LeapPad Explorer Review

Building upon the success of the 2010 Leapster Explorer, the new LeapPad delivers more fun, more technology and more learning games.

The specs for the Leappad Explorer are rather impressive. Available in the familiar LeapFrog green and pink colors, the system sports:

• Crisp looking, large 5" color touch screen (480 x 272 resolution)
• Built in accelerometer sensor for shake / tilt detection
• Built-in camera
• Built-in video recorder
• Built-in microphone
• 2 Gigabytes of internal memory allowing for storage of thousands of pictures
• Input with included stylus or use your fingers
• Full compatibility with the existing library of 100+ games, apps, and e-books for the Leapster Explorer (in case you're confused by "clever" marketing: these need to be purchased separately !!!)
• Pre-loaded with Animation Studio, Art Studio and Story Studio
• Supports multiple, customizable kid profiles that can be set to different skill levels
• Games, E-books that adapt to skill level of child

Based on these features alone it should be clear that LeapFrog has a winner here. And a winner it was, at the Toy Industry Association's Toy of the Year awards:

      

The LeapPad won in three categories; it was the overall winner and won the coveted Toy of the Year 2012 award, it won in the Educational Toys category and also got the award for Best Pre-School Toy!

Another nice feature is that for several of the games and books, the software adapts to the skill level of your child, based on the child's profile settings (Pre-K through 3rd grade).

Learning while gaming, gaming while learning, a sweet double-edged sword it is!

The LeapPad Explorer is equipped with a built-in camera / video recorder, which I think is a huge deal, and it is the feature that sets the LeapPad apart from its direct competitor, the lower-priced VTech InnoTab Learning Tablet ($79 retail).

Owners of the 2010 Leapster Explorer know that to turn it into a still / video camera you had to buy a somewhat clunky camera add-on for $24.95, so it's nice to see it built-in with the LeapPad.

I'm glad that LeapFrog decided to have the camera option built in, working straight out of the box. It makes for a much more versatile device that will spur more creative moments because the camera is readily available at the child's fingertips.

The 5" screen makes for a nice big view finder, the "click" button is a nice size and conveniently positioned and with 2GB internal memory lots of pictures and videos can be stored on the LeapPad.

The LeapPad includes some basic (sufficient) image manipulation tools that provide kids with ways to alter the images they take by drawing on them, adding text, etc - all on the device. Fun stuff.

When the Leapster Explorer came out last year, a lot of people were very disappointed to find out that it was not backwards compatible with the older Leapster 2 games.

This time around things are different and the new LeapPad Explorer is 100% compatible with all Leapster Explorer games, downloadable apps, flash cards, videos etc, which is very good news if you spent a good amount of money on those.

So far there are about 25 different game cartridges available, as well as a host of downloadable apps such as mini games, flash cards, e-books and videos. Downloadable apps can be purchased through the LeapFrog Connect software application that comes with the LeapPad.

Some people commented on this below, but please note that older Leapster 2 games are NOT compatible with the LeapPad or Leapster Explorer!

Update 08-24-2011

The LeapPad is now available and in stock in many places, including Amazon, Toys R Us, Walmart etc.

Update (07-13-2011)

As far as I can see, LeapFrog is playing a silly hype marketing game. Pre-orders were available at various sites, but have very quickly sold out or completely disappeared from the sites.

Deliberate, or just plain old enormous demand that was not anticipated? Are you kidding me LeapFrog ?

LeapFrog was not set to have pre-orders available until 08/01, as per this screenshot from their site from earlier this week:

And now (07/13/2011), the LeapFrog site has this:

There never was a pre-order option on the LeapFrog site, so it did not end early; it never happened.

Silly.

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The previously available LeapPad Explorer (pre-order) on Amazon mysteriously disappeared.

At Toys R Us, Walmart and K-Mart, the pre-orders show to be sold out .

The only place I could find where you still can get a green or pink LeapPad Explorer pre-order unit is Barnes and Noble. At Barnes and Noble, the pre-order units also disappeared