My 3 year old neice has her own little playroom in my house so that when she comes to visit or sleep over she will be happy. Being a reception teacher, I do sway towards the educational toys as I know what will be expected of her when she starts school. She was more interested in playing on my laptop when visiting than playing with her toys so I decided to get her one of her own... A Leapfrog one cammed My Own Leaptop!

The Outside
The Leaptop looks like a mini laptop so it allows my neice to feel grown up. It has a green plastic cover, although it's also available in blue and pink, and there is a paw print on the top. The middle is white plastic and the bottom is made of green plastic. There is a plastic orange switch which has been designed to look like a real mouse and you move it up and down to change the features from letters to music to animal sounds.

The Inside
When you open the laptop, it is really bright and colourful. It has a keyboard with all the letters written in white on blue buttons. The letters are in lower case which is brilliant as capital letters would confuse her at this stage. There is an orange on/off button which also makes the volume increase in two stages. There are three bright buttons along the top. There is an email one with an envelope, a muscial note and an @ sign. The actual screen of the laptop has a really small screen which is a bit of a disappointment when you consider the size of the lid. It has the size symbols around the screem and a leaping dog. When you choose a button a bit of music plays and a voice tells you what to do.

ABC
A voice introduces this as the alphabet button. When you press on the letter, it tells you both the phonic and the letter name, as well as something that starts with that letter. A picture of that object appears on the screen. While I am really pleased that the phonic name is used, there is more emphasis on the letter name which could be confusing for the child. It is phonics that are taught when children start school so the letter name isn't important as this stage.

Music
The music buttom changes the keyboard into musical buttons. The bottom line plays piano sounds, the middle line is drumming sounds and the top line is random sounds. My neice really enjoys pushing these buttons over and over again and she likes the pictures which come up with the matching buttons. The pictutes are a bit grainy and in black and white however.

Animal
The animal button changes the keys into questions about animals. You have to then press the paw button to find the answer. The questions are a bit silly like, "who lives in a shell?" The answer button says it's a turtle but my neice was a bit disheartened as she had said a snail which was also correct. The questions are a bit vague and although she likes listening to the questions, it's not her favourite feature.

The Pawprint
This is probably my neice's favourite button. If you push it, it plays some really groovy music which changes songs each time that you push the button. She throwing out some very funny and random dance moves to this button!

Email
This is a bit of a silly feature too. The computer tells you that you have email and then it reads you an email from Scout. Even though he says read with me, the words are written in capitals and move to quickly to read. Once it's finished, it just tells you to play some music. This feature is a bit lost of my neice but maybe an older change would appreciate it more.

Internet
This tell you Scout latest blog entry. Although my neice doesn't know what a blog is, this feature is quite cute in that it tells you that Scout has been playing with his red ball with accompanying features and then asks you a question so my neice does start to talk to the laptop at this point.

Price
The product will cost you around £20 and it can be bought from large supermarkets and stores such as Argos. It is also available from a range of online websites. It works on batteries so you will need to buy those too. You need to use a screwdriver in order to change the batteries which is annoying.

Conclusion
My neice does like to play with this laptop, usually in short burst and she enjoys the musical element the best. The volume is plenty loud enough and she has learnt a bit from the Leaptop but some of the features confuse and frustrate her. The pictures are black and white, and a bit grainy, and while this would have impressed me when I was little, the youngsters of today are used to a little more. She has played with it off and on for a few weeks now so it doesn't lose it's appeal and while this toy doesn't blow her mind or mine, it does stop her from playing on my laptop which chocolatey fingers so that, in my opinion, makes this worth while.