The new LCD Etch A Sketch Freestyle can’t shake off the lies

Remember Etch A Sketch? Remember spending hours honing your fine motor skills in turning the knobs and dials, trying to perfect tracing over the lines? Remember never letting anyone into your room again after your neighbor’s kid accidentally kicked your Etch A Sketch across the floor and destroyed your masterpiece?

The Etch A Sketch was an exercise in patience, character-building, and hand-eye coordination. Today’s kids won’t get to experience any of that with the latest collaboration from Spin Master (the company that acquired Etch A Sketch in 2016) and BoogieBoard, the Etch A Sketch Freestyle. It’s half the fun of the classic Etch A Sketch, with none of the effort.

Etch A Sketch Freestyle takes the aluminum powder out entirely and replaces it with a black LCD screen, which kids can then use a stylus to draw rainbow lines on. So what are the white knobs in the corners for? They’re stamps that make shapes on the LCD screen. The only feature that remains the same as the classic toy is the shake-to-erase functionality. What is the point of anything?

Etch A Sketch Freestyle will be available for $20 in Fall 2017. In the meanwhile, why not try recreate this at home, analog style? You can make your own DIY Marvin’s Magic Drawing Board by layering oil pastels and scratching off the top black layer. Learn how to make your own scratchboard here!