Technology/Electronics | Faith and Family Reviews

Archive for Technology/Electronics

Tmart MP3/MP4 Review

Posted by Brande on November 15, 2013
in Deals, Fun Stuff, Gift Ideas, Kids Stuff, Movies, Music, Photography, Products for Dad, Products for Mom, Reviews, Shopping, Techie Stuff, Technology/Electronics, Uncategorized

My husband and I both have MP player products from another company and my

mp4 3

daughter always wants to use them. Well, the cost if they break is not one we can absorb at the moment. I’m sure there are other households with a similar issue. Tmart has a much less expensive alternative. For a fraction of the cost you can purchase a 4GB 2″ LCD Screen MP3/MP4 Player with FM/Camera Function.

This MP3/MP4 player is about 4 inches long about 1 ½ inches wide, super light also. It has several functions including, music, video, photo, and FM radio. Included in the box was ear buds and USB cable. It takes pretty good pictures and videos. The sound quality is acceptable also.

MP4 1

Tmart’s MP3/MP4 player comes in 9 colors, the one I received is purple. I was surprised by this inexpensive device for one that it has a camera & video and it autoflips.

I do wish it came with more instructions, not just a single quick start guide and a plug to charge it via an outlet. I think this is a good stocking stuffer for new music lovers in the house.

You can order Tmart MP4 players today, currently it’s only $19.99!!

Share and Enjoy

{23 comments}

Etymotic BEAN

Posted by html404 on October 18, 2013
in Health, Products for Dad, Products for Mom, Reviews, Technology/Electronics, Uncategorized

I participated in a campaign on behalf of Mom Central Consulting for Etymotic. I received a product to facilitate my review and a promotional item as a thank you for participating.

My husband is older than me and it’s been a long running joke for me to tease him about how “old” he is, after all he is nearly five years older than me, so it’s my prerogative right? Thankfully he’s a good humored kind of guy and puts up with my teasing, not that he’s never teased me. Ha! You should hear the short jokes, the Canadian jokes and whatever else his twisted mind comes up with. But we love each other, don’t get me wrong.

Back to the age jokes…with those age jokes come the hard of hearing jokes. My husband really struggles with wax build up in his ears. Seriously, he should go more than once a year or so to get his ears cleaned out but he doesn’t. He let’s it go soooo long that if his bad ear is facing you or he’s laying on his good ear in bed he cannot hear what you are saying. He cannot hear what is playing on the computer when we watch movies or TV shows. I almost think he let’s it go so long so he gets a break from our noisy household!

Enter the Etymotic BEAN.

Etymotic BEAN

The BEAN is…

Designed to ampilfy quiet sounds
Requires no medical referral or prescription
Ready-to-use right out of the box – no adjustments, no controls to adjust
Two-position switch offers two levels of amplification: Normal 15 dB (decibels) or High 23 dB
Handles high-level music without distortion
Long battery life (10-12 days)

An interesting fact: “Etymotic” means “true-to-the-ear”.

The BEAN came with a few accessories:

Assortments of eartips (we did not use them all)
Filter tool (seen just above the little red filters) and extra filters
Cleaning tool
Leather storage pouch
#10 batteries and lots of them!
User manual

Comes with a 1 year warranty

Etymotic BEAN Review

I think my husband gave me a dirty look when the BEAN arrived and I told him it was for him to review. I don’t tell him when I get products for him to review because he’ll just forget. Better to tell him when it arrives. I just do not always have good timing!

Hubby’s Review

My husband said the BEAN felt too weird and amplified the children’s voices and noise too much for him. He also said something about the sound having a fuzzy background noise.

He hasn’t given it a second chance….yet.

My Review

The incorrect way to put the BEAN in your ear.

Yes, I even tried the BEAN. I have no hearing issues except when my children are being loud and I am trying to talk/listen to my husband or watch a video. The Bean felt weird in my ears but it did amplify the video I watched while using them. I could definitely hear better and clearer.

My voice sounded very is muffled when the Bean is in my ear. If they had an off switch, I could use them as ear plugs! Speaking of ear plugs Etymotic does have ear plugs and ear phones available in their product line.

