KidyDraw Mini on the road: does a drawing tablet beat coloured pencils?

On the garden sofa, KidyDraw Mini on his lap, the first complaint arrives within ten seconds: ‘But I want pink.’ No app, no wifi, no account, but there is an LCD screen and a pen that only gives yellow, orange, green and blue. A month and a short holiday later I know where this tracing book works for us, and where the coloured pencils simply win.

Why the Mini and not the Pad

We deliberately chose the Mini over the bigger Pad. The more complex drawings on the Pad are still too hard for a two- and a four-year-old. I want them to be able to celebrate a success fairly quickly after drawing something that looks like the template. The Kawaii set appeals to both of them: cute cheerful animals and ice creams, not too complex, still recognisable.

	KidyDraw Mini	KidyDraw Pad
Age (manufacturer)	4+	6+
Size	compact, travel	larger tracing book
Screen	LCD, erasable	LCD, erasable
Wifi / app	no	no
Price (indication)	from €19.90	from €29.90

This thing is not screen-free, by the way. There is an LCD screen inside that wipes your drawing at the push of a button, and that wiping is exactly why paper beats it at home. What is not inside is an app, an account, or a catalogue that wants something from you, and for a drawing device that is precisely enough technology as far as I am concerned. Which trade-off you make with this kind of toy is in three types of screen-free toys.

Three questions were on my mind when we bought it. Will one KidyDraw Mini do, or will they each need their own? Is it mainly fun on trips and during waiting time, or will they pick it up spontaneously at home too? And if tracing catches on (or colouring with those rainbow colours), which expansion set becomes the December present, without us needing two devices?

A quarter of an hour of drawing in the garden

The oldest sat down on the garden sofa with the Mini on his lap and had his verdict ready within ten seconds: the pen only gives yellow, orange, green and blue. ‘But I want pink.’ In that position the book folds half shut and the templates slide towards the middle. Only later did I discover that you can fold the storage flap with the templates behind the drawing panel. If you do not, sitting cross-legged with it is fairly uncomfortable.

He happily drew for a quarter of an hour. With the first template he traced the lines; with the next one he coloured the drawing in. Exactly the mix I hoped for: not just tracing until you get bored, but also adding colour inside lines that are already there.

Swapping templates is a sport

The oldest swaps the templates without any trouble. The youngest managed it the next day after five attempts; before that he pushed and pulled them in at an angle, so they jammed and creased a little. They both want to play with it a lot in the first few weeks, at the same time of course.

From the dentist chair to the back seat

At home it worked as long as it was new: different from the rest, and it asks something of fine motor skills and patience. The first real test outside the house was the dentist. After a few minutes there, the Yoto Mini with kids’ headphones was more fun anyway. Humming along (and louder) to music the rest of us cannot hear, and pulling out your cable now and then for a laugh.

In the car to Luxembourg the tracing book only came out of the bag briefly, and it worked about as well as on the garden sofa. As long as I helped with swapping, the oldest could colour for ten minutes or so. At home we put the templates next to us on the table or the sofa; in the car I was the table. On the road too, the KidyDraw stayed a change of pace rather than the favourite toy. In the chalet, the real coloured pencils and the colouring book won.

Does analog do this better

For us, analog wins. Once the novelty wore off, the KidyDraw Mini was barely picked up at home; colouring pages and pencils were. For my four-year-old I think that comes down to three things:

• Limited colours: four colours from the pen, and pink is not one of them.
• The end result: take the template out and the coloured in drawing does not look like anything any more. Tracing will probably get fun when he is older.
• Nothing to keep: you cannot hang the finished drawing on the wall.

I really see the KidyDraw Mini as something for the road, or for a spot without much table or floor space. Think of the dentist’s waiting room, a restaurant, or the back seat. But even there it is one of the alternatives for us and not the main toy. On an earlier holiday Noah’s Ark by SmartGames already did well, and now that the youngest can play the first levels of Noah’s Ark and Coral Reef with some help, I would sooner pack two of those games for a restaurant than the KidyDraw Mini.

The two-year-old does not spend long on drawing in analog form either, although stickers and cutting are a different story, so I cannot judge yet how much he will get out of it in a few years. What does work for him now is drawing together. After he has been busy with the pen himself for a few minutes, I draw things on request or write the letters he recognises; then he gets to erase them or ‘colour them in’. That is how I picture the tracing book on our flight too: not as a toy he uses on his own, but as something we do together.

Why is that storage flap built this way

Our earlier magnetic drawing boards have since died of scratches and holes in the magnetic sand screen, so I hoped this one would last longer. After a month at home and the short trip to Luxembourg the book still looks good, apart from that storage flap: the first couple of centimetres are already coming loose and I expect it to tear right through. Even I cannot always get the sheets in and out comfortably, and with all the templates inside it is not pleasant to work with for kids of this age.

At the same time I cannot come up with a better solution. It is genuinely nice that everything sits together in one book and that the screen is protected when nobody is using it. The damage may well be less of an issue if only children of four and up play with it; that is the age the Mini is made for. In our house there is a two-year-old who wants his turn as well, so we are testing it harder than the KidyDraw Mini is meant for. For now it is stored higher up and not within the youngest kid’s reach.

Three things worth knowing before you start

• Count on four colours: the pen gives yellow, orange, green and blue, so pink lovers need a moment to adjust.
• Storage flap to the back: fold the template flap behind the drawing panel when your child draws cross-legged or on the sofa, and the book will not fold half shut.
• Count on supervision: a toddler will not get the templates in straight on the first go, and on the road you are the table.

Will it survive the flight

Two of my three purchase questions have been answered: they do not pick it up spontaneously at home, and one device is enough as long as I am nearby to referee. The expansion set question I am postponing until after the flight.

The tracing book looks lovely, but I do not think it will stay that way for long. For now the KidyDraw Mini has survived its first month at home and a first trip. Soon it goes on a plane, and then I will know whether the storage flap is still intact and whether tracing beats coloured pencils at ten thousand metres.