Review: WowWee Panda Cub (WowWee Alive Series)
Written on Apr 1, 2009 by Brian and filed under Reviews, WowWee
The WowWee Alive series of plush animals includes a lion cub, white tiger cub, panda cub and polar bear cub. All four do roughly the same thing; they try to provide children with a baby animal that is somewhat lifelike – these cubs respond to touch with blinking eyes, moving mouth and baby cub sounds. The segment is quite popular, WowWee announced four new alive cub varieties at CES this year to complement their offering.
Each cub (ours is the panda pictured above) features the same electronics, just in different plush bodies. They all have blinking eyes, moving mouths, tilt sensors and touch sensors on their heads and backs. Tucked away in the belly is a battery compartment that houses four AA batteries, which incidentally never wore out during our testing. To get started you’ll need to access the battery pack in the Velcro poouch and turn the unit to normal mode. They generally ship in try me mode, so if you don’t read this or the manual, you might be a bit confused when your cub repeats the same loop.
When in the normal mode, the cub’s right ear acts as the power button. There’s no need to turn the main power unit back off, the cub will go into sleep mode after five minutes of inactivity. In sleep mode the cub closes its eyes and purrs, then will turn off if not interacted with. You can also force it to sleep by holding the right ear for three seconds. When powered on, the right ear serves as volume control; squeeze it quickly to toggle through the high/low volume options.
Once powered on, the cub will go through a startup routine which includes opening his eyes and mouth and making waking noises. The cubs can growl, squeal, purr, blink and smile. These actions are caused by two key actions, petting the cub on one of the two sensors or by actuating the tilt sensor. The sensors seem to be pretty accurate, though it is a little difficult to know exactly what’s going to happen each time. The reactions seem random, which we suppose is fine, but worth noting.
The cub sounds are pretty fun, and somewhat soothing, so the cubs make for good daytime play as well as reasonable bed-time friends. The only significant problem we have with the unit is the motors are a little noisier than we’d like, which reaffirms that it’s robotic, not alive. The kids that we tested with didn’t seem bothered by the motor noise, but it is there and something we expect will be lessened as WowWee works on more advanced units.
Where the cub really excelled is with young girls and boys alike who are really into nurturing activities. If you have a child who loves carrying a doll or plush around and has an active imagination, these cubs are probably a great fit. And with four new animals coming out, there will be much more variety to choose from.
The cubs are well built too. We tugged aggressivly at the limbs to test the stitching, which held up. You can also see the level of detail in the head-shot above, the fur looks good, holds up well and doesn’t look mass produced.
Bottom Line
WowWee’s Alive line of cubs do what they say they’re going to do. They give kids an interactive plush that responds to touch and tilt with sounds and eye/mouth movement. The cubs are well built and should stand up well to whatever your child can do to them The sound library could be deeper and the motors quieter, but overall kids who like creative doll/plush play will be thrilled to imagine with these cubs.
4 out of 5 stars
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