The correct way to put the BEAN in your ear.

I think the BEAN will be helpful to my husband and others who have trouble hearing, whether they wear it sometimes or on a daily basis.

Share and Enjoy

{11 comments}

InnoTab® 3S Learning Tablet Review and Giveaway

Posted by html404 on October 11, 2013
in Downloads, Ebooks, Education, Fun Stuff, Gift Ideas, Kids Stuff, Kids Toys, Reviews, School, Techie Stuff, Technology/Electronics, Uncategorized

Faith and Family Reviews received the following product from Vtech in exchange for writing a review. While we consider it a privilege to receive products to review, our reviews are our honest opinion and thoughts of the product.

It is pretty safe to admit our family has embraced the age of technology. While we don’t have every techie gadget on the market we have our share. More and more of our children’s education is relying on technology. That’s why we embraced the opportunity to review a Vtech InnoTab® 3S Learning Tablet

Features of the InnoTab® 3S Learning Tablet:

The InnoTab® 3S features VTech Kid Connect– an exclusive communication app that allows kids to be connected with their parents and friends through both tablet-to-mobileand tablet-to-tablet communication
The new 3S comes with a rechargeable battery pack with AC adapter and a kid-safe web browser
The new InnoTab 3S continues to provide access to VTech’s Learning Lodge™ app store, plus it comes packed with 20 free apps
Ages 3-9
All for under $100

InnoTab 3S Learning Tablet Review

Our children love their new InnoTab® 3S Learning Tablet. We are still learning to use all the features. They haven’t text me yet and they really haven’t used the web browser much because it requires me to put in our network password. I think it would be nice if we could save that password just because it would be easier than logging in every time, but I understand that this is one of the safe browsing features. I like that we can add new websites under the parental controls.

I know the camera and video camera gets used a fair amount. The children have fun taking goofy photos or videos or practicing their photography.

The children’s favorite activities is to play the beanstalk game. They have to check their bean plants every day to care for them or else they die. Kind of helps teach responsibility. The children love to see how much their beans have grown day by day.

InnoTab 3S Learning Tablet Downloads

Though there were free downloads with the InnoTab 3S Learning Tablet, I did purchase a few more for the children just so I could understand the selection, purchasing and download process. It was pretty painless and easy. Similar to downloading apps to a cell phone. Edited 12/27/13: But in comparison, there are more free apps available for other tablets, which I did not realize until much later. It is costly to buy more apps, something I cannot seem myself doing much of now that we have a Kindle Fire.

The Learning Lodge is where parents and children can access “hundreds of engaging, age-appropriate games, videos, e-books and music, endorsed by VTech’s team of educational experts”. Word has it the Learning Lodge will expand its current library of 350 titles to over 600 titles by the end of the year.

I did find the InnoTab 3S Learning Tablet a little slow when changing screens, but overall I really like its features and having this as an addition to our children’s educational program, even our big kids (ages 10-14) like to use it!

Vtech InnoTab® 3S Learning Tablet Giveaway

One of you has the chance to win a Vtech InnoTab 3S Learning Tablet by entering below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Share and Enjoy

{33 comments}

Kids Apps from Cupcake Digital Education

Posted by html404 on October 10, 2013
in Downloads, Education, Kids Stuff, Reviews, School, Techie Stuff, Technology/Electronics, Uncategorized

Faith and Family Reviews received the following product in exchange for writing a review. While we consider it a privilege to receive products to review, our reviews are our honest opinion and thoughts of the product.

We are living in the day of apps. Our children LOVE going on my iPhone. Over half of the apps on my phone are kids educational apps. We use my iPhone as a part of our homeschool curriculum. If we are working with one child, another child can be using my phone, as it keeps them occupied.

We were gifted three new kids apps for review. They are Fraggle Rock Game Day – Cupcake Digital, Wubbzy’s 123 Learn & Play – Cupcake Digital and Strawberry Shortcake Berry Best Friends – Cupcake Digital. Our children are really enjoying them.

