A vendor sent a Pleo to our consumer tech reviews team, and I have to say it’s so much cuter than I thought it’d be.

It’s supposed to act like a week-old dinosaur—because everybody knows how those act, right—and through “artificial intelligence” develop its personality through its surroundings.

Unfortunately, if that’s true, we may be looking at a Michael Myers here. In the past half hour since its arrival (read: insertion of batteries), it’s been prodded, poked at with the rubber leaf it comes with, tapped on the head, had its mouth squeezed shut, its tail yanked, and really just touched everywhere. Also, it’s in a darkened closet for storage now.

Actually, I really should say it’s a ’she’, because (geek joke alert!) her USB port on her underside is…female.

But it doesn’t come cheap, at S$750. So if you get one, you know you got to got to try a little tenderness.