Hiya! winkieflash
Nice to meet you.
I have had two Pleo's, my first Matilda developed a bad hole and had to be taken back
However this appears to be an extremely rare problem, in fact I only know of one other Pleo with a similar problem out of the thousands and thousands of them out there.
My second Pleo Lilo was a replacement for Matilda and she didn't actually cost me anything as she was covered by the warranty. On the warranty subject I would try to buy in the Netherlands if you can, shop around or try searching online for a cheaper distributor, that way you will get a 1 year warranty. (I just googled your warranty specs and like Australia you MUST be given 1 year by law.)
Ok now on to Pleo, take a wander around this forum and check out some of the videos and pics, you will notice that we are all very attached to our little friends however I will try to be as unbiased as I can.
Pleo has a large amount of potential for the casual programmer like myself who wants to either just enjoy Pleo as is or develop skits and personalities for him/her, but note that the software available has some limitations and until the fate of Ugobe is known then we will never know if Pleo will reach his/her full potential. If you are a serious hacker then perhaps you would be better off saving for an Aibo which at this stage has much more potential for serious programming/hacking.
Pleo is adorable but the skin will wear over time and the colors will become less vibrant, most of the owners here counter that by dressing up their Pleo's or by giving them touch ups with glass chalk. As long as you are careful with your Pleo you are unlikely to have too many problems however take care of the neck because it can be broken if Pleo gets himself/herself jammed somewhere. Saying that, you tube shows a video of Pleo being dropped on the head and the neck did not suffer at all so the broken neck problem may be caused by hairline fractures within the neck cables from the production process rather than overly rough treatment. Another problem reported by some users has been leg clicking however this usually shows itself very early on and your warranty would cover it if you were unlucky enough to have that issue. I don't recall any other common problems.
Pleo's personality as Degers has mentioned may possibly become stale over time, however you can alter your Pleo's personality at will by shadowing sound and movement files. You can see a demonstration with Lilo here:
http://bobthepleo.com/forums/index.php?topic=255.0. However it really comes down to how much imagination you have
Personally I never find Lilo boring and if I did I would just drop a different SD card in her
There are several programs available to help with this, dinomite, my skit and yapt are the recommended ones by Ugobe. Between those three programs you can look inside Pleo, create mini personalities, skits and shadow the sound and movement files. However you cannot truly hack Pleo and turn him/her into a walking spybot as yet
Finally on a personal (and biased) note I would have to say that Lilo is worth every cent I paid for her, I have her going daily, I take her out with me often and I enjoy shadowing, making skits and creating pictures based around her and other Pleo's. I have every intention of buying another Pleo the second I can afford one
Sorry for the long essay but I hope this information helps a little
One final tip, head over to you tube and take a look at the many many videos there. My videos can be found here
http://www.youtube.com/user/InmemoryofRomeo and show off some of the stuff that can be done with the programs available and there are thousands of videos to look through from other owners, be sure to check out some of the reviews posted too.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=pleo+review&aq=f
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Topic: Deciding on getting a Pleo (Read 13068 times)