Leappad VS Power Touch

[hazel1975]

Am looking to buy one of these for DS 3rd birthday in July. Has anyone looked at both of these - ie the Leappad and the Power Touch from Fisher Price. No one in the shops can tell me much about them so am hoping that someone on here can speak from their experience.
Was concerned that the Power Touch might be too American and not enough books available?

Help!!
Thanks
Hazel

Hazel, i bought a Power Touch after lots of consideration between that and the Leap Pad for my dd for christmas she was 3.4 yrs, i have to say i made a mistake and should have bought the leappad, my dd loves the Power Touch but there aren't many books for them, there seem to be lots for the leap pad and my dd is really into writing at the moment and loves the pen that you get with the leappad (she runs straight for the ones you can try in the shops).

We got our DS a Leappad when he was 4. I wish we had waited to get the writing one. We bought him a Tomy version when he was 3 called Alto, but other than the 3 books and jigsaws we bought at the time, haven't seen them since. We've managed to buy several Leappad books for pretty cheap prices since he's had it, usually at the ELC outlet shop at Cheshire Oaks (Ellesmere Port) which is a McArthur Glen Outlet Village.
Other useful things we got are a backpack storage bag which hold the Leappad and 3-4 books & cartridges (for car journeys etc), and a bigger storage wallet which holds the Leappad and 12 books & cartridges (for home storage). We got these from Amazon, but they sometimes get sold in ELC.
We also got a microphone for it which comes with 2 books which he loved. There was a greater sense of involvement in the story as he gets to speak at certain places. The speech is recorded and gets played back at certain places during reading. It was very clever from an adult point of view watching him play.

Thanks for the advice - what you said about the Power Touch is what I suspected. I think it was the fact that its meant to be suitable until they are 8 years old which appealed to me.
I was going to get the My First Leappad which is for 3-5 years. Do you think I should go with this or just go for the normal one which is meant to be from aged 4 upwards?
The microphone etc sound great and I asusme they only come with the older one rather then my first leappad?
Sorry for all the questions!

Yes Hazel1975 the microphone works with the standard leappad, not the my first leappad. I think it was £25 from ELC.
I seem to remember ASDA selling special edition Spiderman leappads for around £20 a week or so ago. This ASDA was a big hypermarket one (Wigan).