Review: WowWee Alive Mini Cub (White Tiger)

Written on Oct 10, 2009 by RuthJS and filed under Reviews, WowWee

The Mini White Tiger Cub is the little sibling of the WowWee Alive baby animals. While it’s designed with fewer interactions, this mini version of the motorized fuzzball is every bit as cute, cuddly, and hard to resist as its older siblings.

Out of the Box

The White Tiger Mini Cub boasts the same softness and sturdiness as the animals in WowWee’s baby animal series. After being pulled, dropped, and generally “loved on” by our testers, the White Tiger cub showed no signs of wear. (Believe me, that’s saying something!) Additionally, there’s enough padding to disguise the electronics and to keep the cub super soft and huggable, making it an excellent daytime and nighttime companion.

The mini cub series is designed with a nurturing soul in mind. The cub lies in a floppy, infantile position and just begs to be picked up and cradled.

When a a child moves it, the cub coos, purrs, cries, or whimpers. WowWee even includes an adoption certificate and a bottle so children can feed the cub and really feel like they’re taking care of it.

Interactive Electronics

When the cub arrives, it is set to “Try Me” mode.  Simply tipping the box will start a sample loop with some of the sounds the cub can make. And, I have to say, even the few sample noises are enough to attract children from across the room!

After freeing the baby tiger from its packaging, I easily found the Try Me/Off/On mode switch and battery compartment on the belly, thanks to a helpful diagram on the bottom of the box. Now, fortunately, I had already consulted the manual (I’m a compulsive manual-reader; I can’t help it) so I knew that I needed to move the switch to Off, leave it for three seconds, and then move it to On. If you miss this critical step, you will only get the Try Me settings even though the switch reads On.  I assume this has something to do with allowing the electronics catch up with the switch, but truly, your guess is as good as mine. Don’t worry though, if you forget this tidbit about the switch, you can always refer to the very helpful and well-written instruction manual.

At this point, on behalf of all parents who have ever purchased a toy that requires batteries, I need to thank WowWee for actually including the two AA batteries required for operation. Not only are the batteries included, but they had enough juice to get through testing without slowing at all.

In the mini series of baby animal cubs, the interaction is limited to sounds and some mechanical (not motorized) movement. Children can make the cub squeal, whimper, or gurgle by moving the toy or patting it gently on the head. And, when they put the bottle in the cubs mouth, its eyes go to half-mast (like a suckling baby) and it makes feeding sounds. It’s worth mentioning that, except for the feeding noises, the sounds seem to be in a random order.

One notable difference between the mini cub series and the baby cubs is the absence of motorized movement.  When the eyes of the mini cub close, it’s due to a mechanical connection between the eyes and the cub’s mouth rather than a motor. This is nice because there’s no distracting motor noise to contend with.

Another difference is that the mini cub will not power itself completely off. While the cub will go to sleep after four minutes of inactivity, you must manually flip the switch on the belly to the Off position to cut the power. This is especially important to note if you are not using rechargeable batteries.

In A Nutshell

In my humble opinion, the WowWee Mini White Tiger Cub is one of the cutest soft toys on the market. Kids who like soft toys will love taking care of the cub.

4.5 out of 5 stars – Editor’s Choice

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