Smart-e-Bear Learning Toy, Tan

Wanted to buy the smartee dog but couldn't find it so I got the bear at a cheaper price. This bear has way more songs to download than the scout and is more cuddly.

I purchased one of these for my niece and never was able to get it to communicate with the software on my Mac. I tried 3 different Mac computers as well as different Mini-USB cables but never had any luck. I will fully admit that this could be a bad bear and that those scenarios happen but I became seriously frustrated when I tried to get support. I first called their support number during their posted business hours and got a voicemail system which gave me three options and shockingly the support option was the very last one, behind media requests and artists wanting to publish their work. I left a message in the support box and after 3 weeks I still have not heard back from them. I also attempted to send them an email and after 2 weeks I have heard no response from that route either. One thing that I can say is that the software for OSX is very slow and non-responsive at times. Overall I think this bear had a lot of potential but if you need support it just isn't there and it seems like there wasn't a serious effort in developing the OSX software. The windows software may be a different story and I can't comment on that since I don't have a windows machine.

I was surprised at the quality of the content available for the Smart-E-Bear. Our older child had a different talking bear several years ago that used cartridges and while the stories were all fine with it, they got a little monotonous over time. Always listening to everything in the same, bear character voice. The Smart-E-Bear on the other hand has tons of different artists doing music and reading stories...they're really top notch as well! Lots of variety, fun songs, multi-cultural stories, etc. There have been a couple weird things with it...I also use a Mac and while I didn't have any trouble getting the bear to connect to the computer, the software is kind of clunky. It kind of looks like some engineer did it without giving much thought to the user experience. Thankfully you don't have to do that except when you want to add or change content on the bear (which we haven't done since the initial setup). Also, I think a couple of the files inside the bear have gotten corrupted or something like that...there are a couple songs that always quit playing mid-song and the same for 1 of the stories. I could probably connect it to the computer and reinstall the files but meh...not that big a deal. Overall I'm happier with this toy than I expected!

adorable... soft... easy to program.... after free 5 songs they cost a $1.00-$3.99 each....and each story cost about same....could get into some money with this little guy....songs and stories are very clear...he is a GREAT TOY....dont hesitate to buy.

purchased this as a gift for great grandchild. Does not work as promised. talks gibberish sometimes. even when turned off. repeats and repeats. very disappointed. will never buy from Amazon again. will not exchange or refund my money.

I had a problem with my smart-e-bear skipping/stuttering/playing static. I was sure it was broken. I tried calling the support number but only got the voicemail and did not bother to leave a message. I was going to give up but I emailed info@intellitoys.com anyway. I thought they ignored me, but I found their reply in my SPAM the other day. They asked me to replace the batteries and I was skeptical but I tried it and it worked. I do not know if their support line has a live operator who is overwhelmed or if it is just a voice mail system, but it looks like the email support is pretty good as long as the reply does not get stuck in my SPAM folder. With the new batteries, the toy works great and my kids love it! Minus one star for not having a live operator when I need one, but good other than that.