Graco Baby Einstein Discover and Play Entertainer
by Graco Baby
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List Price: Category: Baby Product See more product details |
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Baby Products Reviews of Graco Baby Einstein Discover and Play Entertainer
Customer Review: I'm surprisingly disappointed.
Summary: 2 Stars
Being that Disney now owns Baby Einstein, I was very surprised that the activity center is so poorly made. I've since read the "lowest reviews" and I've got to say that I'm very shocked that no one has mentioned the "mirror" that's under the book. The mirror is NOT caulked or trimmed out so there is a gap between the edge of the mirror (which DOES NOT feel like a safety mirror by the way) and the surround. My son was sticking his fingertips in the space and pulling his nails backwards. Also, the "loop" that the pages are on is such an odd shape, that the babies need to turn the pages a certain way to get them over. It's not easy to do, and when they get frustrated, which mine did, and yanks on it in a temper the whole thing snapped out.
As for the rest of the toys:
*The 'musical/english/spanish" circle is the thing that he uses the most. The spanish version of the animals' names is horrible and I cannot even figure out what they're saying. My son HATES Beethoven's Fifth, and when that one starts, he immediately hits an animal button again to stop it. (Once we had a B.E DVD on and he didn't realize that the music was on the TV and not the activity center. He was whaling on the music buttons and getting so confused and angry that the song didn't stop. he was looking at us as if to say "UM Hello People, why isn't it stopping!!!" It was hilarious.)
*The Star is constantly across the room, however he loves it. I do have to watch now that he has taken to putting the wrong end of that toy in his mouth and making himself bulimic.
*The spinning wheels are also used quite often.
*The Soft shape tower was great for him. He was nursed and he liked to put the top shape, the pyramid, in his mouth and act like he was nursing (or I guess that's what he was doing). I was VERY angry at the fact that this piece doesn't come off without drama, so I've gotten to develop the MacGyger way to clean it. I had to take the seat out as well as any removeable toys, then turn the whole thing over into the tub. Very inconvenient!! I didn't have the problem that others had mentioned about the plasticor ribbons. There weren't any on ours. They must have made changes after these pics were taken. He now does't use it at all though.
*The Arch with the caterpillar beads concerns me. When I sit on the floor next to the activity center, he likes to lean down & look at me through the arch. He ends up pulling it towards himself and it snaps back. It's just a matter of time before it breaks with pieces flying everywhere.
*He never uses the sun, the globe, or the puppet. Those are just a waste of space.
As for construction and engineering, this is pitiful. My son is a normal size healthy baby and the red feet kept snapping out. the Music box side dips down way too much for my comfort. The whole thing is held up by only 3 legs, and I beleive that it would be so much more sturdy with 4. The pressure points that are causing the leg supports (height adjustments) to pop would be eliminated. I understand the raised areas in the floor to be "stimulating" to the baby's feet, but my son cries when he jumps too much (there is no give in the toy, but he's standing and jumping.)
We were at our friends house the other day and they have the Evenflow Exersaucer. He LOVED IT and we'll be getting that one this week. I am done with this one.
All in all, It got us through a short amount of time without calls to 911.
Customer Review: Wonderful, with one hideous exception
Summary: 3 Stars
Don't get me wrong. Our daughter loves this thing, even now when she's too big to actually get into it, she still wanders up and plays with it. We even thought it was pretty nifty. It is large and takes up a lot of space - which might not be a problem unless you are in tiny institutional housing as we are - so we've decided to dis-assemble and store it in case we have future use.
This is where the problem comes in. For some inconceivable reason, Graco chose the unbelievable bad design route of making every toy and bauble attach with some slightly different scheme. Some just clip into place with plastic barbs that snap in; others use one type of screw, some use different types; still others snap in and THEN need to be screwed. But speaking of gettng screwed... I don't know who the genius was who decided on the scheme to attach the "caterpillar beads" u-shaped toy, but it was the most maddening, difficult, annoying thing to remove that I've ever run across.
It's as if they deliberately chose to make just that one piece as hard to remove as possible without actually scraping pieces of plastic off the thing (which I had to do extensively). And to make it worse, it attaches on two sides, and while both sides use the same horrible mechanism, one side is sunk three inches deeper in a plastic well, and has some pointless plastic sheath over it that has to be removed - with some difficulty - before you can even get to the work of getting the horrid thing detached from within this well where leverage is shaky at best. It took me and my wife, together, with two screwdrivers and alot of sweat and gouged plastic, over half an hour to remove that one item. All the others together took maybe 5-7 minutes to remove.
I have generally loved Graco products and they have served us well. Not to mention that many people may never even confront this issue, if they don't have to dismantle the thing. But this completely idiotic and pointless design decision has made me rethink my future purchases from Graco, if this is the sort of product they crank out. Any product that uses more than two types of fasteners to accomplish the same job is, in my opinion, poorly designed. This was the worst parts of a "batteries not included some assembly required" Christmas morning fiasco, and this experience alone has colored my opinion of their product design.
Shape up, Graco.
Customer Review: Baby Einstein Activity Center
Summary: 4 Stars
I had never written a review before now but seeing how helpful reviews generally are to me, I thought I owed it to everyone to write this review:)
My son just turned 8 months old. I had bought the Exersaucer - the basic one, and he loved it, but he outgrew it within a few weeks, at 7.5m - he is really tall. I discovered this was the stationary entertainer with the highest height limit (32"), so I retured the exersaucer and bought this for $20 more(actually $15 cos I had a coupon)...
Pros:
* Expect longer use esp if you have a tall baby
* Assembly was waaaaay easier than the exersaucer!!!
* The puppet looks silly but he absolutely loves it so who am I to complain?;)
*Nice, simple variety of toys - he loves most of them, hopefully he'll notice the others soon:)
****Great customer service!! I called them about the picture book because it was shaky and I didn't like how it fit, and they are sending another one. I also called them about the Globe because my active son broke it off on the first day, and they are sending a replacement. No hassle, no annoying questions asked.
By the way, don't worry about plastic or ribbons or anything like that, they've corrected those issues.
Cons
*Picture book pages almost impossible for a baby to turn
*The animal words could be clearer - can be a little hard to understand what the person is saying in English, not to talk of Spanish
*The globe should be designed to withstand pulling and poking from an active baby
* Doesn't fold up - but truthfully, I don't know how effective the Exersaucer folding is either - never tested it - and I plan to take the legs off this one once we need to store it.
All in all, I think it's a great product. I would give it a 4.5 stars if I could. If you have a tall baby, this is it, it's worth the extra. If not, then I liked the Exersaucer as well - it was $20 cheaper but very ok(apart from the assembly PAIN), and I didn't have any toys coming off - but this might be more fun for him) I don't know how long you can use that with a baby of average height though.
Buy it from Babies R uS or Toys R us, they are so great with returns! If u don't like it you can always return it, you don't even need to take it apart.
Hope this helps!
Customer Review: a wonderful exersaucer
Summary: 5 Stars
We purchased the Baby Einstein exersaucer right before our daughter turned 6 months old. She was starting to sit up in her bouncy seat, trying to tip it over, so we needed a secure toy for her to play in. We saw the exersaucer on the Baby Einstein website. It was really the only one we considered. We took her w/us to Babies R Us and let her sit in it prior to purchasing it. She loved it instantly! We also let her sit in a few others, but we were concerned that some of the other exersaucers had too many toys and would be over-stimulating. Also, we liked the bright colors of this exersaucer. It took about 30 minutes to put together. The fabric was somewhat difficult to attach to the seat, but it just requires a little extra patience. The book/mirror was tricky to snap in, but everything else snapped or screwed in easily. We did have a problem w/the music box attachment. When trying to install the batteries, we stripped the screw. It takes a very tiny screwdriver to get to this screw! We will have to contact Graco to receive a replacement part b/c although the music box works, the battery compartment cannot be screwed as tightly shut as we would like. We like that the exersaucer is not noisy, as there is only one toy that has sound effects. The sound effects are good. It would be great if ABCs or 123s could be part of the sound effects, but this is often the case w/so many other toys anyway. The toys are soft, which is good b/c our daughter likes to chew on them. If we could change one thing, it would be the dragon puppet. It would be great if this puppet could be removed and even switched out w/other Baby Einstein puppets b/c our daughter loves to play w/it. The surface and seat are easily cleaned w/a baby wipe. Even spit-up wipes up clean. There is room to put other items on the platform, such as blocks, a teether, or a pacifier. Our daughter likes to have blocks on top to push off and watch them fall. It is smaller than a lot of other exersaucers, so it doesn't take up a lot of space in our living room. The height can be easily adjusted, too. This exersaucer is lightweight and can be moved anywhere throughout the house. We hope that our daughter will be able to enjoy this exersaucer for several months to come.Customer Review: The many design flaws make this a poor choice, I feel!
Summary: 3 Stars
My daughter has a very basic Exersaucer type play center, and she loves it. I got it at a lawn sale, and payed very little, so I decided I could afford to buy a second one so I didn't keep having to move the first one from room to room. I looked over all the choices and decided I liked the look of this one best. Well, that may be the case, but it was a NIGHTMARE to set up. The manual seems to be written in some kind of minimalist style---with some instructions being literally one word---"Snap" or the like. It took 3 tries, but I got the basic setup down, and then went to install the toys. To do so, for several of them, you have to put a screw through a tiny hole, line that screw up with a raised hole you can't see on a toy you are holding into place with the other hand, screw in the screw upside down into a hole that has no grooves, so you have to use force...you can guess I was in tears before long! The toys that needed that done to them would just not go on tightly enough for me. Because all baby toys come with dire warning about incorrect installation, I just decided I couldn't have those toys on at all. Which isn't all bad, I like putting toys onto the saucer of my own, so Janey can fling them on the floor repeatedly. However, the saucer also seems to be designed, as someone else mentioned, for tall babies. She is 7 months old, although admittedly a bit petite, but well within normal ranges, and her feet just barely touch the bottom, and don't at all unless I have the feet pulled up, so she can lean a little. I would hate to have gotten this when she was 4 months---it would have been unusable.
That said, the toys I WAS able to use are enjoyable to her---she loves the globe, and the book with cat and dog pictures. I like the somewhat mellow coloring compared to some toys. The puppet is a bit bizarre looking, and the box calls him interactive--well, I guess all puppets are SORT of interactive, if you make them so by imagination, but that's the only way he is!
I was deciding between this and the Leap Frog model mainly. I wish I had gotten that one---I didn't because it was so electronic---but maybe it would have been better designed!