Postman Pat is one of Little Man's favourite characters, and like most toddlers he is fascinated by my phone, so when I saw this Postman Pat SDS phone in The Entertainer before Christmas for only a fiver I thought it would make a great stocking filler.

The phone is a blue chunky affair - probably similar in size to my first mobile! It is about 10 cms long by 3 cm wide with a rubbery antenna on the top. It is bright blue with a yellow view screen at the top with the Postman Pat logo underneath. On the side is a red button which scrolls through the 3 characters in the view screen - Pat, Ted Glen and Ajay.

Each character speaks 3 different phrases activated by pressing a button in either the top middle or bottom row. These are all common phrases from the television series.
Pat - 'This is a job for the special delivery service van', Come on, we've got a special delivery to finish' and 'Special delivery service, Mission Accomplished!'
Ted Glen - 'Here, Steady On!', Don't Worry, I've got a cracking idea' and 'Erm, Just needs a slight adjustment'
Ajay - ' The Rocket is going well today', 'All aboard for the Greendale Rocket' and 'Next stop Greendale'
If you press the 0 button then the phone plays and snippet of the Postman Pat theme - the same amount as you would get in a cut scene of the TV show

Little Man really likes his Postman Pat phone. He loves to pretend he is chattering away to the characters and then making me talk to them. The red button on the side was initially quite stiff so he had trouble scrolling through the character but luckily this has loosened up with use. At first I was a bit disappointed that the phone only plays a snippet of the theme song, but as we already have a van and helicopter that plays the theme song I have come to see this as a good thing! The phone has low level volume so that it can be listened to next to the ear without damaging little eardrums, which also means it isn't too irritating when Little Man decides to press the same button over and over again.

The phone is chunky and robust and has survived several temper tantrums and adventures in the garden without more than a few light surface scratches. It comes with a plastic holster so that it can be worn on clothes, but as it is quite large and rigid I found this restrictive on Little Man as he is so dinky, so we have not really used it. The phone requires 2 x AA batteries which go under a screwed on panel at the back. It comes with Try Me batteries, but ours are still going strong after 4 months so we have not yet changed them.

For the price I think the phone is really good value and little man enjoys using it as part of pretend play. Yes it has limited functionality, and it still hasn't stopped him preferring Dad's Iphone, but it was still a great buy for us and I'd recommend it to any fans of Pat.