LeapFrog Announces LeapPad Pre-Order Availability

Early learning device experts LeapFrog Enterprises announced they're taking pre-orders for their upcoming LeapPad. I had the Kiddo with me last week for a day of meetings and was grateful that of all days to have him with me, it was probably the best day to take him along. We visited the LeapFrog holiday product showcase together and he got the chance to play with the LeapPad before it will hit store shelves in a few months. I literally had to pry it out of his hands. You could say he loved it. You can also pre-order the LeapPad now for $99 on Amazon.

Aimed at kids 4 years old and up, LeapFrog's new tablet mimics the touchscreen tapping and swiping that kids are used to doing on the tablets and iPads for adults, but it's sized for their smaller hands. The LeapPad is launching with more than 100 educational games and apps, and has a built-in camera and video recorder. The games automatically adjust their difficulty so that kids can stay engaged and learn at their own pace.

Here's the Kiddo trying out the huge LeapPad on display at the holiday showcase:

Here's 3 things that I liked about the LeapPad:

Games for the LeapFrog Explorer are compatible with the LeapPad. Yay! So you can leverage what you may have already invested in e-learning games for the Explorer to play on the LeapPad.
The Kiddo has been using our smartphones, iPhones and iPads since we first bought them and we have an equal amount of kid-themed apps loaded on them as we have apps for our own sanity. It's exasperating how much we have to oversee what he's doing on those devices about every two minutes, because there's opps in the midst of game apps or at the end of YouTube videos to quickly click and purchase items or begin watching another related video - which may or may not be equally appropriate. I LOVE that anything and everything the Kiddo can do on the LeapPad is appropriate, safe and secure within the world of LeapPad games, apps, photos and videos.
I like the ability to send what the Kiddo creates in some of the apps to my or c2cDad's email. Specifically, I like the Story Studio app where kids can create their own stories using more than 27,000 story combos, and the Animation Studio app where kids can learn to draw Disney characters. The Kiddo drew Daisy Duck for me while we were checking out the showcase.