VTech Rolls Out Bugsby – Sets Sights on Tag Reader

Written on Aug 11, 2009 by Brian and filed under News, VTech

It’s hard to look at the new kid’s reading tool from VTech, Bugsby, without drawing an immediate comparison to the popular LeapFrog Tag Reading System. From what we can tell, VTech decided to get into the action by knocking off the LeapFrog system in a less elegant, albeit less costly system.

We actually didn’t even know about the product, which was announced last month. VTech and their PR firm aren’t exactly rolling out the full-court press, or even a press release, which probably means they’re hoping parents will see their cheaper solution at the stores and let price be their guide. While we can’t yet comment on the system’s functionality, we can say that the extra parental features available from LeapFrog, like the Learning Path, will make it nearly impossible for VTech to replicate the entire experience.

From a hardware perspective, it looks like the Bugsby system is very similar to the Tag, it uses a light wand to know where it is on any given page. VTech doesn’t need a computer connection to download and store the book’s audio tracks though. Each one of the VTech books comes with a clip on cartridge that contains the audio files. In a way that gets around the Tag Reader’s limited memory capacity (it can only store 5-6 books), but it also creates another small piece to lose.

We’re all for competition, but Bugsby feels a lot less like innovation and a lot more like a discount knock off. We’ll reserve final judgement until we use one, but we’re skeptical that it will be able to compete well with the Tag Reading System. For more nformation, here’s the Bugsby demo on the VTech site.

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