Gadgets for Christmas

Rob Beattie ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 03 Dec 2003

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Sony AIBO ERS-7
£1,399.99


Pros
The most convincing robot pet in town
Cons
Fourteen hundred quid can be exchanged for many real dogs
Verdict
AIBO is genuine fun and, scarily, it does appear to develop a personality over time


Thanks to its floppy ears and newly-rounded face, this is easily the most puppy-like of Sony’s so-called ‘entertainment robots’, and at last also includes everything you need to train and play with the mechanical mutt straight out of the box (in the past, Sony made you pay extra for almost everything).

This time however, you get the dog, a ball and bone for it to play with and a re-charging station for when the battery needs re-juicing. Out of the box, AIBO now understands a range of simple voice commands as well as recognising the symbols on 15 supplied cards; wave one of these in front of AIBO and it’ll lay down, hold out its paw, turn around, take a picture and so on.

The ERS-7 has also got built-in Wi-Fi, so with the appropriate wireless hub and broadband connection, you can control it from a POP3 email account, sending commands down the telephone line -- even getting AIBO to play back pre-recorded messages like ‘Sorry, it’s me and I’m going to be late’.

Despite the extraordinary joint engineering, AIBO still totters along like a new-born pup and it’s especially amusing to watch it back painstakingly onto the re-charging station. Still, as robots go, this is the dog’s gonads.

Sony (08705) 111999

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