It’s another beauty from the charity shop, or so I thought. The overall presentation of it, is nice. Its weight and build quality is not bad, either. Where it lacks, is the features are not as impressive as you would hope. I have a Sphero BB-8 with an app link that allows you to move it around. On its original release it had a dedicated app that gave sound effects and logical tasks. Although I didn’t expect this much from the BB-9E, it is very much lacking.
A major difference in these is the options for direction. Both the Sphero model, and the RC version of BB-8 work by using a magnetic head. It rolls around the sphere, regardless of its heading. this has a single wheel on its underside. Forwards and backwards is all you are getting! The circular panel on it’s front, acts as a switch to make it go backwards after bumping into an object.
It has a sound activations mode, aswell as the press of a button, that starts it moving forward. The instructions are useless, as whatever I said, made no difference, and it worked when it chose to. As an ornament, it’s pretty good, as a toy, I would have been very disappointed as a kid. These can fetch £120, new. This, used one, was £35. Not too bad, and worth the go, but this is one of those instances where the box-art outclasses the actual item it is holding.
