it used to be that kids wanted to be astronauts and and doctors but now they
want to be twitch streamers or YouTubers so I guess it makes sense that the
market has been flooded with poisoned gadgets that cater to this aspiration
the question is are they all E-Waste or are some of them a great way to turn
your kid into the next Paul brother
because it turns out kids Tech is a lot more interesting than I expected here's
some pirated retro games running on a leapfrog educational gaming system and
oh how about this fully functional camera and green screen playset and look
at this thing yes that is Microsoft teams running on a hundred dollar Junior
tablet from VTEC look at this it can even run this Segway to our sponsor
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all at a price competitive to building a PC yourself check out build Redux at the
link below first up we've got the plan toys vlogger kit I really don't know how
I would feel about buying this for my children it includes a camera ring light
microphone and pack and a camera stand oh and I opened it upside down uh it's
just wood but it has a shutter button that you can
press uh oh a viewfinder you can look
through and a little mirror on the back to train you to be so into yourself
what else we got carry case is this as
funny as I think it is am I am I missing something here my microphone just put oh
wait there's oh there's no really there's no clip put it in the
pocket and all right well I'm a little shorter than a child a little okay there
we go and that's it I'm ready for my
daily Vlog this is a weird material how
are you gonna see yourself when you take it no way no way no way it has a flip up
display okay I could see this being kind
of fun for kids and it's not really that much dumber than a blender that doesn't
work though it is dumber than our next product
the kitty zoom Creator cam from VTEC is
a 5 megapixel digital camera that can record video in 720p has 256 megabytes
of internal storage and a Charming navigation sound that definitely won't
drive you crazy immediately
that's not bad picture and sound quality aren't the
best in the world they're about comparable to what you'd get with the built-in webcam and mic on a mid-range
laptop and the advertised Focus range is 1.5 feet the lens flips around oh cool I
feature reminiscent of the old perfume bottle-shaped Sony kw1 most cameras
these days opt for the screen to flip around but I guess on a camera where the
screen is more expensive than the camera it makes more sense to do it this way
even though that screen is more expensive than the camera by the way
that doesn't mean it's amazing the viewing angles are yeah
kind of usable vertically but this is definitely a TN panel so your mileage
may vary in order to save 720p video you'll need to make use of the micro SD
slot which only officially supports up to 32 gig cards but we were able to use
a 128 gig with no issues and the internal rechargeable battery lasts for
about 45 minutes to an hour of recording time though files are limited to two
gigabytes in size or around 13 minutes the included tripod attaches using a
standard quarter 20 screw so the camera can be held on a ton of different mounts
and while it's obviously not going to be comparable to a more expensive GoPro or
something like that the footage is usable the interface is simple and the
overall ruggedness of it means that I would actually
this in the hands of my kids look they were even smart enough to make the lens
not touchable with your fingers it's recessed genius the number of times I've
had to tell my kids don't touch the lens now you can't
yeah Disco Tree let's go look at me I'm
in a disco considering how little processing is in
this camera that is really good
what the heck is a Leapster Explorer and where was this when I was a kid it's a
cartridge based system released in 2010 by LeapFrog as a continuation of their
Leapster lineup it has half a gig of internal storage 64 Megs of DDR RAM and
a 393 megahertz lf-1000 processor which
is an ARM 9 magicized Pollux SOC that was rebranded to be used on various
LeapFrog devices why did LeapFrog feel the need to Rebrand the processor well
because they're a serious tech company that makes serious Hardware that's
probably why their devices also ran a custom version of Linux a move which is
seen this device receive a plethora of mods over the last decade including
internet access overclocking and the
ability to run Doom one of the few mods that doesn't require serial Port access
is the installation of retro leap a spin-off of retroarch that's designed
specifically for Leapfrog devices now unfortunately the Leapster Explorer's
meager system specs prior to overclocking means that emulation is
going to be limited to Game Boy and Ness but for a device that costs about as
much as four Big Macs that's pretty reasonable especially if
you also plan on using it as a learning tool for the other mods available if you
want to do more advanced simulation without the work of installing an rs-232
cable the Leapster Explorer GS from 2012
has the LF 2000 processor a rebranded
nexcel nxp 3200 and can apparently run
Game Boy advanced and Super Nintendo games quite smoothly our Leapster
Explorer GS unfortunately though can't do any of that since its corroded well
beyond use and these units have become increasingly rare I mean that's the risk
we take when we buy used electronics designed for people who can't keep the saliva in their mouths liquid and
electronics don't mix folks if only that drool had fallen on a keyboard inspired
towel from lttstore.com for something a bit newer we also picked up the LeapPad
