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This review is 100% my own opinion and sponsored only by myself.

I first experienced the Crayola Slick Stixs at a toddler playgroup my son and I attended. They were learning about the letter Z and coloring some Zebras. I was there, playing with and also enjoying some new kinds of art supplies, while I attempted to keep my son from painting his neighbor.

Then I picked up a slick stix and ran it across the paper. Then again. It was like magic. Ha. It was so smooth and the color was vibrant I felt like I was coloring with lip stick. I loved it! I ended up coloring a good portion of my sons neglected zebra just because these crayon/markers were so interesting to use…

And then I went home, hoped on Amazon and bought us a set. I feel like they are fairly expensive (they end up being about a $1/piece, so $5 for the set of 5 and $12/for the 12 pack) but in my opinion they are worth it. Suddenly coloring time with my son was also coloring time for mom and it’s funny but coloring with these crayons felt relaxing in a similar way to painting, they stick to the paper and slide, you’re left with a super bright colorful spaces. Pretty much they are just fun.

I love coloring with them and when our 5 pack was used up I splurged and got the 12 pack, however there are a few set backs. First, they are pretty expensive for a crayon in my book, second if you don’t have the lid on them they will dry out and lose their lipstick like feeling, though they will still color. Third, they smear, at least right after they’ve been put to paper, which meant after coloring time my son needed his hands washed from touching the paper and I needed to make sure he didn’t lean on the art work while it was still freshly done, after an hour or two of sitting the Slick Stix art work seemed to dry and smearing was less of a problem.

Pros:

The Feel Amazing to Draw With, Like Coloring with Lip Stick
They are Super Bright
They Glide
They are Fun for Adults and Children to Color With
You Can Feel A Lot of White Space Quickly (This Could Also Be A Con)
They Show Up Really Good on Craft Paper

Cons:

Expensive
Can Dry Out
Smear When Wet

Have you tried these before? What are you thoughts? Awesome or not worth the price/mess?

This review is 100% my own opinion and is not sponsored by Vtech or anyone but myself.

I first started seeing the Inno Tab when I was really into entering blog giveaways sometime around Thanksgiving of 2014. I think that the VTech Company must have been working hard to promote it before Christmas because there were a ton of different blogs with reviews and giveaways going on at about that time.

The more I looked at the reviews and read about the product the more interested I became. I knew that my family would be spending half the day flying home to our extended families over Christmas and the though of flying with a nearly two year old lap child was daunting. I needed something new that would keep him entertained for at least some of the trip.

The more reviews I saw and the more I looked at this tablet (it had had kid safe WiFi, kid friendly games, ebooks, videos, a camera, and video camera) the more interested I became. This toy looked awesome.

I weighed the pros and cons of a VTech vs. a regular tablet, but the kid friendliness was just so appealing to me. When I didn’t win any of the giveaways I entered I eventually decided it would be worth my traveling sanity to buy one.

I bought one and before we flew out I tried to get it set up to maximize its usefulness. The first thing I wanted on it were videos. We have a bunch of family videos my son was mesmerized by and I wanted a few of those on the Inno Tab. I plugged it in and attempted to move over some of the videos, but it didn’t seem to matter what format I had them in (I have Bachelor Degree in Digital Media, converting video formats is 100% within my scope of knowledge) I could not get the videos to load or be recognized. I ended up spending way to much time and reading forum after forum to try to find a way to get personal videos on this thing and the task seemed akin to climbing Mount Everest. I ended up feeling super disappointed and giving up, video play had been one of my main reasons for buying the thing.

Next I got onto their Learning Lodge to start adding some of the Kid Friendly games to the Tab. There were a handful that came preloaded, such as a magic bean stock game, an art pad, a type pad etc., and with purchase of the device you were given a few credits to download additional games. It looked like they had a number of great games sorted by both topic and relevant ages and they cost between $3-5 to download per/game. They also had a ton of character driven games (popular disney and TV characters) and these were a lot more expensive, $7-15/game.

I downloaded my free three and we set off on our adventure.

Now the real fun started. The VTech was fairly slow to load up, but my toddler didn’t really care. It came with a stylus which was a little hard for my two year old to use but he did a decent job. He enjoyed moving through the different icons and used the Vtech Inno Tab similar to how he uses my smart phone. Then we got to playing the games. I had downloaded a Tracing ABC Game (Letter Pooch), a puzzle Game, and a Grab the Letter type game.

My son had played lots of tracing ABC games on my phone and I was excited about this one because it was lower case letters. We opened it and he started playing it, but for the life of him he could not complete the letter. The Inno Tab or maybe the game, was completely unforgiving, you either tracked the letter 100% completely correct, with a not very sensitive stylus, or you started over. He got frustrated with it after a few tries and asked me to help. I leaned over to comply and was honestly amazed that as an adult with adult like understanding and coordination I struggled to complete the different letters. It was really annoying to me and made me wonder if the people who created this game had ever user tested it, since it worked so incredibly poorly.

In the end I felt fairly dissatisfied with most of the games. There wasn’t much to them, they went fast or slow or ended after five rounds. And the only games the Inno Tab can have on them are game created specifically for the Inno Tab. I guess I had gotten used to and comfortable with getting on the Goggle Play or Apple stores and downloading great Apps for free. Such was not going to be the case with this device.

With all that said my son still likes playing with it. He likes the handful of games I’ve put on it, and being able to use it without mom’s supervision. The video camera and camera are fun, though really low resolution. If you have multiple children there are up to four different accounts you can set up on the device so they can each have their own stuff. The Inno Tab can be set up to track their play results and report back to mom and dad which may be a nice thing for older children who are using for education (?).

My feelings are that this was overpriced (about $65) and disappointing. I wish I had spent that money on getting my son a cheap tablet instead. One where there are thousands of toddler friendly games available to download for free, one that can play any video I choose, and one that is sensitive enough that it will respond to a toddlers chubby fingers. For now I turn off the WiFi on my tablet and let him use it when we’re in a pinch.

VTech Inno Tab 3S

Pros: