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PC Advisor Best Buy

December 25, 2007

Pleo dinosaur robot toy

It would be easy to call Pleo a robotic dinosaur toy, but that's unfair to both Ugobe, Pleo's maker, and to Pleo itself. Ugobe considers Pleo, the representation of a 1-week-old Camarasaurus dinosaur from the Jurassic period, a new "life form".

From the start, Pleo was designed to incorporate all the traits of "autonomous life" - Pleo doesn't just walk around and make noises at its owner, he (or she) is capable of expressing joy, aggression, anger, even fear, depending on the actions of the owner or as a reaction to its environment.

From a technical standpoint, Pleo is impressive. Each Pleo runs off two 32-bit microprocessors for its central and image processing, and four 8-bit subprocessors for motor control.

The Pleo dinosaur has 14 motors and more than 100 custom-designed gears for movement, two microphones, eight skin sensors, four foot switches, 14 force-feedback sensors, and an infrared and camera-based vision system that lets Pleo detect objects and colours.

In addition, Pleo includes a mini-USB port and SD card slot, which let the owner download online software updates, as well as add programs that let Pleo do more-specific activities.

Pleo has a proprietary, rechargeable battery pack that's easy to install and recharge (our review unit came with two battery packs, but we're not sure whether regular consumers get the same number).

Why it's cool

Forget about the technical specs - the real joy in Pleo is the emotional bond it creates with the user. When we showed our Pleo to staff members, it was amazing to see the different reactions that the dinosaur would elicit.

For the most part, female staff members wanted to touch, embrace and generally nurture the little dinosaur. Most initial reactions from the women were, "Oh, he's so cute!" and similar statements; they immediately forgot that Pleo is a machine and treated it like a puppy or other young animal (some even treated it like a newborn baby).

For most of the men, interest in Pleo was about the technical side of things - how many sensors, motors, battery life, and applications - "What tricks can it do?" and so forth.

That's not to say the men didn't get an emotional kick out of Pleo. Whenever Pleo was able to do something interesting (such as walk to the edge of the table without falling off), the men were just as impressed as the women.

Ugobe is promising additional software updates and downloads that allow Pleo to learn more things and "grow", and that will interest the men.

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Independent customer reviews from

Ugobe Pleo scored:
8.2 out of 10 100% real reviews

The 2 most helpful reviews based on 24 reviews:

14 Dec 2007 Anonymous verified purchaser

9

Good Points

Fantastic Product - now have 2 and they interact with each other. Can download additional stuff from Ugobe

Bad Points

Battery life only 1 hour and can't purchase additional batteries

27 Jun 2008 Anonymous verified purchaser

9

Good Points

A great fun item for all ages. He needs to be treated as a pet rather than a toy as his personality will develop based upon how he is treated and each one is supposed to be unique because of this. He will appreciate the attention given and call to you if you ignore him for too long. Almost as good as having a real pet. Better in some ways - no need for kennels and no mess to clean up. Need to upgrade the Life OS to get the best out of it. Then you can download skits (character changes) and have him sing to you, blow kisses or pretend he is a T-Rex. These are hilarious. You can also get programs that allow you to write your own skits and get your Pleo to act them out so great if you are into robotics. He has loads of sensors and really reacts when you touch them. Battery life is pretty good. It takes about 3 -4 hours to fully charge the battery with the included charger and then you can get about 1 1/2 hours worth of fun with your Pleo.

Bad Points

I haven't had my Pleo too long but others have commented that the paint starts to rub off where you interact with the sensors the most. Still expensive to buy.

See more Ugobe Pleo reviews on Reevoo.com

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Total reviews: 4,313

See product specs

expert rating

Build quality

4.5/5

Features

4.5/5

Value for money

3.5/5

Overall

4.5/5

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Pleo

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