Review of Kids Apps from Cupcake Digital Education

Fraggle Rock Game Day – Cupcake Digital

Counting, tracing and games.

My five year old liked this one and Wubbzy’s 123 Learn & Play the best.

The whack a raddish game is hilarious! I even want to play that one!

Wubbzy’s 123 Learn & Play – Cupcake Digital

Wubbzy’s 123 was good for my five year old. I am not sure how much my three year old understood it but he tries. It’s a bit too young for my seven year old but she still had fun doing it.

I thought counting meatballs was fun!

Tracing

Coloring/Paint

Strawberry Shortcake Berry Best Friends – Cupcake Digital

Book, coloring and games.

Our seven year old daughter liked this app the best. She said because it’s nice. She’s a girly girl and loves to do the hair and nails game the most because I keep finding photos stored on my phone! She saved me the trouble for the sake of this review – in house help!

Our older daughter even enjoyed playing around with this app.

These kids apps are definitely keepers and you can find them on iTunes or follow the links in this review.

Share and Enjoy

{18 comments}

LeapReader “Ready, Set, Read & Write!”

Posted by 278Wife on October 1, 2013
in Books, Downloads, Education, Family Stuff, Kids Stuff, Parenting, Reviews, School, Techie Stuff, Technology/Electronics, Travel, Uncategorized

I received free LeapFrog products in order to host the LeapFrog sponsored MommyParty. The opinions expressed here are my own.

I am thrilled that I was able to be a host for the LeapReader “Ready, Set, Read & Write” Party, sponsored by Leapfrog! LeapReader is the complete learn-to-read-and-write solution. It combines reading, writing, and listening into one easy and fun system. LeapReader uses books, flash cards, workbooks, audio book apps, music apps, and even trivia apps to enhance the learning experience. If you’ve never tried a LeapReader, you must. It is lifechanging! My son and I call it a magic pencil, since it knows everything.

The activity book that came with the LeapReader was great. It really taught us how versatile the LeapReader was. For example, we turned to the page featuring “Cars” and the LeapReader read it to us. It also had a game to play, and it would sound out the words for you if you touched the words with the LeapReader.

When we turned the page to the “Leap and the Lost Dinosaur,” my son loved pointing the LeapReader on the different pictures and learning fun facts about them. He was engaged the entire time, and was learning. It is the best of both worlds! Another page he loved was a game you played with the “Muscular System” page. The LeapReader would give you a clue and you had to point to the answer. For example, touch the muscle you smile with. We played that for a good ten minutes.

The LeapReader flash cards were a hit, too. You are able to mix and match letters to build words. It has rhyming, spelling, and singing games as well. My son’s favorite were the singing games. If you touch one of the pictures with the LeapReader it sings a song, spelling and sounding out the picture. It actually made him start to remember how to spell the words, it was very catchy! My favorite feature was the included sight words list. Just touch the word with the LeapReader and it would say it.

We attempted the Writing books, but my son was more interested in hearing the stories than writing. Some of my friends’ kids came over and tried them, and they had a ball! The LeapReader really tells you step by step how to write Upper and Lowercase letters, while saying letter sounds. I found it amazing that the writing magically appears on the special paper.

Each of the writing activity sets includes a workbook filled with fun activities as well as extra writing paper so you can practice. The activity books are so interactive that the kids are constantly engaged.

The Get Ready for Kindergarten book is a must for all preschool aged children. It teaches letters, vowels, beginning sounds, blends, patterns, numbers, skip counting, math, months, seasons, community places, and more. This was my son’s favorite book. He plays with it almost daily. There is so much to do on each page, that he rarely does the same thing twice.

My son really enjoyed reading the Monsters University LeapReader Interactive Book, too. You can either touch on the book picture and it will read it for you, or you can touch word by word to read and follow along. For now my son likes to listen to it, but I’m sure in no time he will be wanting to touch word by word. This will then teach him how to read.

