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“Looking for a well-built but reasonably priced baby...”

written by Wunderbug on 22/03/2004

Good Points
Solidly built, good price, Parent and baby unit can be used on mains or battery, good monitoring quality.

Bad Points
Fiddly battery compartment

General Comments
Looking for a well-built but reasonably priced baby monitor for our sixth month old baby led us to the Tomy Walkabout Classic.



We needed a monitor that would work remotely while we are in the garden at least up to 300 feet (or more) range from the house, and preferably had to have at least one mains adaptor to save on battery drain (in the pocket!).



The Tomy Walkabout Classic does all this in an impressive little package. The parent receiver unit has a good-sized plastic belt clip that securely hooks over your belt or clothes. This clip also swivels to cleverly operate as a stand when the unit is used as a base unit. Its controls are very simple, you set the receiver to the desired channel A or B, turn on the unit and adjust the volume. There is plenty of volume available and the sound is not distorted, it is very natural. We have found no interference with a clear signal when using channel A.



There is an option to mute the parent unit sound, and any baby movement or crying then 'appears' as a set of bright lights across the top of the unit.



The baby unit is similar but has a permanent stand. Like the parent unit it offers the option to use batteries or the included mains adapter. Its channel selector allows you to set A or B and there is an on/off button, a small red light shows you it is working. Should the batteries fail, the parent unit hisses very loudly to alert you.



The only criticism is the battery compartment since you need a screwdriver to change the batteries. A 'penny' slot would have been better.



We like this unit, it cost about £28, which seemed good value. The plastic case would take a drop without shattering and above all it is simple.