Product Description

Broadcast your brush strokes and your digital artistic skills with the KidiArt Studio. KidiArt Studio easily connects to your television so little artists can project their creative projects for all to see. The KidiArt Studio comes with a real digital camera that allows kids to have wacky photo fun. Add digital stamps or funky picture frames, and use the digital camera to make stop-motion animations to really bring the art to life. Kids can also take basic drawing and art lessons and create a full array of printable arts and crafts creations. Make a family tree using real pictures. Or create a picture from scratch in free play mode. Also, when in PC connect mode, little artists can save their creations, create custom e-cards for friends and print anything they've made. Connect your kids to creativity with the KidiArt Studio. Requires 4 "AA" batteries, included.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8585 in Toys & Games
• Brand: VTech
• Model: 80-035000
• Released on: 2008-05-08
• Dimensions: 24.20" h x 15.90" w x 7.50" l, 9.80 pounds

Features

• Real digital camera
• TV connect (not just PC)
• Save and print creations
• Drawing lessons
• Add art to any digital picture they take

Amazon.com Review
Make it easy for young artists to create digital masterpieces with the award-winning VTech KidiArt Studio. Featuring a working digital camera and a colorful studio desk with a matching stool, the KidiArt Studio helps kids aged four to seven explore their natural creativity by letting them create and share artwork using a TV or PC.

What We Think Fun Factor: Durability: (what this means) The Good: Features real digital camera The Bad: Switching between connection to TV and connection to PC can be awkward In a Nutshell: This fun studio setup promotes creativity and hand-eye coordination At a Glance Ages: 4 to 7 years Requires: 8 AA batteries and a TV; PC for some effects

The award-winning VTech KidiArt Studio is easy to set up.

This toy provides lots of opportunity for creative growth and the touchpad helps with hand-eye coordination. View larger.

Included software lets your child create digital art to send to friends and family. View larger.

Getting Little Artists Settled in the Studio
The base of the KidiArt Studio is a sturdy desk stand made of brightly colored plastic. This stand comes in five pieces, which are easy to assemble. There's a picture in the user's manual that shows which pieces go where, and plastic caps that screw in place hold the unit together. The main unit, which rests on this stand, includes a touch pad, a pen for use with the touch pad, and a real digital camera on a movable arm. There's even a sturdy plastic stool that's sized to fit little artists.

You'll need eight "AA" batteries and a Phillips head screwdriver to get started. When the batteries need replacing, you should only need to replace four at a time. The studio uses the additional four batteries as a backup system to ensure that your child never loses artwork due to battery failure.

Once the unit is ready, simply plug it into your TV using the included A/V cable, and make sure the TV is set to show video input. On many televisions this is as easy as pressing the button labeled TV/VIDEO. When the KidiArt Studio is turned on, audio commands will help your child pick a fun activity.

Help Kids View the World Through a Creative Lens
It's easy to see why this studio set earned the National Parenting Center's Seal of Approval and the Creative Child Toy of the Year Award. Beyond providing lots of different opportunities for creative growth, this setup is durable, compact, and its touchpad helps kids practice hand-eye coordination. The pen and touch pad can be a little awkward at first, but it's easy to get used to. And since it's attached to the main unit by a cable, you won't have to worry about misplacing it.

Fun activities include using frames to put your face on a monkey, using the pen to add colorful clip art and freehand drawings to photos, and creating cool stop-motion animations. A cheerful voice offers tips to encourage kids in their creative development. We found that once we were familiar with all the great features of the KidiArt studio, the voice was a bit distracting. But this is a minor concern, and you can always turn the volume on your TV down. As an added bonus, parents will appreciate the way this unit shuts off automatically after several minutes of inactivity to save batteries.

Beyond the TV-studio interface, a USB cable is included so you can connect the KidiArt Studio to your PC. In PC connect mode, your child can save their artwork, create custom e-cards to send to friends and family, and print their favorite creations. Your child can also follow a studio template to create a craft project, like paper dolls featuring photos and colorful embellishments, then print out the project and complete it.

In order to use the included software, you will need a computer running Windows 2000, XP, or Vista with 256 MB of memory. We had no trouble moving the sturdy unit around, but if your TV is set in a big entertainment center and your computer is in a cramped home office, you may find that it's a little cumbersome to disconnect from one and connect to the other frequently.

The included camera takes great shots, and since it is attached to the unit you won't have to worry about it being lost or dropped. Your child is sure to enjoy taking a zillion self portraits and shots of his or her best friends.

What's in the Box
Main unit with rotating camera and touch pad, desk stand, stool, USB cable, A/V cable, game cartridge, CD-ROM with PC application, and two user manuals.

From the Manufacturer
Broadcast your brush strokes and your digital artistic skills with the KidiArt studio. KidiArt studio easily connects to a television, so little artists can project their creative projects for all to see. The KidiArt studio comes with a real digital camera that allows kids to have wacky photo fun. Add digital stamps or funky picture frames, and use the digital camera to make stop motion animations to really bring the art to life. Kids can also take basic drawing and art lessons and create a full array of printable arts and crafts creations. Make a family tree using real pictures. Or create a picture from scratch in free play mode. Also, when in PC connect mode, little artists can save their creations, create custom e-Cards for friends, and print anything they have made. Connect your kids to creativity with the KidiArt studio.

Customer Reviews

Photoshop for kids
Great birthday or Christmas present!! Highly recommend this. I bought this for my 5 year old niece for her birthday. Great family time activity, still easy enough that she can create her own photos, or e-cards, to show off to mom. You take photos with a real digital camera, hook the art desk up to a TV, use an art pad to add decorations, stickers and fun backgrounds to photos. It hooks up to the computer, so you can then email and print the photos or whatever else was created.

Wall Charger is a MUST!
I bought this toy for my 5 year old daughter. The first one came broken. The second one came and I put batteries in the main compartment and in the backup compartment. There is no wall charger, you have to buy that seperate. The batteries do not last very long. Before, she was finished playing with it for the first time her batteries died, even the back up ones. You would litterally have to have hundreds of batteries to play this. A wall charger is a must!

Solid product with a few rough edges
I bought this for my 2 and 4 year old children for Xmas. Vtech does a good job at taking advantage of technology in allowing this toy to be used with either a TV or computer. It has activities that are used with email and the printer for example.

The photoshop/drawing application is fairly average when I compare it to other online kids games/drawing tools. Vtech could have spent a little more time making this part really really great and a little less time giving it 100 different applications.

The video and stop-motion picture apps aren't much different but are fun.

There is a puzzle game, picture to draw app, you can create picture-personalized origami to print out.

On the negative side, the camera is of really poor quality (I mean the worst I have ever seen including phone cameras, etc.), it doesn't come with a power cord, I get reminded every couple minutes to check the backup batteries and to click OK to acknowledge the message (SUPER annoying). On that note, there are a lot of confirmation messages that really get in the way of using this toy, "Are you sure you want to quit? Do you want to save the picture? Are you sure you want to delete the picture?" that are frustrating/boring for a little kid. On a 42 inch TV the graphics look pretty bad. It's just too big a size for the graphics and they end up looking fuzzy. The pen that you use to click the buttons isn't very accurate and sometimes even though the mouse pointer looks to be right on the button a click doesn't take and you get an annoying error sound. It would be good if the camera could rotate horizontally so you don't have to turn the whole table to take a picture too.

Overall, this toy is just darn cool. It's pretty amazing the stuff that it can do but you really get a first generation feel from the product. It definitely needs polishing in a lot of areas.