I am absolutely in love with the LeapReader “Ready, Set, Read & Write” system. In additon to all of the workbooks, flash cards, and books you can buy for your LeapReader, you can also download apps to put on the LeapReader. Mine was conveniently loaded with two audio books, learning music, and a trivia app. Let me just tell you how amazing this is for travel. My son brings this in the car, plugs in his headphones, and enjoys listening to the stories and music. With a touch of a button you can switch between apps. The LeapReader is lightweight so I carry it in my purse or diaper bag when we are out and about so he is always entertained and more importantly, learning. The best part is that no batteries are required. Simply charge it with the included USB cord and you are good to go!

I can honestly say that this LeapReader is life changing. I will be telling all of my mom friends about how great of a learning tool this is. It is great for reading, writing, and listening skills. My son has yet to become bored with it, and continues to ask me to buy more books or apps for him. I love that he asks me to buy him books rather than toys. The LeapReader is definitely going to create lifelong learners for all children who use it!

www.LeapFrog.com

I received free LeapFrog products in order to host the LeapFrog sponsored MommyParty. The opinions expressed here are my own.

Share and Enjoy

{18 comments}

Alphie the Squid App Review

Posted by Brande on September 17, 2013
in Downloads, Fun Stuff, Kids Stuff, Products for Dad, Products for Mom, Reviews, Techie Stuff, Technology/Electronics, Uncategorized

Alphie the Squid App Review

Help Alphie the Squid to grow up big and strong on this new app. Guide Alphie through the maze of the ocean floor, along the way you need to watch out for riptides, sharks and other obstacles. Alphie needs eat along the way to help him battle the riptides, there are little fish along the way for Alphie. You earn points by finding treasure and treasure fish!

The animation of this app is vibrant, inviting, & funny and the music is great! This app is addicting for adults, yet very friend for kids. This Alphie helps kids with swiping action as well as learning about fish.

Check out the Alphie Trailer on YouTube!

Alphie is available for iPhone, iPad, iPod, and android products.

Don’t forget to like Alphie on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.

Share and Enjoy

{5 comments}

PowerMyLearning

Posted by html404 on August 13, 2013
in Animals, Education, Family Stuff, Free Stuff, Kids Stuff, Parenting, Reviews, Saving Money, School, Technology/Electronics, Uncategorized

This is a sponsored post.

We love getting educational products, digital or otherwise, to review. It’s fun for the children and changes up our routine a bit trying something new.

PowerMyLearning.org Review

PowerMyLearning is a free, educational website for teachers, parents and children. This site covers all the core subjects of education: Math, Language Arts, Music & Art, Social Studies, Science, Technology, World Languages and My Life (or what we old-timers would consider “Health”). There is a lot of interactive activities and my children enjoy visiting this website. The site does require creating a free account but it’s painless. Just like any other site registration.

My children really loved Biology – they love anything to do with animals – imagine that considering we live on a farm! They also loved the Who Am I section in Language Arts.

Here’s what my children had to say about the site:

“O” (13) – Picked up on misinformation. She said, “They got stuff like the gods and goddesses wrong in the solar system. They said the goddess of Agriculture was Aphrodite when everyone knows that is Demeter. Aphrodite is the goddess of love and beauty. They said the same thing about Mars, he is the God of War.” Can you tell she’s studied Greek mythology? Thanks to Percy Jackson.

“JAG”(9) – “It’s fun. I didn’t like the millions of years. I liked the stuff about rocks and stuff like that. I like the science things. Actually, I like a lot of it.”

“Blondie” (7) – “It was cool. I didn’t like the fact that there was no “playground” (another site we have used has a “playground” for recess etc., which was actually PBS kids TV programming and computer games) I like their games. My favorite game was the car racing game.”

“Nook” (5) – First he said he didn’t really like it then he changed his mind and said he likes it. Rather fickle little boy, eh?

Overall, I would have to say the children thought it was fun and I thought it was informative and a good site to use as a supplement to their homeschooling material.

PowerMyLearning is revamping their site with a launch date of September 3! We are excited as we thought the site was not very user friendly for mom or children. So this was great news to hear!

