Review: Playskool Monty Rex
Written on Dec 14, 2009 by Brian and filed under Hasbro, Reviews
We recently reviewed Playskool’s smaller animatronic dinos – we’re back this time with the much larger Monty Rex Dinosaur who was announced earlier this year at Toy Fair. Monty features six sensors that detect touch or sound and reacts accordingly with roars, crunches and even a little walking.
Out of the packaging, Monty Rex is in the try me mode, so it’s important to move the switch to on to get all of his features enabled. What parents don’t have to do though is add batteries, Monty comes with 4 C batteries already installed.
Working with Monty Rex is pretty fun. Kids immediately started poking him and giggling at his reactions. Each sensor works a little differently, some act like you would expect, others are certainly unique (Monty struggles when you hold his mouth closed). It’s definitely worth reviewing the one-page manual that comes with the unit so you know all the tricks. Touching the chin sensor once for instance relaxes Monty. Activate the same sensor three times in a row and he plays a sort of tribal music. The latter nuance would be easy to miss.
Here’s a breakdown of his sensors and what they do:
- Nose – touch the nose to make the dino sniff and sneeze
- Chin – rubbing Monty’s chin will relax him
- Mouth – touching inside the mouth makes Monty make chewing noises -with an occasional burp. You can also hold his mouth closed and he still struggle and growl.
- Upper back – this sensor is sound activated – kids can roar at Monty and he’ll roar back
- Back – pressing Monty’s back will make him take a few steps
- Tail – touch or grab his tail and Monty will roar in response
By far the most popular with our testers was to feed Monty. There’s just something about listening to him crunch bones and burp that is virtually guaranteed to get a giggle out of young boys. They also liked making him walk. While he doesn’t go very far, Monty works well on both hard surfaces and carpeting. The fact that he moves on command is pretty fun, especially for the 3+ age group this is targeted at.
We’re pretty impressed with the number of sensors included in Monty for the price point. And he offers a variety of responses each time, so kids, especially in the 3ish range, are unlikely to get bored with Monty very soon. I will say though, that dogs may be prone to attack or rather defend against Monty, so be careful where you use him.
Bottom Line
Monty Rex is a lot of fun, but it comes with a price, a suggested retail of $75 in this case. Thankfully retailers appear to be discounting Monty pretty heavily, as of this posting Amazon is offering it at $30. Under $50 we think Monty offers good play value, at $30 the value is tremendous. Kids love playing with dinosaurs and Monty gives them a lot to be interested in. Heck, it even comes with batteries and shuts off on its own after a minute or so of inactivity, so it’s pretty friendly for parents too. Playskool has done with with their latest Kota and Friends dinosaurs, we’re excited to see what they come up with next.
Rating – 4.5 out of 5 Stars – Editor’s Choice
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