One of the gifts my granddaughter received for her second birthday was the I Love You Barney which I bought from Argos as part of their '2 toys for £15' deal. Despite the fact that she rarely watches the television programme she immediately took to this toy and knew who he was as she regularly goes on a Barney themed ride at our local Morrisons.

The design of the toy is lovely, it's true to other Barney toys I've seen and is instantly recognisable as the friendly purple dinosaur that we all know and put up with - I would say all know and love but I challenge you to find a person aged over ten who isn't irritated no end by his dopey and oh-so Godly voice on the television!

This Barney toy is very soft and cuddly with absolutely no sharp or rough edges at all to cause injury, even the eyes are stitched into the actual fabric of the toy so there are no choking hazards either. The recommended age for Barney is 18 months plus although personally I see no problem with buying it for a younger child safety wise, the only issue being that smaller babies would not be able to press his tummy to activate the song and this may prove frustrating for them. He stands roughly 10" tall and this is my only complaint really as pictured in the Argos book the toy looked like it would be much bigger, the accompanying picture shows a child of around three playing with him and it certainly appears that she is holding a taller and slightly bulkier toy.

One thing I love about the toy is that the place where you need to press for Barney's famous 'I love you, you love me' song is clearly marked with a stitched heart logo at the exact place where your little one's fingers need to press down. This is an excellent design as recent purchases of these speaking toys have shown me that the speech activation capsule inside can be awkward for a toddler to find, my granddaughter has had terrible trouble getting some of her toys to work as her pudgy little hands can't always find the correct place to press.

The speech capsule has just the right amount of sensitivity that Barney doesn't start singing at the merest breath of wind (like her Laa-Laa Teletubby) but will always play the song when my granddaughter decides she wants to press it. She giggles when Barney starts singing and is gradually learning the song herself, which is aided by the fact that the toy only sings the one song and while this would be irritatingly repetitive in any other toy the song is long enough in this instance to ensure it doesn't become boring for children or their ever suffering adult guardians! Apart from my son in law who visibly shakes with annoyance by the time Barney has been pressed 30 times in a day!

I think the volume of the toy is perfect too, it's not so loud that it drowns out background noise but has a high enough volume that my granddaughter can really concentrate on the words of the song and therefore learn it easily. She has several toys that are so loud her parents have taken them off her, but this one is perfectly acceptable although I have noticed that the volume gets quieter when the batteries need replacing.

The usual price for this toy is £9.99 which I think is very reasonable for such a well made high quality toy. My granddaughter absolutely adores him, which is surely the most important point in this review, and he is rapidly taking over Upsy Daisy as her bedtime teddy bear - although it caused some confusion the first time she took him to bed as she rolled onto him in her sleep and all her mum could hear was 'I love you' coming through the baby monitor, she thought it had picked up an American television channel instead of her daughter's sleeping noises!