Review of Lite Brite Flat Screen

Rating: 

See it: Lite Brite Flat Screen

Now I know what my parents meant when they used to say “They don’t make toys like they used to…” I’ve always thought toys have progressively gotten better. I look at my five-year-old daughter Ally’s toys and I wish I had them when I was growing up.

But there are some toys that were better when I was a kid. One of them is Lite Brite.

Ally got the Lite Brite Flat Screen for her fifth birthday and I was so excited. This was one of my favorite toys as a kid and I couldn’t wait to share it with her. But pretty quickly I found out, this is not the Lite Brite I grew up with.

For starters, the Lite Brite flat screen has a pretty weak bulb so it doesn’t glow very brightly. I remember my  Lite Brite plugged in when I was a kid, which I’m sure is not safe, but it really GLOWED! The new Lite Brite also turns off automatically, so we have to keep turning it back on while creating our designs.

Also the flat screen lays flat, so it’s not as easy to see or show off your picture. I remember my Lite Brite was tilted, which I think made it easier to create pictures and display them.

I also don’t really like the peg storage on the bottom of Ally’s Lite Brite. It’s a container that rolls forward and backward to dispense and store the pegs. But Ally always has trouble rolling it forward and backward and eventually spills the pegs everywhere in the process.

The thing is, if I had never had my Lite Brite as a child, I would probably like the current version more. It is a great toy for developing creativity and fine motor skills. And Ally thinks it’s fun. But when I play Lite Brite Flat Screen with Ally, all I can think about is how much better this toy could have been and how much better it was a long time ago.