Pleo Dinosaur - A UGOBE Life Form

Pleo Dinosaur - A UGOBE Life FormI bought Pleo the Dinosaur for my five-year-old grandson, who is a bit younger than the recommended age for this product. However, Pleo has been a huge hit, not only with the grandson to whom I gave the gift but also his three-year-old brother. Even we adults have enjoyed the little critter.The magic of Pleo is that he displays "emotions" depending on the emotions he receives. He'll coo, cuddle, curl up and go to sleep and generally interact the way a puppy would. He'll also get sad if you treat him poorly and angry if you really honk him off.Pleo arrives as an infant and evolves to toddler status. Coming software upgrades, made possible by a computer chip and USB connector, will presumably allow for more maturation in the future. The good news is, there's no need to housebreak, at least not unless the manufacturer "upgrades" Pleo's software in a most unusual way.While it remains to be seen if Pelo's hold on my grandchildren will quickly wear off, so far he has been captivating to them. I think the very life-like Pelo is a superb device for introducing young children to interacting with creatures that depend on them and trust them. In short, a good introduction to the far more complicated world of, say, owning a puppy.Despite price drops that allowed me to buy Pleo for a hundred dollars less than it would have cost me a year earlier, the toy is still a bit pricey for all but the most indulgent parents and grandparents. Nevertheless, it seems at this point to be money well spent.

[...]. I bought it as a birthday gift for my girlfriend's son. I knew it took 4 hours to charge so I unpacked it (Very nicely packed!) and charged the battery. I left and was gone all day (18 hours) and when I came home the battery and charger were good to go (no overheating or flashing lights that everyone was complaining about). I took the Pleo out of the wrapping and inserted the battery. I turned Pleo on and he awoke from sleeping. I had to keep petting him or he would fall back asleep. NOT EVEN 10 MINUTES this thing was walking around and making all kinds of noises. When you don't pay attention to him (petting) he will get upset and start yelling. He then will explore and if he is bored he will fall asleep. I then pet him and he woke up wagging his tail and started barking like a dog. I did this to ensure he worked and so my girlfriend's son did not have to wait 4 hours to play with him. I think it already has the updates installed because he started dancing too. Very fun toy to have and people have to realize he is just that....A TOY.... not a live dog, cat, pharrett, none of those things A TOY. and just like anything in life if you mistreat your toys and don't handle them properly they will break. Overall, still a very good gift to brighten any kid's day. I think my girlfriend's 6 year old son will love him. I would recommend this to anyone.

Pleo, or in our case Cleo (that's what my daughter named her Pleo) is definitelly cool. It's response to touch and being picked up and some of the sounds he makes are very entertaining.That said, there are a few drawbacks that should be mentioned:1. The battery life is very short. One hour of play, maybe. Now that's not that bad in terms of continuous play, after all I don't expect nor prefer my daughter to play with somehting like this for anywhere near a full contiunous hour, but in terms of user-required-maintenance it's almost like having a frekkin' dog... you might not have to walk pleo every day but you have to take his battery out and put it in the charger, otherwise your kid's desire to play with it the next day will have to be met with the constant "Cleo is sleeping"2. The videos for the toy either totally remove or vastly downplay Pleo's mechanical noise. It's not the end of the world, but I have to say I was a bit dismayed at just how mechanically noisy he is, after having watched the videos.3. Pleo's walking abilities are fairly limited. At least in our home. We have ceramic tile throughout, and an area of soft rubber-mats for the kids to play on ... Pleo is ridiculously slow (as in it appears to take him 4 steps to move as far as it would seem he should move in one step) on both surfaces. It almost looks as if he's doing a Michael Jackson-inspired forward moonwalk ... you know it's as if he takes 20 3-foot steps to walk 5 feet ;-)4. Pleo's skin wears significantly with very mild handling. This is acknowledged on Ugobe's siteOverall I would say the following:If the price paid for Pleo is minutia to you (it's not to me) then definitelly get it. The cool-aspects definitelly outclass the drawbacks. If you're more of a value-driven customer then I would suggest waiting for V2.0 when Ugobe will undoubtedly address some of the issues.For what it's worth I tried getting access to the downloadable Pleo personalities on Ugobe's site but they were never accessible when I tried. They may be now, I don't know.

We bought the $199 Pleo for our 7 year old daughter for Christmas. What a huge mistake and disappointment. After her initially being charmed by his babyish charm & good looks we were all extremely disappointed by the 5 min battery life and completely defunct programming. Even downloading the new software didn't improve his interactions and he simply stuttered on the same gurgling sounds over and over until his batter shut down which was about 3-5 mins with a full charge. Stroking him, the training leaf, nothing would cause him to do anything other than the stuttery gurgle.We all had super high hopes for Pleo and he was a huge let down. Thank God Amazon honors it's return policy, it is the reason I will buy from them without hesitation. Perhaps some day if we have more money than sense we'll try the new and improved Pleo for $300 but at this point it doesn't seem worth the hype for a toy that you can only interact with in hour long intervals at best.