Share and Enjoy

{No comments}

TWR360 Free Christian Programming

Posted by html404 on August 9, 2013
in Downloads, Family Stuff, Free Stuff, Home, Parenting, Reviews, Technology/Electronics, Uncategorized

Even though TWR is the world’s largest Christian radio broadcaster with missionaries around the world and has been around for nearly years, I think this is the first time I have heard about it. They have created a brand new beta consumer platform TWR360 and are harnessing the power of technology in the digital age to reach new listeners for Christ. As I stated, the site is currently in beta and the official consumer launch is January 1; new programming is being added between now and the end of the year. What a great free Christian programming resource.

TWR360 Free Christian Programming

Like any other online account creation, creating a TWR360 account is very easy.

Here are my favorite programming:
Unshackled!
Adventures in Odessey (listed under the program schedule)
Children’s Bible Hour (listed under the program schedule)
Children’s Story Hour (listed under the program schedule)
Family Life Today

I found the site a little hard to navigate and the search engine for the site didn’t seem to bring up programs I searched for that were on TWR360’s programming schedule. So I think that is something they should improve upon during this beta stage before their official launch in January 2014. Otherwise I thought it was a resource Christians and others should know about as they have a decent variety in their programming schedule.

You can find TWR360 on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

Share and Enjoy

{One comment}

Bookboard Review and Free Trial!

Posted by Brande on August 7, 2013
in Blog Stuff, Books, Deals, Downloads, Ebooks, Education, Family Stuff, Free Stuff, Fun Stuff, Parenting, Reviews, Saving Money, School, Shopping, Technology/Electronics, Uncategorized

Faith and Family Reviews received the following product in exchange for writing a review. While we consider it a privilege to receive free products to review, our reviews are our honest opinion and thoughts of the product.

Mechanimals, Me and My Dragon, The Lucky Day Picnic, Doors in the Air are only a few of the wonderful books available through Bookboard.com. This app has over 400 books available to unlock with up to 4 children’s accounts (up to the age of 12). Once the books are downloaded, they can be read offline. Currently, Bookboard is available for iPads with iOS 5.x or higher. Bookboard recommends using and iPad2 or later version. However, they do work on an original iPad they are just slower. Bookboard says on their website that are adding other devices and platforms in the future.

Bookboard sets goals for your children and parents can check their progress through the app as well. Once a goal is reached, your child is rewarded with more books unlocked to continue their reading.

Bookboard Review and Free Trial

Head to Bookboard’s website for a FREE TRIAL! If you and your children enjoy it you can purchase a subscription for only $8.99 if you pay per month or if you choose the 6 month subscription its $29.94 or $4.99 a month! In the aspect of things if you purchase one book will cost $4.99. Here you have unlimited reading at your fingertips!

Here are a few on the many subjects that can be found on Bookboard: Smithsonian Series, Berenstain Bears and The Boxcar Children!!

My daughter is just learning to read and just loves the iPad. For us this is a great learning tool and we really enjoyed our books. You can join today to get your FREE TRIAL too!!

Share and Enjoy

{No comments}

Morton Subotnick’s Pitch Painter App Review

Posted by Brande on May 9, 2013
in Education, Fun Stuff, Kids Stuff, Reviews, School, Technology/Electronics

Morton Subotnick’s Pitch Painter App is an award winning app that is available in your iTunes store for iPad with an iOS of 5.0 or later. Finger Painting and Music combine 2 things that your 3 to 5 year old love to do! Without the Mess!

First choose the regional instruments you’d like to play. The regions are Europe and North America, West Africa, Middle East, or East Asia. Each region gives you 3 different instruments to choose from.

For example – Europe and North America has a Clarinet, Trumpet, and Piano. When the clarinet is selected it will give you a tone of a clarinet, then just finger paint and the tone will follow your child’s finger. Then change to a trumpet and get another color and sound. Your child can record their music and play it back. There are options to play the music backwards or upside down!

I really like this app, it’s soothing to the ears and fun! My daughter really enjoying recording her finger painting music and playing it back for us to hear. It’s a big hit in our house! I think your pre-school aged child will like it too!