Product Description

Beam a smile onto your little one's face and connect her to a world of interactive learning. The V.Smile Baby System goes above and beyond passive developmental videos and offers a breakthrough, interactive approach to learning. A colorful panel fits comfortably in your child's lap and connects wirelessly to a receiver that hooks right into your TV. The signal works from up to 15 feet away, and won't falter no matter how high up or low your baby holds it.

With V.Smile Baby, choose from three "Grow with Me" play modes. Select "Play Time" mode on the panel and watch your baby play with the colorful, easy-to-press buttons while hearing fun, educational phrases. Select "Watch and Learn" mode and your baby can enjoy educational videos that come complete with baby sign language. And "Learn and Explore" mode lets your child direct the play on the screen by choosing the subjects he or she wants to explore.

The V.Smile Baby System works with V.Smile Baby Smartridges (sold separately), which slide into the receiver. Each Smartridge features five learning games with 10 different baby signs and teaches skills including colors, numbers, sounds music and shapes. System measures 13"H x 16"W x 4.7"D.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4939 in Toys & Games
• Brand: VTech
• Model: 80-069041
• Dimensions: 16.10" h x 13.00" w x 4.90" l, 4.90 pounds

Features

• Offers 3 modes of learning, Play Time, Watch & Learn, and Learn & Explore, where your baby can go from playing to watching educational videos to making choices about what he wants to learn
• Connects wirelessly to a receiver, which transmits from to up to 9 feet away
• Activity panel provides independent learning on-the-go for the youngest learners
• One Smartridge included; Each Baby Smartridge offers unique learning activities and includes 5 different baby signs
• Includes activity panel, console receiver, and Learn & Discover Home Baby Smartridge

Editorial Review
Engaging, expandable, and fun, the V.Smile Baby Infant Development System connects your child to a world of interactive learning. A colorful activity panel lined with a soft bumper is baby’s touchable playcenter, filled with colorful shapes, a rolling ball, and jumbo button. Play-Alone mode allows baby to explore the sounds and activities on the panel, or plug the console into the television and the panel connects wirelessly to interact with the animated learning environment they see on the screen. Designed for children from nine to 36 months old, V.Smile Baby teaches numbers, shapes, music, colors, animals--even baby sign language--all with the help of engaging Smartridges like the one included (others are sold separately). Three activity modes allow the system to grow, as parents and children find age-appropriate play. Measuring approximately 8 by 14 by 2-1/2 inches, the wireless panel proves perfectly lap-worthy, although we wish it included a handle for the inevitable toting around by toddlers. --Heather Lyndon

From the Manufacturer
Beam a smile onto your little one’s face and connect her to a world of interactive learning! The V.Smile™ Baby Infant Development System goes beyond passive developmental videos with a breakthrough, interactive approach to learning. With the V.Smile Baby system, you'll receive a colorful panel that fits comfortably in your child’s lap and connects wirelessly to a receiver that hooks right into your TV! The signal works from nine feet away no matter how high or low your baby holds it. Plus, you can choose from three grow-with-me play modes. Select the Play Time mode on the panel and watch your baby play and use colorful, easy-to-press buttons to hear fun, educational phrases. Select the Watch & Learn mode and your baby can watch educational animations complete with baby sign language. Finally, as your baby grows, select the Learn & Explore mode where he can actually direct the play on the screen by choosing the subjects he wants to explore. The V.Smile Baby Infant Development System works with Baby Smartridges, which slide easily into the receiver. Each Baby Smartridge features learning games with five different baby signs, and teach important skills like colors, numbers, sounds, animals, music and shapes. V.Smile Baby even doubles as a car toy. Take the colorful panel with baby on the road for fun on the go!

Customer Reviews

Not worth it
We bought this for our two year old daughter. The resolution is terrible, and the words are mispronounced. MY daughter loses interest very quickly in it, and much rather look at her books than the screen. I think it has a lot to do with the quality of the picture. I wouldn't buy this as a gift, even on sale at a great price. I'm hoping the new leapfrog baby/toddler product is better than this one. This was a very disappointing purchase.

Good enough for it's price
We originally bought this for our son at a year old, but I think that's a bit too early really for a device like this. Now he is just over 2 years old, he will sit and play with it. I really can't understand the comments about poor graphics. They are perfectly fine for the purpose it is intended for and they certainly do not resemble those of an Atari 2600. That's just plain insulting to this product. What were people expecting? Playstation or Xbox quality graphics at this price point? My wife and I also kept wondering if we even had the same product as we haven't heard any mispronunciation of words either. Kids at this age treat them roughly and attention spans are limited anyway so I would rather spend $40 on this than some much more expensive device that would offer little more benefit for this age group. When he's old enough we'll get him a real computer with 'better graphics' but certainly not when he's 2 years old!

Worth trying....
I decided to try this over the Little Leap system. Originally, I thought the Little Leap would be better. However, I looked at the demos that they show on the website and the baby discs did not look interesting, only the toddler discs which can only be used in their toddler mode. The baby one that they showed was filled with annoying baby talk. Plus, there seems to be trouble with setting it up for some people and since we use an xbox 360 instead of a regular dvd player I did not think it would work for me either. I also think that the v-smile is a better value bc the Little Leap does not come with a real disc to use, just a demo....

Okay, on to the point! I bought this today for my 13 month old son. I agree that the graphics/ audio are not spectacular, but let's keep in mind that this is for babies and toddlers, NOT adults. The graphics are perfectly fine for a baby. I do think though that they could have done something to grab attention a little better, some parts do seem pretty bland. However, what gets the attention of one baby may not get the attention of another. I think a big part of the issue with some of these negative reviews is that some parents expected to just set it up and walk away with their baby sitting and smiling up at the tv. This requires a lot of interaction from the parent to help keep their child's attention and fascilitate the learning process. (think: "wow! look at the yellow stars!" "can you press the red heart? good job!") But on the other hand, if your child does give attention over to the tv easily, it is nothing to brag about that they'll sit there for hours. Too many children spend all day in front of video games/tv/computer. Even educational video games should be limited and should not take the place of active play.

This system is for 9 months and up, but I think that's a little young. The keyboard can be played with seperate from the full system, which would be appropriate for the age, but you could not want to pay that much just to do that. I don't know why they even bothered with the purple wrist rest (or whatever they call it). It comes right off and there is really no point in it. The keyboard can be set to play alone mode and it identifies the shape and makes other sounds (ex: the red heart says heart when pushed and makes a kissing sound) when the buttons are pushed.

The cartridge that comes with the game is heavy on colors, shapes, and counting to five. He liked the peek-a-boo animals and the counting song. The songs were annoying to me; but again, this is not for me it is for my son and he liked it and even "danced" a little bit to it. Overall, I had a hard time keeping his attention to it for very long. But again, all babies are different as far as this goes. The tv does not keep his attention much yet anyway. The only thing he likes to watch is Baby Shakespeare-- he loves Bard the Dragon. But he could care less about any other Baby Einstein video although I know there are a lot of babies that love them. At any rate, I am just trying to make the point that you should not decide whether to get something based on what someone else's baby prefers.

I agree with others that it is surprising that they did not choose to include ABCs with it. Maybe one of the new cartridges will have that. I can highly recommend the Meet the Letters video though to anyone who is looking for a good way to teach the ABCs to their child.... it is very effective.

The bottom line is this: Yes, it could be better but this is the cost of a couple of dvds, so it is completely worth the money to have a system that can grow with your baby/ toddler that they can learn something from..... Just don't think it is something that they can do on their own. It requires parental involvement. Also don't put your child on the path of zombiehood. Remember the importance of play that does not involve the tv!