Good observations. One thing to consider is the fact that LeapFrog doesn't really see the Leapster as a video game machine. To them it's basically a LeapPad (the interactive book platform) with animation. This may slowly change as more third party developers are retained to create different kinds of products than their in-house teams which tend to be very education toy oriented.

DrDon -- true, LeapFrog doesn't exactly see Leapster as a videogame machine. However, they have been dabbling in the videogame circles, and their marketing had been squarely targeting would-be Nintendo Gameboy buyers. My conclusion is that LF very much considers themselves to be competing in that market, but in their public messaging they are being careful to keep it at arm's length.

Great articles!
I have been contimplating the leapster for our 4 yr old for a while but LFs past track record of not many titles still scares me off. I think they missed the boat! Like you hinted at if Nintendo makes some real educational games doe GB or DS, Leaspster is dead.
Probably buying a GB,
Mike

sorry about the fat fingers!

Great articles!
I have been contemplating the leapster for our 4 yr old for a while but LFs past track record of not many titles still scares me off. I think they missed the boat! Like you hinted at if Nintendo makes some real educational games for GB or DS, Leaspster is dead.
Probably buying a GB,
Mike

I too have been debating between these two systems for my 4 year old son. He hates the Leappad but loves computer games on the PC. I would prefer educational games on the Gameboy games instead of investing in the lower quality Leapster for the few educational games they have. So we are stuck. I have purchase both but one has to go back. I sure wish someone would develop educational games for the Gameboy or any games geared toward the under 7 group. Any comments would be appreciated.

Jackie

I'd go with the Leapster. Developing for it is easy since it's Flash based so I suspect more titles will be coming out in the coming months. Besides, by the time your son turns 6 or 7, the PSP will be cheap!

The leapster is an awesome toy!! My Son, now 6, has had his for 2 years and still loves it. There are plenty of cartridges to keep him busy and the Learning capacity out weighs the GB's mindless games. The only thing I see positive about GB is that it works on hand eye coordination. My son is excelling in school. I attribute his interest and positive outlook on school to the leapfrog products making learning fun and interesting.

Gretchen

Just bought the leapster for Christmas, 6 year old daughter hasent put it down, now I can have my computer back, she was always playing her reader rabbit games.

My 8 year old daughter just bought one with her OWN Christmas money. It worked 3 days and now when you turn it on it immediately turns off.

Of course she's already tossed the box or based on all the problem reports I'd just return for refund.

Weel my Mom and sisiter went ahead and got my son the Leapster.
Out of the box IT WORKS!
and even better a week later is still works!
and even better than that my son loves it!
Getting ready to order 3 more "games"

So far so good ;-)

We just bought the Leapster for our 6 yr old for Christmas. She loves it but we have already experienced problems with the touch screen and it will not allow me to calibrate it. New batteries have not helped. We'll be calling the 1-800 number tomorrow. Keeping the fingers crossed!

We've had ours a year, and it's worked about half that time (the infamous calibration problem). LF repaired it once, and the same problem recurred. Thanks to this website, I insisted to phone support a few minutes ago that they send a replacement, and send it in advance of my returning the old unit. They said that wasn't their policy, and I told them to knock it off and do the right thing. After 10 seconds on hold, they came back and said OK.

Keep your fingers crossed that the new unit will not break!

You're gonna like this.

You know the problem.

Am I going to purchase a defective product??

I MAY have the quick answer to our problems.

When you purchase (or exchange) your game look at the "pen" and see if does NOT have a rubber grip on it.

The one I purchased in April 2004 had a rubber grip on the pen BUT the one thatI had just exchanged for it does not (Jan 2005).

NO GRIP = GOOD

My kids (3rd and 1st Grade girls) both love the game(s) -play it all the time and no calibration errors so far.

They are learning from these games.

They learn much more than just how to push all those buttons faster as they do when playing on their Playstation.

I agree that Leapster should develop additional games faster, as well as, gearing the games toward boys.

