SWINX Box With Accolades

Swinxs is a new interactive game console that is designed to get any number of children and adults up, moving, and thinking.  And, in this reviewer’s opinion, it truly deserves all the accolades it has received since it was introduced in the United States (including those from National Parenting Publications Awards, Creative Child Magazine toy of the year and the National Parenting Center seal of approval).

Out Of the Box

Swinxs is an interactive gaming console that can be used indoors or outdoors. While you might be hesitant to have kids play with it outside, the running and sillyness that happens with Swinx is perfect for outdoor play.

Styling? This Y-shaped, apple-colored unit is lightweight, but sturdy and stable. The shape, size and weight makes it easy to carry, even for little hands.

Kid’s computing usually comes in a few varieties, but often a kid’s first real computer is a hand-me-down PC from Mom or Dad. While there have been plenty of cheap laptop, desktop and Netbook solutions on the market that can be made to work for kids; Disney has taken an interesting approach, totally customizing an Asus Eee Netbook. Their re-defined Netbook, called the Disney Netpal, offers many enhancements designed for kids that are both cosmetic and designed for Internet safety.

The Netpal comes in two fun colors, Princess Pink or Magic Blue. The exterior shells are well made and immediately give kids the feeling that this is a big kid’s computer, not a toy and not a 5 year-old laptop from Dad that has worn off letter keys and bagel crumbs in the keyboard. The unit, while not technically ruggedized, is very sturdy and should be able to handle the day-to-day life of being a kid’s computer. There’s a spill proof keyboard for instance, to help guard against the mistaken splash or spill.

The design of the camera is true to LeapFrog’s standards, it looks almost exactly like their Leapster2 portable gaming machine. The exterior is textured a bit, so it feels good in the in hand, and is grippy too, so it’s less likely to slip out of a child’s grasp. To get started parents will need to add the batteries, but after that, kids are good on their own.

The camera features four buttons, all of which our test kids figured out either on their own, or with a little coaching. But largely kids were able to operate the camera independently, which is nice.

When taking shots kids can either use the display, or the viewfinder. The camera is fixed focus, the manual recommends trying to take pictures at a distance of 5 feet. Of course this is virtually impossible to manage with kids. The screen displays the number of shots remaining and the battery status, so kids get an honest replica of what an adult camera feels like, which is a nice touch. There’s also a flash, with indicator, that can be turned to auto or off. This sounds like a small thing, but the last several cameras we’ve seen have offered no such controls.

Another great thing which can be turned off are most of the sound effects. While it’s fun that the camera encourages kids with statements like “Great Shot,” when your child runs around the house and rattles off 100 in a row, it gets a little old. We did notice though that the muting isn’t remembered after you turn the camera off and back on.

The other adjustment is resolution. There are three settings that let you control shot resolution. The highest setting is 1600×1280, though it goes down to 640×480 if you’re more concerned about the number of pictures the camera can hold. The camera saves it’s photos to 8MB of internal memory. There is a serious issue here though, the memory is RAM, which means that when the camera loses power, the photos are gone. So parents need to copy the pictures to a computer before changing batteries and before the batteries die. I’m not entirely sure why Sakar went this route, but it’s not kid friendly.

Aside form taking photos, kids can view their photos in slideshow mode on the camera’s screen. It’s also possible to delete photos in this mode to get rid of shots that kids don’t want.

Once the photos get transferred to the computer, kids can go to work with editing software that lets them do the basics like crop and resize. There’s also a bunch of overlays they can add and games to play. The software is pretty well done and could probably stand on its own as a first photo editor for kids. It’s definitely a highlight of this package.

In the end though, it’s all about photo quality. While most kid’s camera companies don’t want to hear this, our test kids always want to see their photos afterward. 9 times out of 10 they’re disappointed because kid’s cameras do such a bad job of taking even decent pictures.

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Christmas is fast approaching, the trees and decorations are going up and everybody is shopping like mad to get all the presents they need for Christmas day. If you need an idea for a boy’s gift this year then the Cyberman Voicechanger Helmet could be the perfect solution. The cheapest I could find the toy is £29.99 from lxdirect.com which is quite reasonable compared to the price other stores are selling it for.

The Cyberman Voicechanger Mask is a replica Cyberhead from the Doctor Who series and has three buttons that all have different functions, one plays phrases spoken by the Cyberman, another changes your own voice to the tones of the Cyberman and the final button makes weapon sound effects. For Doctor Who fans this is the perfect gift and could be a great toy to play tricks on the family at Christmas. The Toy Retailers Association have placed this as one of their ‘Top Toys 2006’ and it is set to be one of the most popular Christmas gifts this year.