…did not win the race with our testers.  i-Turtle is the latest from Hasbro’s interactive line of iPod speaker/toys. Our 8 year old tester was really excited to test i-Turtle and at first really liked the Apple-inspired all white design. One of our 8 year old also felt the toy was not “babyish”….ok, let’s all take a collective sigh.  While the varying moods of i-Turtle interested our tester, she was disappointed with all of the blinking lights and “neediness” of the toy.  They also reported that the noise the turtle makes when it’s shifting gears interfered with their ability to listen to the music.  It has now been relegated to take its position as the “iStatue”–a silent statue at that! Another tester, really wanted i-Turtle to just play the music without moving so much.  He suggested that there should be a no-motion/lights button.

I loved that it tapped it’s foot to the music and the light show to be reminiscent of Close Encounters…but ultimately the sound of the mechanism moving does take away from your listening pleasure  and we thought the quality of the toy as a speaker was not very good.