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Simply plug the console into your TV, pop in a Smartridge and let the gaming adventures begin. It includes a joystick that is adaptable for right- or left-hand play, as well as the V.Smile console. The joystick is easy to use and features a chunky enter key, so little hands can guide their games with ease.

Backwards-compatible with original Smartridges, plus works with new Smartridges, too. Requires 4 "AA" batteries, not included. Measures 5" x 16" x 13". Smartridges sold separately.

Amazon.com Product Description Finally, a video game system that parents can feel good about! With children asking for video games at younger and younger ages, the VTech V.Smile TV Learning System is designed to make makes both kids and parents happy, combining entertainment and education with age-appropriate games and activities. Designed especially for kids ages three to eight, this learning system even offers different levels of play, allowing the educational output to grow along with the children.

Kid-Friendly Features
With an included A/V adapter, the V.Smile hooks up directly to televisions, requiring no additional equipment. Built for small hands, the innovative joystick controller adjusts to accommodate both right- and left-handed users and features four flashing buttons and an oversized enter button. The joystick even has a stylus and writing pad for writing activities to teach proper letter stroke order. With a spot for a second joystick, kids can invite their friends over for two-player game play. The V.Smile also comes with a microphone for sing-a-long fun.

Learning Made Fun
A unique alternative to other systems, the V.Smile is built inside and out with young children in mind. The games build skills in spelling, logic, counting, problem solving, phonics, and vocabulary. Kids have so much fun with the V.Smile that they don't even realize how much they're developing their minds in language, science and math.

The games -- called "Smartridges" -- feature popular favorite characters like Scooby Doo, Dora, Thomas, and Shrek. Each Smartridge includes four or five additional learning zone games aimed at improving specific scholastic skills. This system comes bundled with one Smartridge. A wide selection of games are available separately and are organized into three levels of educational play: Early Learners (ages 3-5), Junior Thinkers (ages 4-6) and Master Minds (ages 6-8). With this range of educational output, children can advance to new games as they learn and grow. The Smartridges play in both the V.Smile TV Learning System and the handheld Pocket V.Smile.

What's in the Box
V.Smile TV Learning System, one Smartridge, joystick, microphone holder, A/V adaptor, and manual.

With an included A/V adapter, the V.Smile game system hooks up directly to televisions.

Innovative joystick controller adjusts to accommodate both right- and left-handed users.

Each Smartridge includes four or five additional learning zone games aimed at improving specific scholastic skills.

Customer Reviews

V Smile TV Posted 02 February 2008
This has been a good alternative to the other more expensive video games out there. The games are kid friendly and with 2 controllers two kids can play together. For the price I think this is a good entertainment system. I gave it 4 stars because we did have a problem with the first console and had to buy another, but the first one did last more than a year. So the quality is not great but we already had so many games it was worth buying another console.

Guess they weren't thinking when they made this... Posted 29 January 2008
People don't always wanna hear the great things so I'm just going to tell you out there in Amazonland what I feel is wrong with this system:

1)Didn't come with batteries or the Adapter

Why they felt the need to not to have a power cord or included the Adapter to begin with is beyond me, especially for something used by children who will forget to turn things off, play with it non-stop, etc. At the very least they could have included some cheap batteries with it, so those opening it on Christmas Day could play with it.

2)Games are mislabeled agewise

Ages 4-6? We like to think that the child who uses this is of at least average intelligence. He knows his colors, letters, numbers, etc. but some of these games were just over his head. Daddy had to show him how to do half the games and many of the activities required "coaching". More like Age 6. And I think some of the things should be explained. In one of the games it had something about odd and even numbers. It should explain what these are and THEN let them play to see if they get it.

3)Games are hard to take out and change

For the 4 year old who wants to switch games constantly it's always, "I want a new game now!!" yelled through the house. They're hard for me and Daddy to take out, more or less a 4 or 5 year old. I used to have a Super NES back in the day - all you had to do was lightly hit a button and it would pop out. Maybe they should try that instead of the yank it out method they have.

4)Sounds ARE garbled, as someone else mentioned

Our 4-year-old kept repeating this phrase and when asked where he heard it and what it meant he said, "I don't know, it's in my game." He repeated it several times and I finally figured it out and told him what it probably was. I thought maybe this was 4-year-old misunderstanding until I sat to watch him play and heard how cruddy the sound is when they are saying stuff.


All that said, he enjoys it and does find it fun. So I guess that's what counts, but some common sense in designing it would be nice too.

