iTeddy

You may have seen an episode of Dragons Den on BBC2 last year in which a teddy bear with a built in screen and MP3 player had been designed. The idea of downloading bedtime stories, games and music for kids to enjoy was obviously a hit because the iTeddy has now been released - probably just in time for the christmas period.

Smarter than your average teddy bear, the cutsie toy comes in either Brown or White and wears a bright orange t-shirt which when lifted reveals the built in LCD screen in iTeddy’s tummy.

I think pre-school children will love it, although adults may be wary of introducing their youngsters to too much, too early. It reminds me a little of the original interactive story-telling bear called Teddy Ruxpin which has been around for years and is a firm favourite of kids and their parents.

The idea behind the iTeddy is that it is an educational toy and will help children of 3 years and over, learn whilst they play. It will also be a form of entertainment and allow them to watch cartoons and videos, store and look at their own photographs, listen to stories, play games and join in with singing songs and nursery rhymes and is designed to be simple enough for a child to use.

iTeddy comes complete with built-in screen and speakers, a USB cable, 512MB of memory as well as an SD memory expansion slot, rechargeable batteries and a detachable media player with a belt clip.

Love it or hate it, I predict it will be a winner.

At the moment it is only available from everyone’s favourite catalogue store, Argos but I reckon this will be short-lived when everybody else will want a piece of the action.

Buy iTeddy in brown or white for £59.95 from Argos

£59.95

at Argos