VTech’s New InnoTab 2 Review

VTech has made improvements to their InnoTab with the release of their new InnoTab 2! Now, the system includes a 5″ touch screen and features a tilt sensor, photo viewer, video player, MP3 music player, e-reader, art studio, microphone and more! It comes preloaded with an ebook, art studio app, and two games to get you started. Plus, it features an onboard 2GB memory that can be expanded with a separate SD card that can hold a card up to 32GB. The InnoTab 2 is geared for children ages 3-9 and is great for on the go, too!

My boys love an tech toys they can get their hands on and couldn’t wait to try out the new VTech InnoTab 2! My 6 and 4 year old boys were both able to pick up the system and easily figure out how to navigate and operate the system. It has been very easy for them to operate on their own giving them independence to play and learn on their own. They both love the games that make them tilt and interact with the system. As a parent, I love the games that are educational and fun at the same time to teach skills like math, rhyming, reading, logic, and more! My boys have also had a lot of fun with the camera which has a really neat design allowing it to rotate forward or back facing letting them take all sorts of pictures of their world. The art studio includes some preloaded fun game pages like dot-to-dot drawings and mazes that my kids LOVE completing! I’ve also found them using the kick stand to hold up the InnoTab 2 for easier use without having to hold the tablet all the time. It was easy to transfer over music files from our computer right into the system giving my children instant access to lots of great kids music! The InnoTab 2 is also very portable and great for entertaining on the go for road trips and long drives. We let my son play on his drive home from school as we have a bit of a commute each day as a reward for good behavior.

The one thing I was extremely disappointed to find out is that the downloadable game titles are NOT cross-compatible with any of their other gaming systems. When I was browsing the game titles for our InnoTab2 and our MobiGo 2, I saw many of the same titles and thought they would be a great purchase to download and install for both of my boys gaming systems. However, after purchasing 8 titles and trying to transfer them, I quickly discovered that despite the FAQ’s and confusing set up of having the same games, the games will NOT transfer to both different systems. This was extremely frustrating to me as a parent who now owns two systems that will have to have completely separate purchase for all games. If you go with the VTech gaming systems for your children, be sure to buy identical units to avoid added expenses for download games and cartridges.

The new InnoTab 2 retails at the same price as the previous model, just $79.99, and with the great additional features this is a solid unit at a good price. The download games are also very inexpensive, most at $4.99 each.

Disclosure: I participated in a campaign on behalf of Mom Central Consulting for VTech. I received product samples to facilitate my review.