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The most helpful favorable review
The most helpful critical review
28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
Totally AWWWEEESOOMMMMEEE
My seven year old daughter can't leave it alone. She's now humming the national anthem of Russia. She now knows where Mongolia is. This thing is incredible and it can stay current with upgrades from the Web. I love this company but this product takes the cake. You won't go wrong buying this incredible globe. In our opinion, it far surpasses the one from LeapFrog.
Published on December 21, 2006 by J. Carole
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23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
Disappointing
I purchased this for my 3 year old last Christmas. The good news is he LOVED it and it seemed to be really educational. The bad news--we tried to download updates from Oregon Scientifc's website and it completely messed up the unit. Oregon Scientific's tech support was HORRIBLE (eg phone tree for 5 minutes that leads to a dead end, or cuts you off after waiting on hold...
Published on October 15, 2007 by J. Hall
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28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
Totally AWWWEEESOOMMMMEEE, December 21, 2006
This review is from: Smart Globe (Toy)
My seven year old daughter can't leave it alone. She's now humming the national anthem of Russia. She now knows where Mongolia is. This thing is incredible and it can stay current with upgrades from the Web. I love this company but this product takes the cake. You won't go wrong buying this incredible globe. In our opinion, it far surpasses the one from LeapFrog.
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27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
Could be Better, November 2, 2007
Durability: Fun: Educational:
This review is from: Smart Globe (Toy)
As an adult who is in to maps and world travel, I think the whole smartGlobe idea is alot of fun! This globe is comparable to the SmartGlobe made by LeapFrog which also came out this year.
This globe however has alot more features, and is updateable. Not only can you use this little globe to check timezones and estimate travel distances (including a large pullout map of the U.S.) but you can use it for currency conversions, estimated flight times, typical weather to expect....even interesting facts about countries, history
and geography of places you might want to visit!
My only complaints are that the globe itself seems rather cheaply made (especially compared to the LeapFrog model). The stand is made of wobbly plastic, and as for the globe itself- it is rather crudely drawn and could be a bit more attractive. Design flaws they could have easily corrected after putting all that work and information into this globe.
Why make this thing look like a toy? It could easily sell both for kids and adults- as an office executive toy or something great to have around the home.
I did try the update feature- it does work but it is finicky, takes a good long time (took me a few hours to figure it out with DSL) and doesn't seem to like Windows Vista.
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23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
Disappointing, October 15, 2007
Durability: Fun: Educational:
This review is from: Smart Globe (Toy)
I purchased this for my 3 year old last Christmas. The good news is he LOVED it and it seemed to be really educational. The bad news--we tried to download updates from Oregon Scientifc's website and it completely messed up the unit. Oregon Scientific's tech support was HORRIBLE (eg phone tree for 5 minutes that leads to a dead end, or cuts you off after waiting on hold for 20 minutes, or if you finally get through to a human being, they are clueless information that sounds like they are making it up as they go along). Very disappointing, especially since I was happy to purchase a product made in the USA, and my kids were fascinated with it (for the week it lasted). We ended up taking the globe back for a refund. This Christmas we are going to try the Leapfrog Globe instead (which is probably made in China). BTW there used to be a lot of customer reviews from parents on this globe and they seem to have disappeared.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
I now have a geography geek on my hands., April 4, 2008
Durability: Fun: Educational:
This review is from: Smart Globe (Toy)
We love this toy. I bought it for my 4 year old for Chrismas one year, when he began showing an interest in animals and where they were from. My husband shook his head and laughed, but I held firm.
It turned out to be his fave toy that year, and now 2 years later, he still uses it all the time. (I wish I could say the same for all those other toys I spent good money on...)
It tells you not only what the countries are, but tells you about the climate, the population, what language is spoken, capitals, leaders, and that's only the beginning. You can play a timed game where it calls out countries and you have to find them. You can listen to every national anthem from every country, and learn how to say hello in every language. There is a pull out drawer on the base which details all of the United States.
Best of all, it has software, so you can tailor your globe to your child's age, and update it when neccessary. It's really cool. It makes your child want to learn, because it's fun! My son's grandfather liked it so much, my mother in law got him one for his birthday!
I wish I had the same head start when I was a child. I mean, for a six year old to be able to name every country in Africa, now that's pretty neat, and I atribute it all to the Smart Globe.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Great Toy, But It Broke in Less Than an Hour, March 24, 2008
Durability: Fun: Educational:
This review is from: Smart Globe (Toy)
I bought this toy for my son's 6th birthday as something fun and eductational. We both enjoyed using it and it worked great until I tried to update the smart pen on the internet with the provided software. I did not properly shut down my firewall and the program hung and the toy would no longer work. I contacted Oregon Scientific Tech support and they informed me that the pen was now broke and they would have to send me a new one when it became available. It was on back order. That was 5 weeks ago. Complaining to managment did no good. I called back 2 days ago and they did not have any reoord of my earlier call and again, had no replacements in stock. They told me to call back in a few weeks. It is a neat toy, but Oregon Scientific's customer service is something to be desired. I would be very careful if you try to update the pen (tech support said this sometimes happens with Mcaffee and Norton firewalls). It looks like I am out $[...] and my son's main gift.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Good idea but a lot to improve, December 1, 2008
Durability: Fun: Educational:
This review is from: Smart Globe (Toy)
We received this as a gift for my [...] and she loves it but it also frustrates her as we don't seem to make it function properly.
