This Postman Pat SDS Phone is suitable for children over the age of 3. It requires 2 x AA batteries (supplied for try me purposes). The phone measures approx 13 x 7 cm.

The phone has a few features. It is blue with red buttons (familiar Postman Pat colours) and has a yellow dial at the top. There are 3 different scenes in the dial which can be changed by pressing a red button on the side.

The phone also has noise features. If your child presses the buttons on the keypad, they can hear character voices from the show. If '0' is pressed, the Special Delivery Service (SDS) theme tune is activated. The phone has a blue case which clips around the battery compartment.

~Price~

This phone is currently available from Amazon priced at £7.39. It can also be bought from www.kiddimax.co.uk for £7.89.

~Our Thoughts~

My son received this phone as a gift for his 3rd birthday. It was well received as he is a huge Postman Pat fan (his Daddy is a postman). It came simply packaged and didn't need any assembly. We left the try me batteries in for a short while and then changed over to our own batteries. These were easy enough to insert (screw driver required) and have recently ran out after 7months of use.

The phone is reasonably well designed. It is made from durable plastic and is very colourful. It has suffered at the hands of my toddler son though. The back of the phone is covered in scratches and the antenna bit at the top has completely snapped off. Now I can see why it is aimed at over 3years old as that would prove to be a choking hazzard. Luckily my son knows not to put things in his mouth (except food of course) and I was aware of it breaking almost instantly.

The rest of the phone however is sturdy and quite weighty. We appear to have lost the blue cover at the back though this does not cause issues when using the phone. As a parent, I would say the phone is more walkie talkie style in appearance. The buttons are nice and chunky for a toddler to use easily and the overall appearance of the phone is basic but acceptable to my toddler son.

~The Opinion Of Boo~

My son played with this phone occasionally for a good 6months before it was thrown in the toy box (when the batteries started to cause distortion and Mummy kept forgetting to buy more!). There is no volume control on the phone and the pre-set volume is actually quite low so my son needs to put the phone right up to his ear to hear it properly. I suppose this is good as it means I don't need to listen to it as much but as the phone has picture features, it would be been better if he could hear it and look at it at the same time!

Boo can press the red button at the side very easily and the picture changes smoothly. There are 3 pictures for him to view (the Greendale Rocket, Pats Van and Ted Glen in his tractor). There is an additional feature which my son has never been interested in. If the phone is tilted upwards, the picture changes - not sure what you call that effect but it is rather boring to be honest. The pictures are crammed into a small space on the dial and look very smaller and distorted. They could have made better use of the dial space and opened it up a bit more.

My sons favourite aspect of this phone is hearing his favourite characters voices. Despite not being very loud, the voices are clear. One website says that the phone should have 3 phrases for each character though doesn't state which characters. I would expect it to be Pat, Ajay (driving the train) and Ted Glen. My son was rather disappointed that all of the voices sound like Ajay and none of the other characters.

Pressing 1, 2 or 3 - "The rockets going well today".
Pressing 4, 5 or 6 - "All aboard for the Greendale Rocket"
Pressing 7, 8 or 9 - "Next stop Greendale!"
The SDS tune isn't much better and lasts a whole 5 seconds.

~Conclusion~

The novelty of this being a Postman Pat phone has worn off hence why it was thrown to the bottom of the toy box. It has limited appeal and my son would expected a mix of character voices and not just Ajay. Even if Pat had been included, it would have made him want to play with the phone much more. It simply isn't as interactive as it should be and even at £7.89 I find it to be overpriced. I can see it heading for the bin during our next clearout.

Thanks for reading :)