Leapfrog Leapster 2 Pink

Leapster 2 games are designed to grow with your child ages 4 through 8. The console is pre-loaded with two games: The "Dragons to the Rescue! Learning Game," is a "video game" type activity with four different levels, the first helping kids identify letters and numbers, the most advanced giving them spelling and multiplication practice, all while navigating a dragon past monstrous storm clouds and scrambling to collect magic crystals. The "Creativity Castle Art Studio" is a rather low-tech art program. Players can select a background scene to "color" using the stylus and "decorate" with fun animated stamps. While it does foster creativity, this program is somewhat clumsy -- your Paint program on your PC does a much better job. But "Dragons" was fun enough to keep even an adult tester enjoyably diverted.

Unfortunately, an SD card is required for taking advantage of much of what the Leapster 2 has to offer -- which is a drawback, because it must be purchased separately. Without the SD card, which offers more memory, you cannot save artwork, download new games, or take advantage of the online "Learning Path," which will be available August 2008. (This online program allows you to register and upload your children's Leapster 2 profiles to show you their learning activities and their progress.)

In the meantime, without the SD card, you can still purchase game cartridges. And you still can plug your console -- with the included USB cable -- into your PC for your children to view and print "rewards" for completing different game levels (for Dragons to the Rescue, they're certificates of achievement) or to print pictures to color with actual crayons (to encourage some "old-fashioned" creativity!) You must first install the Leapster 2 software on your computer, which comes on the included CD-ROM.

Click Here To Find Your Leapster 2 In Time For The Holidays

We owned a Leapter L-Max that quit working due to an "accident." Because our 3 year old has loved and used that machine several times a day we had to replace it.

He had learned so much from the previous Leapster and the reviews of the V-Smile were poor, so we decided to go with another Leapster.

While we did go back and forth about whether we wanted another L-Max for the TV play capability or whether we wanted the online funcitonality of this new Leapster 2.

We had to put some thought into which feature, the TV or online, we would use most. We decided that we would really like the ability to track learning progress on line and that for $10 less, we would rather have that function.

We also decided to look for a Leapster TV system, which we found on clearance, to replace the TV play capability of the old L-Max, so he could still use all the games on the TV and yet have 2 seperate toys and develop the motor skills of the 2 systems instead of one.

This new Leapster is SO cute. The colors are great, the shape is better than the old ones, in my opinion. The stylus pen is secured by a thin fabric like cord rather than a heavy electronics cord, so it is easier to maneuver and it doesn't seem like it will break as easily. The sound is better and the screen is just as nice, if not better. We are very happy with this purchase, and our son likes it too.

We have not tried the other games yet, but his old ones work just fine, as they are supposed to. I would defintitely recommend this model. I will also update the review when I have used the online functions.