We downloaded the program (which took forever) and when we did so, we got a confirmation of "free" updates for one year when the booklet clearly says you get 2 years of "free" updates. I called to complain about this, talked to someone who was very corteous, I was told I would get called back, but this was one month ago and no word from them yet.
Now we have also noticed that all the states in the USA don't work when you want to use the "Local Places" option, it just keeps ringing the error sound.
Another thing, it states that the "official" language in the USA is English when that is false information, as English is the most used language in this country but not official yet. That makes me doubt of any of the other information given for other places that I don't know the facts for.
I will call again. Will try to update this review when I hear back from them.
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I talked to Customer Service. I was told that the globe was defective so I would have to send it back to have it replaced, BUT I have to pay for shipping of the product and they won't reimburse it! Never had an experience like that with any product bought in-store or online before.
So I went to try to update the pen to give it another try before I ship it to the company, but it kept giving me a "Writing Error" message and when I went to use the pen again... Nothing... It just won't work at all now. I certainly hope I can get a replacement on a timely matter now.
And also, when I asked (Carlos) to talk to a manager about the situation, I was told the manager would say the same thing and they didn't put me through to one of them. Beyong bad customer service!
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Our daughter loves it!, January 17, 2008
Durability: Fun: Educational:
This review is from: Smart Globe (Toy)
We purchased this for our 7yr old daughter (2nd grade). She just loves it! It reinforces what she is learning in social studies right now. This was one of her favorite toys she received for Christmas. Our only gliche is that we loaded the globe on our computer, but when we get a notice that there is an update to be downloaded and we plug it in to get that download.....we get an error. So, what's currently on the globe is great! But not sure how long she will be satisfied with not having the updates downloaded.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Back Away From the Toy, August 26, 2008
Durability: Fun: Educational:
This review is from: Smart Globe (Toy)
I highly recommend you do not purchase this toy! Ours was purchased as a Christmas gift. We've spent eight months of trying to get customer service to respond to us and my daughter doesn't have use of her main Christmas toy. Biggest waste of money I've ever seen!!!!! Try the Leap Frog version instead!!!!!
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Great while it worked, July 25, 2008
Durability: Fun: Educational:
This review is from: Smart Globe (Toy)
I had no complaints about this product and everyone enjoyed it.. while it worked that is. We've since gone through customer support twice to replace what they said was a malfunctioning pen, but to no avail. On the good side, customer support was very helpful and easy to communicate with (not always so common any more). I'd rate this a 4 or 5 if it was still functional. I bought a 2nd one for my nieces and apparently that one is still working.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Waste of money; doesn't update as advertised, January 2, 2009
Durability: Fun: Educational:
This review is from: Smart Globe (Toy)
Since there are so many versions of this globe on Amazon by the same company, I decided to review the one that most closely matches the price and description of the one I have.
My son got this globe from his Grandmother for Christmas. He was very excited to receive it among his many other gifts. When I finally got the time to help him set it up and use it with him, I was pretty impressed with the amount of information this globe had. There are even built in quizzes that test the player on world facts.
The box also states that this globe is updatable. This however can't be further from the truth. While the globe does come with a USB cable and a USB enabled pen to connect to your PC to download updates, there are multiple issues with the globe that makes updated the globe impossible. First of all the CD that the globe comes with does not even include the drivers to install the pen on the PC. Secondly, the website you have to go to download the most updated SmartGlobe software rarely works and when it does work you are not even given any opportunity to enter the code for your free trial. Instead the only thing you can do is download the (useless) software on your PC. The software does not update the pen, partly because the PC can't even recognize the pen in the first place due to the complete absence of drivers. I followed the poorly written and inaccurate instructions in the manual to a T yet there is no way to update the pen.
Not being able to update the pen makes it impossible to change the age group, language, or even time zone. The globe I have has a default of PST time zone which does no good since I am in the EST time zone. While I can figure out the correct times across the world, this is not so easy to my son who is just now learning about Time Zones. In addition not being able to update the globe means that after Barack Obama is sworn in later this month, the globe will still say the President of the United States is George W. Bush. For this globe to advertise it is updatable is false advertisement because it simply does not work.
Customer Service for this globe is all but nonexistent. The scantly written manual only offers an email address to voice issues and concerns. Based on my past experiences, this type of customer support is all but useless. I did manage to find a 1-800 scouring the web, however I decided it will be a waste of my time to even call. Instead, I'm returning this globe for a refund and use the money towards something that actually works as advertised. If I had read these reviews prior to allowing my mom spend the money for this globe, I would have realized that the "updatable" portion of this globe hasn't worked in years and it wouldn't surprise me one bit if Oregon Scientific completely abandoned maintaining their updating service long ago.
Like I stated in my title, don't even waste your time or money on this or any other globe made by Oregon Scientific. Instead, look for other options because this globe is not worth the money.
Absolutely NOT recommended.
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