Hand-held gaming devices dominate this year's Christmas present list, according to sales data by national chain Toy Zone.

Sales of the usual frontrunners, Sony PlayStation, Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Xbox consoles, have been overtaken by a surprise newcomer this year, Leapster Explorer.

This is a gaming console aimed at children aged four to nine, made by US educational toy maker LeapFrog - a company that has several electronic gadgets in the local and international bestselling toy lists this Christmas.

The gaming console craze is not just a boy thing.

"The Leapster Explorer is available in two colours: green and pink. Something that shocked us is pink is already out of stock," said Toy Zone's head buyer and operations manager Riaz Loonat.

Part of the Leapster Explorer's popularity can be attributed to price: it retails for around R800 - half the price of the next biggest-selling console, Sony's PlayStation Portable (PsP), and a third of the price of a Sony PlayStation 3 or Nintendo Wii.

Loonat reckons Nintendo's Wii range is slightly ahead of Sony's PlayStation 3 range this year. But Sony's new Move peripherals are making it a close race.

Another LeapFrog electronic gadget, Tag, which looks like a pen and "reads" books to children as they run it over the pages, is Toy Zone's 10th best- seller this Christmas.

Looking at toys for those girls who still prefer dolls to computers games, Barbie seems to have thoroughly defeated the Bratz (whose manufacturer MGA was forced to rebrand them Moxie Teenz after getting sued by Barbie's maker Mattel).

But Bratz's "trashiness", which has prompted complaints from parents, seems to have rubbed off on Barbie. A customer review of this year's best-selling Barbie H2O Design Studio doll said: "This Barbie has gaudier make-up than most, tattoos on the legs, an extremely short dress, ridiculously large earrings, and OMG platform heels."

Tattoos aside, Barbie H2O Design Studio shows a welcome return to interactive toys. The doll comes with white dresses which can be used as a blank slate for different colour patterns any number of times.

Drawing remains as popular as ever, judging from the high ranking of ArtLab products in both the boys and girls best-seller lists.

This seems to be even more so in the US, judging from Amazon's bestselling toys list, which is headed by Crayola colouring-in projects. This could be due to heavy discounting of this range by Amazon, and a general trend towards cheaper presents in a tough economic climate.

A survey by kalahari.net found 87% of the five million South Africans with internet access plan to do some of their Christmas shopping online.

Gary Novitzkas, CEO of kalahari.net, said 34% of connected South Africans polled want an iPhone, 21% are hoping for an eReader and 18% would love to find an iPad under the tree this year. Roughly the same number (16%) are hoping to receive the new iPod and the latest DVD of their choice.

Amazon's best sellers show an interesting trend not seen locally in Toy Zone's list: the return of family board games, specifically word games.

Amazon's fourth biggest seller is Scrabble Flash Cubes. This brings electronic wizardry to the traditional board game by replacing letter tiles with liquid crystal display cubes. The electronic cubes are able to check if they have been arranged into a valid word and give a score.

Scrabble's traditional letter tiles have been adopted by a new word game, Bananagrams, which is Amazon's ninth top seller for toys and games.

kalahari.net's five best sellers by category

BOOKS

1.To the Point - Herschelle Gibbs & Steve Smith (R162)

2.Women Food and God - Geneen Roth (R136)

3.Boereverraaier - Albert Blake (R159)

4.Conversations with Myself - Nelson Mandela (R232)

5.7de Laan Kook - Kerneels Breytenbach (R200)

ELECTRONICS

1.iPads (from R6599 with no internet access to R7150 with access)

2.Elonex 500E colour eReader (R999)

3.iPods (from R499 for the iPod Shuffle 2GB to R2 999 for the iPod Touch 32GB)

4.DStv Drifta (R599)

5.iPhone (from R7499)

GAMES

1.Gran Turismo 5 (R657)

2.Call of Duty: Black Ops (R604)

3.Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (R518)

4.Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (R321)

5.World of Warcraft: Cataclysm (R259)

MUSIC

1.Now 56 (R130)

2.Susan Boyle - the Gift (R136)

3.Afrikaans is Groot - vol. 3 (R86)

4.Bok van Blerk - My Kreet (R86)

5.Taylor Swift - Speak Now (R124)

MOVIES

1.Eclipse - Stephenie Meyer (R137)

2.Shrek Forever After (R137)

3.How to Train Your Dragon (R119)

4.Bakgat 2 + free microwave popcorn exclusive on kalahari.net (R116)

5.Inception (R120)