The Princess and The Pickle: Review

As the shops are now starting to advertise the best toys for Christmas, it’s got me wondering what to get my little ones this year. Last year The Princess’ present was an easy choice – we bought her the VTech InnoTab and she loves it!

"It has games on it, we can read on it, we can put pictures on it and we can learn on it"

She’d been wanting a handheld console, such as a DS, for quite some time as a few of her older friends had them. However, we thought she was still a bit young to have such a ‘grown up’ (not to mention expensive!) present, so opted for the child friendlier VTech InnoTab.

"We can draw pictures on it"

The Princess has just turned 7 now and the recommended age range for the InnoTab is 4-9 years. She’s at a funny age where I worry about buying her anything too ‘babyish’, but The InnoTab is just about right for her age. It has a large screen, is very easy to use and fairly robust, but has quite a sleek, cool design. It also has ‘grown up’ features such as a stylus, like Mummy’s phone does, and she can also play music on it, just like Daddy’s Ipod.

"Mummy and Daddy also play on it sometimes!"

The Pickle will probably enjoy using this from a much younger age, as this will be passed down to him when The Princess outgrows it. This is why we went for the standard blue version instead of the pink one. Although he would enjoy playing with the InnoTab, I don’t think he’d learn much from it just yet (he’s almost 2) and he’d probably just try and eat it, sit on it, or scribble on it in crayon at the moment!

"It has a clock so I can practise telling the time"

The Princess loved the InnoTab from the moment she opened it up on Christmas day and it was by far her favourite present (well, apart from the front row Olly Murs tickets of course!) It came pre loaded with a number of apps, including a calculator, calendar, art studio and games. She spent a great deal of time putting all her friends and families birthdays into the calendar. The InnoTab also comes with an inbuilt motion sensor. This means that it can be tilted for using with games, but also allows you to use it in landscape as well as portrait.

"We can play learning games"

You can also download more activities and games by connecting the InnoTab to a computer. The first 3 downloads were free but we didn’t use them all up at once and added a new activity every couple of months. We’ve just downloaded the last of our free activities, which is a maths game based on money. We’ll continue to add a new download every few months, as they only cost a few pounds and there are plenty of educational games to choose from.

"I can look at photos on it"

When we bought the InnoTab, we also purchased a mains adapter and an SD card to go with it. I’m glad we bought the adapter because the InnoTab eats up batteries very quickly! The Princess generally uses the adapter when we’re at home, but it’s nice that she can also use it on long car journeys and play games or listen to music through earphones if The Pickle is asleep. She has all her favourite music stored on the SD card, from Katy Perry to Take That!

"I can decorate photos to make them look funny"

We have also put lots of photos onto the memory card so she can view them on the InnoTab (although most of these have now been thoroughly defaced as she can also edit them!) but it would have been nice if the InnoTab had a built in camera too, so there was no need to transfer photos from one device to the other. However, VTech have recently launched The InnoTab 2 which does have a built in camera, so I’m sure that will be on many Christmas lists this year!

On that note, if you are thinking of purchasing The InnoTab or InnoTab 2 this Christmas, I would recommend buying them early as the InnoTabs were very difficult to get hold of last Christmas as they were so popular!

Review - VTech InnoTab