Good toy with interesting ideas, but a few issues
The Thomas & Friends Fisher-Price Thomas & Friends Storytime Thomas Train is a really good toy with lots of features and nice touches, our little one loves it but some of the features are hard for even me to use properly
– Well detailed, moulded and coloured.
– Lights and sounds are good
– The story feature is really clever
– It is hard to keep it going, the wheels need to be on the floor and turning to activate and stopping for a second or two makes it stop
First Impressions
The toy is really well made and feels sturdy enough to make it through many years of a child’s development. I cannot fault the details on the toy and the buttons all feel nice to touch and use.
Features
The main way of interacting with the toy is to push it along the floor, this works fine for a small distance but the trouble is that you cannot lift the toy or stop the wheels from spinning or it will stop the currently active function, for example, if Thomas is in music mode and singing along as you push him then you lift the toy he will stop singing after about a second or two then start humming or talking about something else, this really breaks the flow of using the toy, it really needs to give a lot more leeway when stopping the action, as an adult I struggle pushing it along then when I reach a wall or something it needs to be lifted or turned in place to carry on and as the wheels only go forwards and backwards this it has to stop and a little one is really going to struggle with this.
Story mode – This is a really good idea with where Thomas will set a basic scenario and then ask you where you would like to go, you choose this by pressing either the red or green buttons on top of the toy, then you push him along for a bit and you will reach the destination you chose, then Thomas will give a bit more exposition and then you get to choose the next location, this then repeats.
Sound – so the voice acting is pretty good and I believe it is the same person playing Thomas as in the current TV series, the big issue I have with the sound is that the speaker is on the bottom of the toy, I get this from an aesthetic standpoint but the trouble is even on the loudest setting it is really difficult to hear what is being said when it is played into the floor and there is any background noise, which there generally is during playtime in our house.
Overall I think this is a really nice toy and will last our little one a few years, but there are a few flaws which would be nice if they could be improved for future versions of the product.
Thomas & Friends Fisher-Price Thomas & Friends Storytime Thomas Train Gallery
Thomas & Friends Fisher-Price Thomas & Friends Storytime Thomas Train
£29.99
Pros
- Well detailed, moulded and coloured.
- Lights and sounds are good
- The story feature is really clever
Cons
- Hard to keep moving
- Speaker on the bottom
