Tomy Video TDV450 Monitor

I brought this monitor for my first baby and at first it seemed to be brilliant. However in the 18 months we have used it there have been continuous problems. The parent unit has never worked when not plugged into a wall, sometimes the screen has lines that appear across it and sometimes it just stops working or loses connection with the video unit altogether for no apparent reason. It has often started making a crackling noise for no reason and the range is terrible. The picture quality of the parent unit has always been poor and has now completely deteriorated and the monitor is no longer usuable.

Have now purchased a Tomy digital monitor and it is 100 times better with a much clearer picture.

There appears to be a shortage of decent reviews for Baby Monitors and my quest to find the "Summer Infant Baby Touch Video Monitor" came up short as nobody had it in stock.

So there were two other main contenders based on the reviews I could find: the "TOMY Video TDV450 Monitor" and the "Lindam Clarity Digital Video Monitor".

I had spotted a number of reviews raving about the Tomy one, however, a few people did mention that the picture quality wasn't very good. I decided to buy it anyway as I liked the idea of the large viewing screen and basically thought, how bad can the picture quality be? Well, here's a list of the main features and my thoughts for what they are worth....

Picture Quality: It's bad. Really bad to be honest and the large screen only emphasises this! The night vision works well and lights things up without actually using lights (using invisible to the eye infra-red) but the picture is very blocky and unclear. The zoom and pan is quite handy but as the quality is so poor it negates any positives obtained.

Sound Quality: The sound quality is very good and clear thanks to the DECT technology. There's no interference with other wifi equipment etc.

Controls: Not very clear or easy to use and often not very responsive. I find it rather difficult to press the centre button which is surrounded by directional button. The menu system isn't the best.

Temperature Gauge: Seems to work and is accurate but a little pointless unless your house or rooms are prone to changing temperature drastically and often. Even with our high ceilings the temperature stays pretty much at 20 degrees and we've got a dedicated temperature gauge anyway.

2-way talk: Works well and is fairly clear. At the moment our baby doesn't really benefit from having 2-way talk but could be useful later on. Can be handy if your partner is putting the baby to sleep and you need something brought down hehe!

Positioning: Very easy to get the right position for the camera as the base moves 360 degrees. There's a slot underneath for mounting onto a screw head in the wall.

Night Light: It's a little too bright but you can choose from many colours or have it scroll through them so softer ones can be selected.

Range: No problems and this is through many brick walls in an old sandstone house.

Screenshots etc: What's the point? Use a real camera with better quality.

All in all, this would have been a good unit had the video quality been better but for the price there's no excuse for the poor image.

I changed mine for the "Lindam Clarity Digital Video Monitor" and although it has less features (which I didn't need anyway) the image quality is far better, the funtions are much easier to operate as they have their own dedicated buttons instead of having to go into a chunky menu system and it plays music remotely to the camera unit, which our baby prefers to my voice! The nightlight isn't as bright either.