LeapFrog My Pal Scout

Product Details

My Pal Scout Ages: 6 to 36 months Requires: 3 "AAA" batteries (included)

What We Think Fun factor: Durability: Educational factor: Novelty factor: The Good: Interactive toy can be personalized to your child's preferences. The Challenging: You'll need to use a computer to access new melodies and print activity sheets. In a Nutshell: An entertaining companion for kids from infant to toddler stage.

An ideal companion for a young child, My Pal Scott sings, talks, and can even learn your child's name. View larger.

Using the doll's USB port, you can personalize Scott to suit your child's preferences. View larger.

Soft Material with Bright Colors and Pleasing Voice
My Pal Scout, with its plush fabric and colorful puppy design, is appealing to children. The voice of Scout, a playful and upbeat young boy's, is fun and engaging for growing minds. Infants are also attracted to the name tag that lights up when Scout speaks or plays music. The name tag is made of durable plastic, and the new model features paws with embroidered symbols instead of decals so there are no removable pieces on the toy's exterior.

Your child can chew on this sturdy toy's ears or toss it around. My Pal Scout is light enough for even the youngest child to hold and carry. The handy Velcro closure keeps the battery compartment, USB port, and power/volume switch securely inside the toy. The switch has three settings: normal volume, quiet volume, and master off. In the "master off" mode, Scout will not operate when the paws are pressed, so only parents will be able to turn the toy back on. My Pal Scout's speakers are also inside the toy and provide balanced sound.

Advice for parents: when My Pal Scout starts to sound distorted, parents will need a screwdriver to open the battery compartment and change the 3 "AAA" batteries.

Music, Words, and Lullabies
Each paw on My Pal Scout is embroidered with a different symbol that, when pressed, turns on a special feature. The right arm paw with a ball symbol provides snappy sentences designed to help your child learn different emotions, colors, and words. The left arm paw features music notes; when pressed you hear a 15-second, upbeat song. The songs rotate randomly and include seven vocal songs to teach skills and three fun instrumental tunes.

Younger infants will be attracted to the melodies, while older toddlers can sing along. The right foot has a stars/moon symbol for five different selections of soothing music for naps or bedtime. Press it once for two minutes of music, or press it twice for five minutes of songs. If your child wants a little extra time with My Pal Scout before falling asleep, you can press the paw three times to hear ten minutes of music.

Parents can use the songs that come pre-loaded on My Pal Scout or change the songs by connecting to the LeapFrog Connect application. It's easy to turn off My Pal Scout by simply pressing the left foot's on/off switch; push any of the other paws to resume play mode.

Personalize for Your Child
A special feature of My Pal Scout is the ability to customize your child's experience. The instruction booklet will guide you through the easy process to connect My Pal Scout to a computer with the USB cord and download the LeapFrog Connect application. All it takes is 25 megabytes of free space on your computer and about 15 minutes to personalize the toy with your child's preferences. You'll be able to search for your child's name among a database of thousands. When selected, My Pal Scout will use your child's name in phrases such as "I love you" and incorporate his/her name into songs.

The application also allows you to choose your child's favorite color, animal, and food to personalize Scout's phrases to your child's favorite things. There's a resource section for printing activity sheets that your toddler will enjoy. Also, you can switch up the songs and lullabies so they're constantly fresh and different. The database is updated regularly with new songs.

The only drawback: if your child has a very uncommon name, there's a slim chance that it will not be in the LeapFrog database. However, you can choose one of many nicknames that you may call your child, such as "Munchkin" or "Peanut."

What's in the Box
One My Pal Scout toy, three "AAA" batteries, one USB cable, Quick Connect Guide and Parent Instructions booklet.

Product Reviews

(5 stars) - It's Sort of Like My Young Son's I-Pod!
This review is for; LeapFrog My Pal Scout

I bought Scout for my young son with the interesting fact that it can be customized with my son's name via an internet-accessed computer. I was satisfied that my son's name was included in the very large selection of names available (some with alternate pronunciations) from the software downloaded in the Leap Frog website. Nicknames can also be chosen if you prefer. From the downloaded-software you must also select your child's favorite food, animal & color. Favorite selections that are incorporated later in Scout's conversational dialogue & songs sung.

Scout has three primary functions on each of his three paws and the fourth paw has a power-off function (colored red) although Scout powers off on his own on sleep mode during inactivity. All dialogue is pre-recorded from a young child's voice & his collar lights up intermittingly.

The fun paw with the balloons is a series of dialogue interaction with your child such as guessing games or simple dialogue like "Hi Darren" (my son's name), "Do you want to play Darren?" or "I love you Darren".

The paw with the green musical notes are daytime, fun songs. If Scout is personalized with your child's name, the song will incorporate your child's name. Some of the songs have lyrics and some are only instrumental. I personally like the songs with lyrics and I wish there were more of them. From the downloaded software you have up to 30 songs to choose from, but you can only add 5 at a time and all of the songs you download are instrumental (no lyrics).

