As a parent and journalist, I've played with countless toys, but few as strange as the Toy Story 5 Explore & Learn Lilypad.

The preschool-age tablet is based on the Toy Story 5 character of the same name, a flashy and mildly villainous tablet that sets the movie's plot into motion.

The real-life Lilypad, made by LeapFrog and retailing for $29.95, tries to draw on the friendship theme of Toy Story 5, but implements it in unusual ways. Parents considering Lilypad as a smart, fun, and guilt-free purchase should first consider its range of games and texting feature.

What is the Toy Story 5 Explore & Learn Lilypad?

The Lilypad features a small backlit LCD screen and an A-to-Z keypad. Three basic skill-building games are supposed to help kids count to 100, identify letters, and problem solve an obstacle course.

Another feature invites kids to "jam along" to preset songs by pushing keyboard buttons, which emit sounds like a ribbit, squeak, twangy guitar, oinking, and toilet flushing.

If a child hasn't seen or doesn't remember the imaginary weddings that take place in Toy Story 5, the inclusion of Mendelssohn's Wedding March as a song to bop along to may seem nonsensical. Parents can expect erratic sound effects played over a few musical selections.

Finally, the keyboard includes six emoji: heart, thumbs up, smiling face with sunglasses, laughing squinting face, rolling on the floor laughing, and crying face. These seem simple enough, but invite trouble when used to "text" (see below).

Does Lilypad reflect the movie character?

On one hand, I was relieved to discover that the Lilypad has little in common with the movie character.

Once young Bonnie gets her hands on a Lilypad, she becomes a tablet zombie, lit up for hours by the screen's glow. Things go from bad to worse when Bonnie, whose imaginative play puts off kids who've forsaken toys for devices, discovers she can socialize with mean girls from her dance class via Lilypad's "pond."

Lilypad, just as sentient as franchise star and cowgirl heroine Jessie, thinks she's doing Bonnie a favor by scheming to get her beloved toys relegated to the garage.

What can the Lilypad do?

The real-life Lilypad has no artificial intelligence or creepy autonomous powers. Thankfully, it lacks other features that made the movie character so problematic, like access to a toxic social media environment or peer-to-peer sharing.

The games encourage short bursts of play instead of endless engagement through gamification. LeapFrog deserves credit for this design feature. Yet with just a handful of games, the exploration is limited to a few repetitive activities.

How does the Lilypad's texting feature work?

The strangest design choice for the Lilypad, however, is the so-called texting feature.

Kids can push character icon buttons for Jessie, Buzz Lightyear, Woody, and the franchise's new addition, Smarty Pants, a low-tech device that's initially reviled by Jessie.

The Lilypad then says, "Let's see who's on the pond," a verbatim line from the Toy Story 5 tablet that precedes poor Bonnie's downward spiral as she rejects her toys for peer approval and gets bullied anyway. In a non-sequitur, the real-life Lilypad also says, "Let's stay connected!"

For a product based on a movie about the enduring importance of in-person connection and imaginative play, this script feels like an inexplicable contradiction that only deepens with texting.

Once a child selects a character, they receive one of six or seven curated messages as a "text."

Jessie, for example, says, "Have you seen Woody?" The child can respond with an emoji or letter button. When I pushed smiling face with sunglasses, I received back, "Me too!" When I pushed the crying emoji, I got a heart emoji. Responding to a Buzz Lightyear text with the crying emoji returns a simple, "message secured." I hope no preschooler presses that emoji expecting a custom or sensitive reply.

The problem with Lilypad's texting

Regardless of what's selected, the Lilypad declares, "Voila, friend made!" It's the depressing toy equivalent of becoming someone's "friend" on Facebook.

When I asked LeapFrog about this message, a spokesperson for the company said it's meant to "celebrate the interaction and reinforce the idea of building connections through playful exchanges."

That left me wondering if I'd seen the same movie as LeapFrog's designers. The beginning of Lilypad's redemption arc — of course, she gets one — is realizing that she can't help Bonnie make friendships. Instead, she's a tool that can facilitate literal face time thanks to messaging capabilities.

So why does the Lilypad have a texting feature that doesn't align with the film's message?

Should you buy the Toy Story 5 Explore & Learn Lilypad?

Dr. Jenny Radesky, a developmental behavioral pediatrician at the University of Michigan School of Medicine who conducts research on family screen time, offered one compelling explanation.

"I wonder whether this was an underbaked product that was put together for merchandising purposes," she told me in an email.

Radesky, who previously consulted for the toy company Melissa & Doug, said she'd never seen texting with movie characters before and described it as "odd" and somewhat reminiscent of the AI role-playing product Character.AI.

That platform invites users to chat with fictional characters. Earlier this year, the company settled lawsuits against it filed by parents of teens who died by suicide following lengthy engagement with chatbots that involved alleged sexual abuse.

Though Lilypad has no AI capabilities, Radesky said texting feels more personal and that she wouldn't be OK with it for her own children.

Who is the Lilypad tablet for?

As I tested the Lilypad, I kept asking myself: Who is this really for?

After all the stories I've written about the perils of unmitigated screen time, I could argue that offering fewer games is a good thing for kids. But if a toymaker is using tech to facilitate play and learning, one would hope for a product that inspires creativity rather than checks boxes.

In Radesky's opinion, closed-loop education games may help with rote learning, but children can also do them on "autopilot." She did appreciate that the device presents much less risk than a hand-me-down smart tablet.

Her advice? Purchase a magnetic drawing board as a portable toy to keep kids occupied. In general, Radesky also said kids will learn more useful human skills if they're not occupied with a mobile device or video game during "humdrum daily moments."

Ben Miller, executive learning designer at LeapFrog, said in a statement to Mashable that the Lilypad's simple guided activities are intentionally approachable for younger children. He also noted that the Lilypad may help parents contend with technology's role in modern childhood, alongside reading, creative play, physical activity, and family time.

"Parents today are looking to create a healthy balance, rather than elimination, when it comes to technology and screen time," he said.

Looking for lifetime customers

I appreciate this sentiment. Ultimately, though, I concluded that Lilypad feels like a product designed for Disney, Pixar, and LeapFrog, to capitalize on the latest Toy Story zeitgeist without giving users something truly meaningful in exchange.

The Lilypad helps Disney and Pixar boost brand awareness of the Toy Story franchise amongst the youngest kids. Meanwhile, LeapFrog broadens or strengthens its market share in the same demographic, perhaps positioning preschoolers to graduate to the company's big-kid LeapPad Academy educational tablet.

As a parent who implements stricter-than-most screen time rules, I'm sympathetic to an effort that tries to mindfully integrate technology into a children's toy.

Yet the Lilypad does something different. Like Toy Story 5, it wants us to believe that our relationship to our devices is purely personal when, in fact, design choices and market forces conspire to turn us into lifelong customers under the feel-good guise of learning, friendship, and connection.