Wall-E - Ultimate Wall-E

Let me start out by saying that I do really like this toy, but I would hardly pay more than the original price. The toy is worth a couple hundred if you can find it for that. Look around.



Out of the box, this is a heavy toy. Wall-e weighs about 10 pounds. All the stuff you need is included. Seems pretty durable. As you unpack you will find that you need some batteries. It takes 4 AA batteries to run the robots voice and lights. The remote uses another 3 AA. I would use high end batteries for these. The cheapo batteries are dead really soon. The movement is controlled by yet another battery. There is a 7.2v rechargeable battery included for that. You will not be using this right away.



The instructions tell you that the battery has to charge for 5 hours the first time. Mine did not charge that long before I got a green light on the charger. I did about 3 hours for the first charge. Two hours after that. The instructions say 4. This is my chief complaint about this toy... Battery life. After all this charging... you are lucky to get about 10 minutes of play out of Wall-e.



Some research I did shows that you can get a better battery for Wall-e. You can step up to a 7.2v 2200mAh battery. You can get these at most online custom battery places. Cost you about 13 buck. I would recommend a better charger though. The smart chargers run about 25 bucks, but you can charge the battery pretty fast. With the better battery, you get a longer play time. About 30 minutes or so as far as I could find. I will update this when I have actually done this.



Now you can play with Wall-e a bit longer if you don't drive him around too much. The treads take up most of the power. Especially on carpet. Wall-e's facial and arm movement go on for a bit after the treads can no longer draw power. So you can at least hear him talk and stuff for a bit. He actually will talk and light up with just the 4 AAs you put in his back.



This is a great toy if you have small kids around. My 4 year old was very excited about the robot. He was disappointed that Wall-E had to 'rest' so much. Of course without the 7.2v battery, you can still get Wall-E to talk.(his arms don't move, but the eyes still light up) Even that much of the robot is entertaining. I went through a set of AAs just pushing the buttons to hear him talk.



I won't go into functions here. There are plenty of reviews on youtube for you to look at on that.



So overall, this toy is worth a couple hundred. It is a decent size robot and has some personality even if you can't drive him around. I would not pay the large prices for this though. I actually found mine clearenced at Toy R us for about a 100 bucks. Very happy with that price. Since you are going to be looking for new batteries, it pays to look around. Shop around folks. Would not suggest you get this for young kids. Although it is pretty well made, kids will want to turn his head and hands or push him on his treads. All things they recommend you do not do.



I recommend the bigger battery. Maybe a couple of them. Charge one while you use the other. I would also go with a smart charger. It is going to charge batteries faster, so you and Wall-E will have more 'quality time'. This is just really a toy for the 'big' kids and collectors out there. I think this toy would have done better in sales if a. it had been a bit larger and b. it had better battery life.

How unfortunate that such an expensive item would have a 3-5 minute battery life on carpet and a 10-13 on hardwood flooring.

I phoned the customer service number and was told that I could return the item or attempt an upgrade to the battery at one

of my local hobby shops. Again, how disappointing. I'm glad that we decided to open and test this before Christmas morning

when our grandson would want to play with it. I think we may return this item as opposed to replacing the battery, it just

doesn't seem worth it.



I would be more reluctant in the future to purchase products with the Disney brand as I feel

that the quality of the product I'm purchasing would not be worth the price paid.

Just the facts.

I bought mine and installed a Venom (C size) 4200mah battery to replace his (AA) 1000mah battery.

He runs for hours now instead of minutes.

His 10 motors are so loud that they made his sound effects louder to compensate, which makes for a incredibly noisy robot. I tapped a piece of small cardboard over his speaker so that muted %60 of his noise. (whew)



He's heavy as a boulder too. In fact with his upgraded battery you can see why he has a problem turning on some carpet. (That problem was fixed when I upgraded his battery.)



Pros:

Real autonomous robot.

I like that he has sensors in the back of his body.

Eye expressions are cool.



Cons:

His microphones could be a lot more sensitive.

Short battery life!!!!

Not enough dialog of wall-e. Audio gets very repetitive.

The threaded wheels do not have bearings, so plastic bearing make it a major drag and helps drain battery life faster .

Wall-e doesn't like rough pavements. Do not ever let your kids play him there. He likes smooth tiled floors, carpets. or any smoother surface areas. Wall-e got one of its gears broken when he was used on rough pavement. After that incident wall-e can't perform to dance perfectly anymore luckily I was able to repair it. I made the broken part much stronger. He's now dancing perfectly.



Conclusion:

It's basically like a Hasbro Interactive R2D2 with different sensors doing the same things and more motors than R2 had. However Wall-E doesn't have speech recognition like R2 per say however it can 'hear' you. (Sound wise)



A must have addition to your robot collection!

I didnt know this product existed until I saw it hidden on the bottom shelf at Toy's are Us. I immediatly grabbed it up, last one, only to be shocked by the price. After 30 min of deliberation and consulting with my wife I made the purchase. Why not, the box is impressive with specifications and the word 'Ultimate' on the front and being a huge fan of the movie, I could not just walk away. Later that evening the container was reverse engineered on my living room floor to gain the release of the robot. Only $2 was given the the 'Curse Jar' on top of the refrigerator, not bad. The battery is said to take 5 hours of charging so I would remove it first and get it going. It is located between wally's tracks at the bottom of the box. Much to my suprise it only took an hour to charge. I was so excited to see the green light on the charger so soon, I wouldnt have to wait until morning to reap the rewards of my unboxing skills. The battery was installed in the bottom compartment and the switch was thrown to 'play'. Immediate satisfaction filled my heart, for five minutes, then the battery died. I have discharged and charged the battery several times making sure that is as discharged as possible and cool each time before charging and have managed to get 12 -14 minutes of playtime on hardwood floors. The next 4 days of my life are spent trying to explain to 3 childeren that Wally's solar charge level is low and we cant play with him for a while. There is a number in the user guide that took me to customer service with almost no hold time. I explained my problem to a seemingly very helpful person who then told me that they could not help me other that packing Wally up and shipping the whole thing back for 'possible repair or replacement'. I explained that I believed it was only a battery or charger issue and I didnt need to send the whole thing to them just to receive it back weeks later with the same problem. The Rep did not indicate that this has been a common complaint or not, but promised me a call back from the actual people that handle problems at a later time. The call came while I was at work - missed it.

Upon further research the battery problem seems to be more of a problem than not. For the Premium price demanded for the product I dont see how this escaped the development people and manufacturer. The simple fix is a larger capacity battery found at the local hobby store in the range of 2000 mah. as opposed to the 1000 mah. that comes in the box. The only other problem I have seen so far is the MP3 player interface. The volume is too low, even with the MP3 player volume on max I still have a hard time hearing it. If you buy this one take the extra step and buy the battery that should have come with it. My childeren love this one, it might be worth it.

Let me start by saying that I can not think of a better way for Disney/Pixar to bring home the message of this wonderful movie than by offering this wonderful product. How better to follow through on a creative and insightful film that dynamically portrays the long-term dangers of a massive consumer-based society than by offering this incredibly useful and relevant item. Not only does it reflect the original Wall-E's ability to pile up trash by burning through batteries like it was its primary directive, but I also find it amusing to watch as it bumbles through my house while I sit on the couch stuffing fast food down my throat. IT'S LIKE BEING IN THE MOVIE! Now if they'd only release a hoverchair my life would be complete.

Thank you Disney/Pixar, thank you from the bottom of my double-plus sized, apathy-ridden, willfully ignorant heart.