VTech V.Smile vs Leapfrog Clickstart Posted 28 January 2008
Electronics are evolving into pretty much every area of life, and that includes Early Learning. Apart from PC software, and stand-alone toys, a new approach follows the `games console' line: a console that you can hook up to your television so your little one can play games that will teach him or her counting, the alphabet, and the basic reading/writing/'rithmetic. Whether this approach actually `works', in terms of teaching children the basics, remains to be seen - it's too early for any useful research evidence.

Two of the front-runners in this evolution are the V.Smile from VTech, and the Clickstart `First Computer' from Leapfrog. Both are fairly cheap plastic battery-powered consoles pitched at 3- to 6/8-year-olds; both come with initial free software, and have a range of additional software available as cartridges, mostly themed on popular cartoon/comic characters (Disney, Thomas the Tank Engine, Superman etc). Unable to decide which (if either) of these might be helpful for our three-year-old boy, we decided to buy both and try them out. This is what we found.

The V.Smile is slightly more expensive (AU$119 for the console, plus AU$40 per software cartridge). It seems like the better machine in a lot of respects. There is a much wider range of software (about 30 cartridges available), catering from 3-to-5-year-olds up to 6-to-8-year-olds. It looks better engineered: sound output can be in stereo; there is a built-in compartment for storing your cartridges; there is a microphone (which we haven't used yet); and, although battery-powered (4 x AA), you can also run it off the mains - though, somewhat annoyingly, you have to buy a separate AC adapter. The user manual leaflet is somewhat better than that of its competitor, though both are adequate and both systems were quite easy to set-up without the manual.

However, its appearance gives the game away for the V.Smile: it looks like a cartoon version of a Playstation, and the interface is joystick-based (one supplied, with the option to add a second). It is first and foremost a games console, and the software confirms this: the activities are essentially `platform games' (think Donkey Kong or Super Mario), with a fairly thin serving of word/number/pattern/colour recognition thrown in. It was readily apparent that the main entertainment lay in manoeuvring, jumping, and evading hazards, and the basics of this were beyond our three-year-old at his first sitting; in contrast, the puzzles shown (`which one is the apple?' `pick the red circle' etc) posed little or no challenge to him at all. Although he had great fun (with Daddy's help), I'm not sure he learnt anything at all in an hour's test run.

The Clickstart got off to a poorer start, despite being a bit cheaper (AU$98 for the console, and AU$31.50 per cartridge). For openers, it's packaged in that annoying wire-and-sticky-tape fashion that takes at least half-an-hour to get out of the box and generally requires destroying a substantial amount of the packaging. There seem to be only six software cartridges available, aiming up to 6-year-olds. It does have the big advantage of being cordless, relying on an infra-red transmitter rather like your remote. We thought this might be a problem for our projector (being behind the child, as opposed to a TV screen in front of them), but it proved to be no problem at all unless someone stood in front of the IR receiver - presumably the IR signal is reflected from the wall. However, this does also mean that there are two components each requiring batteries (4 x AA and 4 x C), with no option for an AC adapter.

But - and it's a big but - the Clickstart is quite clearly based on a computer, not a games console. The interface is a QWERTY keyboard, with a simple one-button mouse; it can register different `users', if you have more than one child; and the home screen is a simplistic `point-and-click' GUI. A cute puppy called Scout is your guide to the system (and our boy LOVES puppies). The built-in games are more varied in format, and richer in content, than those of the V.Smile; they focus on developing both conceptual skills (numbers, letters, shapes, colours etc) and interface skills (how to use a keyboard and mouse). Even with no keyboard skills at all, our three-year-old could still have a grand time pressing random keys to collect alphabetical fruit or bring up phonetic-linked pictures. But by the end of an hour or so, he was starting to recognise individual digits (`press the 8 key'), and was getting the hang of the mouse. The cartridge games we tried were somewhat more `platform'-like, but with less emphasis on tricky manoeuvring and more emphasis on picking the right shape/number/colour, and some counting. The cartridge graphics seem to have come from the 1980s, but our three-year-old could recognise Buzz and Woody and Emperor Zurg and that was good enough for him! And whereas the V.Smile cartridges are each pitched at a specific age range, the Clickstart games and cartridges each contain different levels for different age groups - making up to some degree for the fact that there are fewer of them.

So my vote goes to the Clickstart, simply because it aims to be an educational toy computer rather than an educational games console; and (on the basis of a short test run), it actually seems to achieve some education. On the other hand, for an older child who's already hooked on video games, the V.Smile probably stands a better chance of getting their attention, and perhaps keeping it with the older-age-group cartridges and two-player options. I'm still not convinced that either of these systems is really the best way to teach children their numbers and letters; and I realise that nothing will take the place of hours of input from an enthusiastic adult. But I'd much rather see my toddler having fun with a keyboard than a joystick, particularly if that's going to set any sort of pattern for the future.