Bottom Line: A cute app for kidlets that lets them discover the world of dinosaurs through puzzles, memory games, find the difference, painting and more. This review refers to the premium version — a free version with in-app purchases is also available.
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Premium version: Free with in-app purchases:
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No ads or in-app purchases. External links present in a parent-protected section.
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My friend’s daughter is obsessed with dinosaurs. By the time she was four she could tell you their names and what they ate. She could pronounce and even spell dinosaur names most adults aren’t familiar with. She’s seven now, and that obsession has worn off a bit, but her four-year-old self would have loved this app.
If you have a little paleontologist in your house, then Planet Dinos by Planet Factory Interactive could be for you. The app is geared toward toddlers and preschoolers, and has plenty of content to keep them entertained.
There’s nothing revolutionary about this app. It contains the same types of games we’ve seen in many other apps: puzzles, flashcards, memory, painting/coloring, and others. None of it is rocket science, and none of it is anything you haven’t seen before. But the app has cute graphics, non-annoying music, a ton of content, and will cater to little dinosaur lovers. As preschool apps go, it’s a good one. My major complaint with it is that it's too expensive for content that's available through many apps for free.
In the App Store description, the developer says this app is for kids ages 2 and up. I think it might be more accurate to say ages 2 to 5 — there's nothing here that would interest a kid older than 5 or so. My 7-year-old proclaimed it “babyish” and wouldn’t have anything to do with it. So if you’re downloading this expecting your first or second grader to love it, I think you’re likely to be disappointed. But kids 5 and under will be happy with it.
The games have two (or sometimes three) levels of difficulty, so kids at the top of the age range will be challenged, but younger ones won’t be frustrated. There’s a section that introduces several dinos by name and gives an indication of what they eat, and a couple of other games that provide some dino education in addition to fun. For instance, in one game, kids have to match the dino with their habitat (air, land or water). The other games are good for teaching coordination, memory and spatial organization, but don’t include any additional info about dinosaurs.
The app includes ten languages, as well as a section for parents and teachers and links to the developer’s other apps. Unfortunately, it does NOT include a way to mute the music. It’s not particularly annoying, but ANY music gets old after a while. There also aren’t a lot of written or verbal directions — it’s all pretty intuitive, which means even the youngest users can work independently. The animations are cute, and the graphics are bright and colorful and interesting to little eyes.
When I first downloaded this app, I was under the impression that it was free with in-app purchases. I was planning to give it four stars — even though it doesn't contain anything new or different, I'm all for apps that offer a lot of free content, especially when you can pick and choose what, if anything, you decide to purchase beyond that. When I found out the version that was up for review was, in fact, $2.99, I had to lower my rating. As cute as this app is, there's nothing here that merits a price tag that high. Painting, memory games, find the difference — it's all stuff we've seen in a million other apps, and many of those apps are free. If the developer really wants to find an audience for this paid version, it's going to have to be a lot less expensive. My recommendation would be for users to try out the free version before committing three bucks to it.
If you have a kid who’s dino-obsessed, Planet Dinos is perhaps worth the download. Give it a look and see how many of those dinosaur names your kid can pronounce better than you can.
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Emilie’s Christmas tree is still up. Don’t judge. SmartAppsForKids.com was paid a priority review fee to complete this review in an expedited manner.
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