VTech, V smile - is it good?

hatsepsovet

Hiya,
my 3 1/2 year old daughter loves playing with one of those small laptop type toys. It has been brilliant as it taught her all the capital letters of alphabet and loads of other skills.
I'm thinking of getting her V smile for Xmas to encourage her to "learn through play". I like the fact that it connects to the TV and is colourful.
However, I don't know anyone who already has one so I don't know if it's as good as it looks on TV or whether it's going to be a 1 day wonder which will be forgotten after Xmas Day.
So, does your little darling have one? Do they play with it? Do you think it's worth the money?

I'd welcome any suggestions for an alternative educational toy. I'm thinking may be there are some good PS2 games for 3-4 years?...

djdido2

hi

i bought my little one a v-tech smile for his last birthday (3). the only thing i found bad about it was the joystick sometimes made it hard to play the games. ie when turning corners on a train track (thomas game) ds found it really difficult to do turns etc. i think they are prob more suitable for 4 - 5 year olds. nevertheless a really good product.

ebay do the games alot cheaper than in the high street stores.

hth

mumof2boys_3

Hi we brought a v smile last year for our oldest who was same age as yours ,we brought it with the winnie the pooh game and he also had bob the builder,dora and simba games ,he loved it as he could do the games and was also teaching him stuff,he never bored of it and would re do them they also have mini games as well,i would say they are worth the money,it would be played with now but youngest one split juice on it and has never worked again,and cant afford to replace,i got mine from boots last year on the 3 for 2 offer and as it came with the winnie game brought dora and got bob game free brougth simba of ebay

He now has a ps2 well was mine, some of the games aimed at his age are quite hard so we usually rent them from blockbuster or the library to save wasting money on buying them and not being able to get past first few levels,rugrats is quite easy though and you can play ps1 games on them as well,which also picked up some cheap ones of ebay,just be warned though you cant save them have to buy a special memory card got mine £1 of ebay(not that i go on Ebay all the time)!!!

Amanda

gargoyle

My daughter was brought one a few years ago. She found it boring (she was 4) and it has gathered dust ever since.

andycarmi

Argos have 25% off the VTECH SMILE!

funky-footprints

my kids had one as thier main pressie off santa last year, they were 5 & 3. My son loves it he has his own games ...my daughter has only started playing with it this summer, so much so that i have had to buy my son a 2nd hand hand pocket off ebay (which is compatiable with the games) so they no longer argue over care bears or spiderman. But they do play some of the games together ..he has an orange joy stick and she has the pink.

My son is 6 this year and the games go up to age 9. I have no intention of getting a playstation or a gameboy in this house until he is 8 or 9.

They find the control panel joystick thing realy easy to use, you can swap it around to suit left or right handed, and my daughter now 4 manouvers hgerself around the different games and levels with ease.

I personally think it is the best thing ive bought them, definately value for money and it means they are not nagging me to go on the pc and play on jetix or cbeebies !!

for christmas i am getting my son the car adaptor for the pocket so he will be able to play it on long journeys, saving battery money !!

lil_me

My son has the pocket version, doesn't use it all the time but likes it.