Discovery Exclusive Ultimate Star Planetarium
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Toys and Games Reviews of Discovery Exclusive Ultimate Star Planetarium
Customer Review: not as cool as it sounds
Summary: 2 Stars
I got this for my eight year old son for Christmas. We thought it would be soooo cool, turning his bedroom into a starscape each night, picking out constellations, and learning some astronomy. Sadly, it just wasn't that cool.
When you take it out of the box, it has a great precision instrument look. You can simply plug it in and begin playing with it within 2 minutes-- minimal set up or reading of instructions, altho parental input is required. It has a neat timer on it that allows you to pick out a date so you can project what the stars look like at different times of year. You can even pick different countries and get their skyscape! Also, the device has a timer, so it will automatically turn off after kids fall asleep, which is nice.
The big downer is that every point of light is identical in size, shape and color. So, unlike in reality, the North Star is not brighter than the surrounding stars. This makes all the stars kind of run together in one big mess, making it extremely difficult to identify any constellations, which was the whole point of the toy! Add that to the fact that my son's bedroom doesn't happen to have a dome shaped ceiling (!), so there is distortion in the projection as well. After 2-3 nights we, simply gave up an trying to identify any constellations, and instead used it as a very expensive night light.
Customer Review: Great toy for price
Summary: 5 Stars
I received this today so I don't know about how long the product is going to last. My experience with today's toys isn't very good, but I found this to be remarkable for the price. I purchased this at Amazon for $50 March 5 2010 and the technology is remarkable. It offers many features that tell you about the different constellations and space phenomena. What I like is how it will display the star field for your location based on the current day and time. The thing even rotates slowly. I'm just amazed.
Now the downside, like other posters have said, this doesn't give varying brightness to the different stars, but I looked and I can't find any presently out there that do. Also there is distortion due to the square room but what can you do about that? Not much.
I don't recommend this for kids who still rough and tumble about. It is fairly delicate with the gears and bulbs. It is also plastic so don't let that surprise you.
I am happy it takes an AC adapter and doesn't run on batteries, although you need to factor in that the adapter cord is kind of short. Maybe about 4 ft, possibly 5.
All in all I give this a 5 star review. Just as long as it holds up
Customer Review: Moderate quality, good functions, lights burned out quickly
Summary: 3 Stars
I bought this for my 8 year old so that he could have a planetarium nightlight. He was thrilled with the toy initially, and it does do a good job of projecting reasonably accurate configurations of constellations. It can also project a single image of a planet/nebula that you can dial up. The cons are: Motor is a bit noisy, but he didn't seem to mind at all; slightly tricky to program (at least for an 8 year old) but again, he picked up his favorite settings and stuck with them; quality is a bit disappointing for the price, it is entirely plastic and doesn't seem like it will take much to break it; the biggest con was that the bulb burned out within a few months, and I've been trying to get a replacement from the Discovery Store for a while. At first they told me I'd have to get it from Amazon, but (since that's not an option) they finally accepted my request. Hoping the bulbs arrive soon... Also, if you are looking for something that projects accurate star sizes or light levels, this isn't it. The planetarium merely projects equal-sized pinpoints of light for each star.Customer Review: Great....until it stopped working
Summary: 2 Stars
We had this for less than a year. After that, a bulb burned out and it stopped rotating altogether - and would only project the stars at the north pole.
It has the most information, the best features, and the most thorough (northern and southern hemisphere) coverage. However, you can't use any of that once it stops working.
My 10 year old daughter treated this as if it were fragile glass and went to sleep to the starscape every night. She LOVED it!
When it suddenly stopped working, we called the technical support - willing to buy parts, bulbs, etc. But, they informed us that they don't really sell the bulbs - even though that's what it says in the manual - and they haven't got any support suggestions. So, they were useless. No refund, no return, no exchange - out of warranty and out of luck.
Unfortunately, there is nothing out there that compares to this in terms of features and price. So, we will simply do without.
Customer Review: Waste of money!
Summary: 1 Stars
I bought this for my 10 year old nephew. Upon opening it and plugging it in, the lighbulbs shorted out in one of the projectors after being on for about five minutes. We took it back to the Discovery Channel store where we exchanged it (they were very apologetic about it, and had no problem exchanging it even though we bought it on amazon). We had the new one a little less than a week and it started malfunctioning. It wouldn't shut off at times, the motor seemed to make a grinding noise at others. The computer wouldn't let you navigate off the welcome screen, so getting to the command to light the projector wasn't even possible. Ultimately we decided to exchange it for a full refund and just get him something else. He was really bummed though, because while it did work it was pretty awesome. I can't beleive this toy is so expensive while the quality is so cheap. Save your money and look for a different one.