Leapster?

hterry85

My SS will be 5 in October and we were thinking about getting him a leapster for his birthday, but there are way more options than I realized. I see the leapster, the leapster 2, the leapster explorer, and a new tablet version coming out this month. Is there any real difference between these? Is one actually any better than the others? Or is the big price jump just due to some being newer than others?

mabma80

I got the L-Max Leapster off of ebay for $12 to see if DS1, who'll be five next month, would play with it....correctly.  And he did!

We decided to get the Leapster Explorer, because it has more advanced features then the other two.  More of today's technology as far as being able to add a camera to it, etc.  The only thing is that the Leapster Exp. games only work with that model. They wont work with any other Leapster before it.   But that's ok.  We gave the L-Max to DS2 to play with it, but we're planning on getting him the next model up for Christmas.  He'll be 3.5 then.

smilejenn

I'm not extremely familiar with the leapster product line, but if I were you, I would probably get the tablet version. At least with the Vtech version, it seems to offer the games that Leapster has, but with additional options and capabilities.

Sunday2411

Our son got the Leapster last year for his 4th. It was okay, until it ended up in a toilet related 'incident', but honestly - if I had to do it all over again (which I will have to this holiday season) I'd do the DS.

They're easier to handle. Kids seem to like them more.

 

hterry85

Sunday2411:

Our son got the Leapster last year for his 4th. It was okay, until it ended up in a toilet related 'incident', but honestly - if I had to do it all over again (which I will have to this holiday season) I'd do the DS.

They're easier to handle. Kids seem to like them more.

 

He wants a DS, he has one at his mom's house. But how are the games for it? The kid is obsessed with video games, and I think it would be a constant fight about how much he could play (especially since we have him less than 25% of the time during the school year) If we're going to let him spend some time playing video games I'd prefer it be at least semi educational.

Sunday2411

He's 4 and addicted to video games? Ugh, that must be frustrating. Sorry.

I have no idea about the DS games - my son doesn't have one yet. I'm reasobaly sure there's nothing educational about them though.

The leapster is "educational" in the fact that it makes them, for example, solve a math problem every so often, or interupts the game to make them spell something. I wouldn't call it educational.

If you don't mind an opinion or suggestion, better to get something that he will enjoy, but with very strict guidelines and governances.

Good luck!

hterry85

Sunday2411:

The leapster is "educational" in the fact that it makes them, for example, solve a math problem every so often, or interupts the game to make them spell something. I wouldn't call it educational.

Oh really? I didn't think they were educational in the way that he would actually learn from them, but maybe at least reinforce the things he is learning. I thought the entire game(s) were reading, math, etc. Maybe we'll skip it all together then. We'd like to get him something he'll like, but we also don't want it to be the cause of problems later on.

heehee611

We just got DS the Leapster Leappad for his 4th birthday and it's awesome!  You can download apps from online, plus you can use the Explorer games, and it has a camera.  It has a stylus but is also a touch screen, which I liked.  It doesn't have the QWERTY keyboard, but he has a lot of computer exposure at school so we weren't worried about that.