Be sure not to mix new and partially used batteries - it tends to drain the lesser batteries first - making it appear that ALL the batteries are dead. (it just may be that one battery that's dead)

(Also when checking for the "grip" on the pen-- make sure that you don't find a Leapster that has been returned to the store and the grip was bitten off or removed... I tried to exchange ours at 3 stores and at one Walmart the "New" exchanged game was in worse shape than my original --fingerprints all over the display.

Walmart mistakenly returned game to stock-- instead of returning it to Leapfrog)

Well my son's Leapster is still going strong!
In fact same set of batteries since xmas!
His pen has no grip! :)
PS ours came from Amazon.

Well, we bought our son a Leapster this past Christmas from Amazon.com and the stylus has no grip. However, this past week, the touchscreen is completely unresponsive. Calibration is impossible in that the "targets" don't even appear on the screen. However, I called Leapfrog and they didn't even blink in sending a replacement (10-15 business days) along with a prepaid UPS shipping label to send the old one back.

I don't know what the problem is with this touchscreen, but, a year later, the problem should be identified, publicized and corrected by now. I'll let you know how the replacement does.

i bought my daughter a leapster for christmas from th ELC and hers is still going very strong no problems whatsover. THough she is already on her 3rd set of batteries. However my friend bought her daughter one from amazon uk, and her touch screen stopped responding a few hours later. Both leapsters have the rubber on the pens. therefore not so sure whether the rubber has anything to do with it. id say its more of a bad batch.
saying this i would recommend the leapster to everyione very educational, simple enough for children to play by themselves.

I bought one for my 2 year old this year for XMAS (2004) She loves it and better yet her brother loves to "borrow" it LOL he is eight and I bought him the Baseball Math game which he loves and he is learning... the only thing is that the leapster is PINK he doesn't mind though! If Leapster comes out with more games I might have to go and buy him one for himself... he has to hide when using it because if his sister catches him he is dead! It has the same set of batteries since XMAS as soon as the batteries go I'm going to buy the Leapster rechargeable battery dock. No calibration problems yet far and my 2 year old has dropped it, and played rough with it... so I thought we would be running into that problem soon... but so far so good!

Thanks Leapster!

We have a yellow spot on our screen. Anyone seen that problem before? Any fix?

Thanks to all for the comments, they persuaded me to buy one for my son's 4th b/day. Purchased from Toys r Us UK and parents and son are very happy with the product. In the UK there seem to be about 8-10 games aimed at my sons age group but I did note recent additions such as Spiderman and Sponge Bob Square Pants so it would seem that LP are attempting to keep the games up to date and as current as they can.
Thanks for and excellent and informative review of the product

Just got my 4 year old the leapster from Amazon. Opened it yesterday, and found major problems with touch screen response. Not many of the items respond to direct touch, and some not at all. Thanks for all the suggestions on how to handle it. Will keep you posted.

We bought one for our son which was seldom used early on (when he was 4). Now he's in Kindergarten and we would love to use their games about phonics to help him learn to read. The problem is that I can't calibrate the screen (can hit all the calibration targets except the one in the center of the screen). This must be one of the older models because it has the grip on the pen. I think I'm going to have to go ahead and buy another one because I don't want to have to wait for Leapster to replace this one (if they will even do that).

We bought 2 leapsters for our 2 sons (3 and 5). We are desperately in search of games. All stores are out of stock and not getting any more game cartridge.

Leapfrog cannot be joigned on the phone. This certainly does not sound like a serious company.

The console and the games are really good. We love the curriculum. This educational approach in UNIQUE in the quality. Too bad we can't find games in stores and have to pay outrageous shipping charges using ebay. Also, why not make french games?

Leapfrog, get moving !!!

Leapfrog seems to have been focusing most of its attention to the new Fly pentop thing... I wonder if this means they have reduced the (already minimal) support for Leapster. I know the aisles of Target and similar stores are now filled with Fly stuff. Would be interesting to hear other people's opinions.

My 6 yr olds Leapster will not work 95% of the time if the stylus is needed. In reading some of the comments above, am I to assume that the unit is bad if it has a rubber grip on the stylus. I thought the stylus needed replaced, like a PDA.

Please help me if you can. Xmas is upon us and he has many new games on his list.