Yes, it's pricey, but you could easily purchase several other toys to do everything this unit offers in one convenient kiddi-tablet. The letter tracing alone is something kids can spend a good deal of time practicing. And the unit features both a camera and video recorder, as well as an art studio. We love that it lets your child integrate his drawings and photos into the story books he creates. And, of course, there's the e-book function which, like its predecssors, gives the option to listen to to the unit read either the whole book, or just a page at a time - and even a single word they don't recognize. There's still no dictionary function that we could see, but kids can explore the touch sensitive story ilustrations to hear noises and additional commentary from the characters. 

It's a terific unit and you can expand content through purchased cartridges or by downloading apps from the LeapFrog website. The LeapPad Explorer is very similar to the Leapster, so there may not be enough added value for those that already own that unit. But if you do purchase it, our testers say they were able to use their Leapster cartirdges in this unit, too.