Academy from LeapFrog or well
sorta from LeapFrog more on that in a minute this bad boy is a 7-inch tablet
with no Bluetooth no NFC no gimmicks none of that needless bulk it runs a
custom version of Android 10 that's reminiscent of an Amazon device meaning
that it lacks Google Play services and can only install new apps from
leapfrog's own app store or curiously
the Amazon app store spec wise the screen is 1024x552 it has
one gig of RAM 16 gigs of internal storage and uses a rock chip rk3266 SOC
now thanks to Amazon's app store's
inclusion of send files to TV we were able to side load apks that we
downloaded from sketchy looking websites and even got teams working
sort of video apps like jellyfin and Plex did play though not without hiccups
along the way YouTube wasn't too forgiving about the lack of Play
services so we were limited to web browsers for that but it still plays
video Even if we could best describe the quality as
premium potato it might not be able to do much or do it that well but as far as
security goes it's pretty secure ish apps seem to close completely when they
aren't in use the lack of Play services makes compatibility extremely limited
the requirement of a parental password to access any newly installed app will
make you think twice before opening something and even though Android 10 has
past its end of life the age of the Target demographic for the device means
that LeapFrog has a reason to keep pushing security updates as they're
needed personally I'm a big fan of the child sized finger stylus that it
includes awesome man you'd have a hard time damaging the screen with that you'd
try though similarly security updates will also continue to get pushed for the
Kitty Buzz 3. this Android 10 based
pseudo phone from VTEC aside from showing off the flippable camera there's
not really too much to say about the Kitty Buzz 3 oh my God it's a zoom lens
okay I thought it was a privacy shutter well anyway the reason there's not much
to say about it is because if we put it side by side with the LeapPad Academy we
can see that there is not much of a difference the LeapPad has a bigger
battery double the internal storage a different screen and a slightly
different UI but under the hood they are fundamentally the same device this is
the legacy of vtax 2017 buyout of LeapFrog Enterprises there are very few
competitors in the market of electronic edutainment so designing devices with as
much overlap as possible maximizes profit so no longer are they rebranding
socs rolling their own Linux or doing things in a really cool extremely
hackable manner which is disappointing but an inevitability so whether it was
once two device manufacturers there's now one device manufacturer making the
same product in a different box with different Navigation sounds what better
way to hear those navigation sounds than with a pair of appropriately sized
headphones oh my goodness these look awful the LOL surprise kid safe
headphones advertise exactly one feature
that they limit volume so that you don't hurt your delicate little kid ears and
in that regard they actually function as advertised maxing out at exactly 84.2
decibels with music playing that is within one decibel of the stated 85
decibels functionally though they are quite lacking in both bass and treble
which leaves vocal sounding dark and muffled the plastic is cheap feeling and
the cable is so thin you could probably floss your teeth with them so I wouldn't
expect these to survive for very long on the other end of the spectrum though
these Puro sound Labs bt2200 Bluetooth
kids headphones appear to be quite sturdy and they advertise a tiny bit
more in terms of features on top of an 85 decibel limit they claim Studio grade
audio which is obviously Market
nonsense but they do have a feature that allows them to be Daisy chained so you
can have multiple headphones plugged in together over micro USB that is great
for preventing fights in the back seat of a car the frequency response on these
headphones is actually fairly decent with only a slightly over emphasized
bass and underemphasized treble range and while the microphone is missing much
more bass and treble for a headset mic the quality is right in range with our
expectations they're also a lot more comfortable out of the box and Puro even
sells optional over ear pads so you can tweak it to the user's preference with
some proper care these should actually last quite some time before hitting the
donation bin I actually love that they have some decent padding on the headband
as well and that's what we're really focusing on here the point of finding
usefulness in children's toys isn't just about justifying you know a new
off-the-shelf item it's that growing up is a fact of life and once something has
been handed down to the youngest in the family it's destined to go somewhere
else and we would just prefer that it not be the landfill if it could end up
at the thrift shop or in the hands of that weird neighbor kid that always show
goes up at your house Uninvited and wants to eat your food and I'd say the
big winners here are any of the old hackable devices you can get your hands
on I actually really like that camera green screen kit I think that'd be a ton of fun for my kids and these Puro sound
Labs headphones not bad just like this not bad segue to our sponsor super micro
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enjoyed this maybe you'll enjoy the series where I built PCS with all of my
kids it was a ton of fun to record those and they actually still asked me to
watch them all the time