The paw with the blue night-time symbol are collection of night time songs. Like the other musical paw you can download up to 30 songs to choose from, but you can only download 5 at a time. Like the daytime songs, all the night-time songs you down-load are instrumental (no lyrics). Press the night-time paw once & you get two minutes of music. Press it twice and the music lasts five minutes long. Press it three times and the music lasts ten minutes long. Nice!

Overall, Scout has a very, soft, outer body for the child to carry or hug. If you don't have access to a computer, Scout is still enjoyable with the already programmed phrases & songs already included, but far more potential is reached if you can personalize it with an internet-accessed computer. The included USB cable is very short as many others have complained about, but was long enough for my laptop. I have longer USB cables from other electronic devices I have around the house that will also work with this toy in case I need longer ones.

My only concern is what is going to happen when my young son ever figures out how to open the Velcro-back that conceals the plastic box covering the electronics and where your install the three AA batteries via screws? I'll just worry about that later, but for now it is a real pleasure for him to enjoy! I highly recommend this one, especially for the very, low price!

PRODUCT RECALL FOR EARLIER MODELS!!! Around May & June of 2009 a limited number of Scout toys were sold with printed decals on the paws instead of embroided symbols. The decals were later discovered to be removable and presented a choking hazard to young children, so if you have purchased either Leapfrog's Scout or Violet (the purple version featuring a young girl's voice) with the decals on the paws, please return it to the store you bought it from or it can be exchanged directly with Leap Frog for the corrected, embroided paws. I posted pictures of the paws above.

(5 stars) - 3 year old loves it
I have a three year old son who just loves this puppy. We programed the puppy and my son lights up every time he hears his name. He even answers the puppy when he talks. Puppy (that is what my son calls him) will ask Brenden if he wants to play and my son says "yes", when puppy says Hi Brenden my son will say "hi". Just love it, puppy goes every where with him. Since my son has a not very popular name, this toy is awesome in saying his name. Even though the toy is rated for age 6 months to 36 months, my son is almmost 39 months old and loves this toy. Great Price too!

The usb cord is short but not a problem with plugging into the laptop. Since it is only used to program the puppy, it's not a big problem.

I would like to hear more songs with words rather then just a beat. The do spell out the child's name in a song and would be better if they repeated the name at the end of it, but my son still loves it. The puppy says snuggle a lot and would be better if the puppy would say hug instead. My three year old didn't fully understand the snuggling part, but he is catching on quickly.

I am going to buy a few more for my younger nephews, since it is such a big hit with my son and both of my nephews have uncommon names too! So this will be a great christmas gift. LeapFrog My Pal Scout

(5 stars) - His Favorite Toy!!!
Scout is a really great toy. It's so cool that you can plug it into the computer and put your childs name, favorite food, favorite color and select which songs you like best for it to play. This is a really fun toy. The voice is pleasant and easy to listen to. We have other toys that are painful to hear over and over again.

Scouts songs that he sings are pretty cool. He add's in personalizations that you program into him and it's fun for all ages. He started really enjoying Scout at 10 weeks. They say this toy is for six month old kids or older. Not so get it early they really have fun with this one!

(4 stars) - Not bad
Pros:
1. My 3 month old is drawn to the flashing light on the dog collar that flashes as Scout speaks or sings.
2. The voice is easy on the ears
3. Easy to haul around, great entertainment in the car!

Cons:
1. Very few songs to select from online
2. Only the leapfrog created songs have lyrics. All other songs just contain the melody. Melodies include twinkle twinkle little star, ABC, Muffin Man

(4 stars) - cut and cuddly
I agree with other reviewers, not much to complain about for a customizable toy for under $20.00.

PROS:
1) One of the songs Scout sings is really super cute. It's the one that incorporates your child's favorites. When I sing along with Scout my son giggles, it's so darn adorable.

2) I have a glowworm that plays nighttime music for like 15 seconds, not long enough. Scout plays up to 10 minutes - GREAT FEATURE!

3) Scout is very soft and huggable.

4) When my son recognizes his name I'm sure he'll appreciate it more, but for now, it's just, well, cool to hear his name come from a toy. Gotta love technology.

CONS:
1) You have to choose a favorite animal, color and food during set up. He's six months old - I don't think he has favorites at this point, and if he did, how am I supposed to know what they are?....so I just put in any old thing for now. When I want to change them, I have to plug Scout in and download new options. It should just have all the colors and foods and animals programmed in instead of "What's your favorite?".

2) There is a pretty bad inflection at the end of my son's name (Christian). I have not tried putting other names in there to see what they sound like, but his sounds a little weird.

3) "Let's sing a song about you". Hmm, well, all it does is spell his name with a funky beat behind it. He seems to like it though.

Overall my son seems to like Scout a lot. When he hears his voice he immediately looks for him and smiles when he finds him. The things I don't like about it really don't matter because the toy is not for me, it's for my son and he likes it just fine. For the price, a definite buy.

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