Fly Pentop Computer: A Whole New Approach

New technology misses the mark

By Ella Turner

The Fly Pentop computer ($100, LeapFrog) is a unique new product. Responding to television commercials running at least every half-hour, thousands of kids are nagging their parents for this expensive toy. Designed for users ages 8 to 12, it has useful features, including the ability to create and use a functional calculator, program a schedule, and it can even remember your friends? birthdays for you. However, some parents may wonder if this pricey, modernized version of a ballpoint pen is worth it.  Here?s our review.

At first glance, you can immediately tell the Fly Pentop isn?t just another one of your father?s ballpoint pens. What first gives it away is its fattened appearance, along with its built-in speaker and on-off switch. How does it work? Fly uses a tiny camera located on the tip of the pen that recognizes what shapes you are drawing and tells you what you?ve just written through the speaker. Since the Fly camera needs a special type of reflection to work, it requires a special, Fly-only type of paper. It has several unusual qualities, including a reminder program, draw-a-calculator option and games. I also includes Fly Tones, where you press on special stickers, which the Fly recognizes and responds by honking out a variety of humorous sound effects, such as laughing, cheering, or even flatulence. The sound quality is surprisingly good, especially considering the tiny size of the Fly?s internal speaker.

I fell in love with the test unit the moment I laid eyes on it. I quickly plugged in the included high-quality earbuds and proceeded to tinker with the start-up kit. I programmed the time, month, date, and year by using the included slip in the starter kit, and the little pentop automatically knew the day of the week. I was certainly impressed ? at first. 

However, the LeapFrog company certainly isn?t advertising the Fly?s many faults. After continuing to program my entire schedule into the Fly, I suddenly noticed it wasn?t writing as well as it should. I scribbled vigorously on a separate piece of paper to remedy the situation, yet no marks appeared. I was disappointed to discover that my brand-new, scarcely used, quite pricey pentop computer had run out of ink after less than an hour of use. I then was forced to order refill cartridges ($7.92, Wal Mart) and wound up paying for LeapFrog?s mistake. Imagine the irony ? here?s this advanced, complicated piece of technology that?s tripped up by a practically ancient invention, the ballpoint pen. It almost made me laugh.

However, I did notice that the Fly had many redeeming qualities during the time I was testing it. My personal favorite was the Reminders feature, where you can program daily, yearly, or one-time events. The Fly will briefly turn on for five minutes to remind you of the upcoming occurrence by creating a pleasurable tinkling sound and blurting out the phrase you programmed. This, however, can get quite obnoxious, especially since there is no way to set the reminders for a certain day of the week. I learned about this the hard way when I was awakened on a Saturday morning by a loud blast of ?Go to Work!?

People with messy handwriting may notice the Fly can be hard to use. It forces you to write neatly, and writing in cursive or lowercase letters will absolutely not be tolerated. It also confuses and mispronounces words, and sometimes groups two short words together as one, which can be rather frustrating for some children. For example, my test unit doesn?t say, ?Go to work?. It says something more like, ?Godawork.?  It doesn?t say ?Jenna?s birthday.? Instead, it says, ?Jaynabirfday.? I noticed that most of the time it interprets the words to be something completely different from what was intended. If you don?t want to be confused every time you hear it, you must delete the reminder and create a new one.