VTech Alphabet Activity Cube

My 11mo. old daughter loves her cube, particularly the musical side with "piano" keys. It has 13 blocks with letters that can be inserted into a square, which then names the letter and has a fun tune to go along with it. It's fun, very durable, and a toy that she always goes back to on a daily basis.

My only problem, and a large problem for our family, is that the toy has bad grammar! Yes, you read it, they programmed the toy with incorrect English. For instance, our biggest pet peeve, is the letter "O." When "O" is inserted the toy says, "This be the letter 'O'." For some families, I'm sure this is not a big deal. For the daughter of two teachers, this is a problem.

I would still purchase the cube for the hours of entertainment it provides and musical playtime. The larger looming question for me: How have our standards slipped this far when it comes to language and communication, particularly in the area of a children's teaching tool?

My daughter was given this for her 1st birthday and she loves to dance to the music and play with the blocks. Unfortunately when placing the block in the space for it to tell you what letter is, it doesn't state the correct letter! H is I and so forth! Not to mention the "this BE the letter _" it's horrible to think that she would be repeating that. I don't have the receipt since it was a gift and when I called VTEC they wanted me to send this HUGE toy to them and pay the shipping. I don't get how I should have to pay to replace a toy that is defective! It might end up in the trash!!!

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I have just bought this for my one year old. He really loves it and it keeps him entertained for quite some time. It is a lovely, colourful toy which seems to be quite durable. I also love its size as we are short on space in my house so its quite compact and fits away nicely when my son is gone off to bed, meaning that my sitting room is not over run with toys.

However I do have one issue with the product. I am a teacher, specialising with young children who experience difficulty with reading and writing. So when I over heard the Learning Cube telling my son that the letter 't' was the letter 'p' and made a 'p' sound I wasn't too impressed. I even double checked it a number of times to make sure I had heard it right.

I have always been happy and impressed with Vtech toys and have always thought they were good value for money. Its just a shame they can't tell their 't's from their 'p's!!!! : {

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This toy is great, my 8 month old uses it to stand as long as it's on the carpet, non carpeted floors it slides... It's also easy to carry, the bead chaser makes an excellent handle so you can carry it while holding your baby... My baby girl plays with this alot, it has two settings and one of the if you press the keys will play consecutive notes in a children's songs, so instead of hearing random keys being smashed you hear twinkle twinkle little star or entertainer or there's a few different ones... I really like that, makes it not annoying... When you put a letter block in it will say I am the letter __ or it's me the letter O, not this be the letter O smh... and as for the t and p mix up, I mean come on it's a computer voice, geeze, it's your job to teach your child how to make the ta and pa sounds anyway, not the toy's... This product is really cool... My daughter and I enjoy it...

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As has been noted, the block reader often announced the wrong letter. I verified that every one of the toys on the shelf at the local store did the same, so it's a company problem not a defective unit. But VTech, like so many offshore companies, doesn't care. The email address for technical help, given with the toy and on their website, isn't active, and a call to them brought only, "I'll report it to the proper department," plus a claim that they weren't aware of the problem. But I found it within ten seconds of turning on the toy, so even the most cursory of acceptance tests by the company quality assurance department, before the toy went into manufacture, would have found this.

Perhaps this is simply one of the dangers of having people who speak Chinese design toys for English speakers, but whatever the cause, it's unforgivable to charge that much money and then deliver a toy that does mis-educates our children.

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