, but not yet at reading and math. He loves using a keyboard just like his parents do. I'd talked myself into the small screen and I regret it. I'd hoped a small screen would mean that at least what they displayed was a decent resolution. But these visuals are about what you'd expect from a digital watch earned through cereal boxtops. In addition, the 31 activities are all highly guided and very limited, with unpleasant noises anytime a wrong selection is made. There are a few activities that approached 'fun' by emulating more popular, known-to-be-fun games, but for the most part it's dull single-answer quiz questions, where correct answers are rewarded by an awful, nearly-incomprehensible animation of a dancing squirrel.

All it would have taken for me to approve of this product was a segment where my child could type random letters in and be told what they were, or experiment with typing words of his own choosing, or choose a number and have that number of items appear. Those modes do not exist; everything present save the tacked on music mode requires the child to respond to the toy's demands rather than the toy respond to the child's. Thus, the interactivity of the toy is very, very small. Of course, even if those modes did exist, the toy would have been hard-pressed to compete with a bland text editor on a basic computer because of how hard it was to see what was supposed to happen on the screen.

I love toys. I think I get more excited about my children's toys than they do!! Plus, I'm a relatively positive person and seldom leave poor reviews. HOWEVER, Vtech disappoints me more than any other brand. Here are my thoughts on this particular toy: I bought this for my 2 yr old about a year ago (she's now 3). Even now she and her little brother (16 months) get very frustrated with it. Heck, I even get frustrated with it! She wants to be able to pick it up and figure it out - which is not possible with this overly-technical toy. (And she is a quiet, "let's think this through" puzzle doer, so that is saying a lot!).

Okay, let's back up and look at the positives first.

PROS:
--Very durable. Definitely strong enough for rough toddler play.
--Compact. I like that the mouse fits under the laptop.
--Musical. Who doesn't like music?

CONS:
--TOO COMPLICATED for small users. First the child must select from a variety of TYPES of games with the big four front buttons. Then the child must look up to the area surrounding the screen and read each sub-category. The only way to select the sub group is to "scroll" through with the mouse (by "clicking" the mouse with a sideways movement till the screen reads the number of the activity you wish to do). Then you use the keyboard of numbers/letters to play the game. The child is not guided through this by the system - either an adult must help them get to the game or they must be able to read and/or memorize the steps.
--TINY screen! The screen is annoyingly small. It's not back-lit and it's comprised of pixelated, gray images (not in color). I find it too small and difficult to read in dim light. If the whole program were simpler, the actual top of the laptop could have been used for a much bigger interface!!
--Poorly-designed games. For example, one of the alphabet games lists the following series of letters: E F G S and then asks "which one is NOT in alphabetical order?" First of all, the letters ARE in alphabetical order!! They are looking for you to select the letter "S" because there's a jump in the sequence. Poorly worded! Secondly, by the time a child can alphabetize, they probably won't want to play with this, since it looks like a chunky toddler toy (and an older child would probably prefer one that resembles a real computer).

The take home message: This is complicated enough to require the more developed mind of at LEAST a 5 year old. By that point, as far as content-wise, you are better off buying them one of those "real" children's laptops because they will be too old to enjoy this. For a toddler, I would recommend one with simpler button-only operation.