Violet Nabaztag review

The Nabaztag stands just over half-a-foot tall, has rotating ears and is the world's first WiFi rabbit.

Once he's connected to your wireless network, he'll read the time, tell you the weather, play music and receive messages. Nabaztag is a stunning-looking bit of kit that had the whole Shopper team crowding round to see him spring to life and say his first words. Unfortunately, it took a while to get working.

While the rabbit will connect to any unprotected wireless network automatically, it can't do the same for protected networks. Instead, we had to put it into configuration mode, where it acts as a wireless access point, and change our settings manually using the web interface. But Nabaztag supports only WEP-encrypted networks, so you'll have to downgrade your security if you're currently using WPA. Once he's working, he should connect to the online service, but he can often be slow and take a couple of tries to connect.

Once connected, he has to be registered online and given a unique name. As Nabaztag is a French product, large parts of the website are still in French, which can make it difficult to understand some of the prompts, such as when it tries to tell you that someone else already has the name you want to use. When your Nabaztag is online, he's ready to send and receive messages. It's free to send and receive 'little words', which are pre-recorded messages such as: "Can you do the shopping please?" These can be sent to any Nabaztag, including your own.

If you want to send music files or use text-to-speech to generate your own messages, you're given a few free credits with each account. To get the full service, you have to upgrade your account. The Full Rabbit costs €3.9 (around £3) per month and lets you send unlimited messages to other accounts. The Full Friend Rabbit costs €5.9 (approximately £4) per month, but enables friends who don't have Nabaztags to send your rabbit an unlimited number of messages.

The messaging service works well, and there's a large range of voices you can pick. However, the Nabaztag isn't very loud, so it can be difficult to hear a message. With each message you send, you can choose the colour the Nabaztag should glow when it's received. If you're out when you receive a message, your rabbit's nose glows to show that you've got messages. You can replay all your messages by pressing the rabbit's only button. If you want finer control, your Nabaztag home page lets you read, delete and archive your messages just like email.

Unfortunately, at times we found the website very slow to use and sending messages could take a while. As the service grows to include more users, Violet will have to upgrade its servers to speed things up.

Sending music using a choice of Midi files or your own MP3 files is great fun; your rabbit springs to life with a colourful light show and spins his ears. If you want to, you can share your music collection online with other Nabaztag users. Don't forget, though, that it's illegal to share copyrighted music using this service.

There's also a wide range of services to which you can subscribe. If you haven't signed up for a paid account, you're limited to the free services. These include the clock; every hour on the hour, your Nabaztag will proudly tell you the time. Just don't forget to tell him he's in the UK; otherwise, your bunny will think he's on French time.

Other free services include Tai Chi, a twice-daily weather report and moods, where your rabbit will say something random based on his mood. Some services need updating as they are only of use to you if you live in France, such as the Paris traffic reports.