Tablet for 5 year old

strumpusplunket

strumpusplunket

strumpusplunket

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I've got a 5 year old son who loves using his mum's laptop for playing flash games (Ben10, Cbeebies, Power Rangers, Batman, etc.) and watching children's TV websites.

My wife wanted to get him a Leapfrog tablet, but I was not quite in favour.

First, I hate locked-down propriety platforms on principle. Second, there are only a limited number of games and apps (around 100 I think), of which only a small number are likely to be any good. Third, no flash so none of the websites he likes to use.

What it does have going is that it's cheap (£80ish).

I was thinking that a cheap Android tablet would suit him better, let him use the websites he likes, play flash games, etc.

I saw these tablets when browsing:

TABTRONICS - Teclast P76ti (7" 5 point touch , A10 - 1.5 GHz / GPU: Mali 400 MHz, Gingerbread, supports Flash) around £105

Storage Options 53715 Scroll Excel 7 (7", Cortex A8 1GHz/ Dual Mali-400, Gingerbread, supports Flash) around £130

Does anyone have any experience of either of these, or can recommend a better alternative tablet for around £100-130?

Or is my wife right, and the Leapfrog would be best?
 
strumpusplunket said:
Hmmm... you don't have kids do you? ;)
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I am 17, so nope. I do have young cousins, from the ages of 2-8. I'd say probably from 6 years up I would let them use my own tech (so like your kid uses your wife's laptop at times to play games) and then prob from 8/9+ buy them their own stuff, like a PSP etc. HATE seeing kids in restaurants playing PSP and not speaking to family and stuff. And they would be sooooo young. Same for watching DVDs. Feel like the parents would want to shrug off the responsibility of crying children.
 
I would've loved a tablet at that age, was only a bit older when I started occasionally being allowed to play around on my mum's work laptop, was brilliant :D

I wouldn't know which Android to go for but I'd definitely go with one over the Leapfrog, can do loads more with it which would probably teach him a lot more I reckon.
 
The__Malteser said:
I am 17, so nope. I do have young cousins, from the ages of 2-8. I'd say probably from 6 years up I would let them use my own tech (so like your kid uses your wife's laptop at times to play games) and then prob from 8/9+ buy them their own stuff, like a PSP etc. HATE seeing kids in restaurants playing PSP and not speaking to family and stuff. And they would be sooooo young. Same for watching DVDs. Feel like the parents would want to shrug off the responsibility of crying children.
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I kind of agree with some of the substance of what you're railing against, but really having technology is neither inherently good nor bad - it's how they learn to use it. And learning to use it appropriately is going to be an increasingly important life skill for their generation.

zenf1 said:
I would've loved a tablet at that age, was only a bit older when I started occasionally being allowed to play around on my mum's work laptop, was brilliant :D

I wouldn't know which Android to go for but I'd definitely go with one over the Leapfrog, can do loads more with it which would probably teach him a lot more I reckon.
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Yeah, I really think that's right. I think the two tablets I've spotted seem good options, but I really don't know much about the tablet market so any other suggestions/advice would be really helpful.
 
Personally i think 5 too young for a tablet. While i'm sure your son would love it my guess is that like my DS it will get broken quickly. However if you want to get one then possible consider Ainol Novo 7 Paladin as there a bit cheaper at around £90
 
I was in the same predicament as you over christmas mate. My wife wanted to get the leapfrog thing for £80, which i wasn't really sure about for the same reasons as you. So we got her an Archos 70 internet tablet. She hasn't stopped using it yet. Ive put the android market on it, and its running a custom ROM which has run flawlessly since. She's better at Angry Birds than I am ;)
 
Geffen said:
Personally i think 5 too young for a tablet. While i'm sure your son would love it my guess is that like my DS it will get broken quickly. However if you want to get one then possible consider Ainol Novo 7 Paladin as there a bit cheaper at around £90
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Cheers. I'll check that out.

I'm not worried about him breaking it, really. He's an extremely bright and (mostly) well-behaved lad and, generally speaking, takes good care of his things.


As for the general deviation from this topic in thread:

Could I just say it would be helpful (to me) if replies could actually focus on the question I was asking.

If I'd wanted to know the best/worst thing out of the set of all possible things each individual person thought it appropriate to buy for a five year old, I'd have asked that.

Given that my wife and I actually know our child and his likes/dislikes and abilities, given that we (consider that we) are competent parents, given that (even implicit) questioning of one's parenting decisions by strangers is really rather irritating, and given that we have decided after weighing up the implications of this purchasing decision to buy a tablet already...

Are there any recommendations based on what I (and Geffen above) have considered already as potential options?
 
funkyphantom said:
I was in the same predicament as you over christmas mate. My wife wanted to get the leapfrog thing for £80, which i wasn't really sure about for the same reasons as you. So we got her an Archos 70 internet tablet. She hasn't stopped using it yet. Ive put the android market on it, and its running a custom ROM which has run flawlessly since. She's better at Angry Birds than I am ;)
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The Archos 70 does look good, but it's a fair bit more than I was hoping to spend - or at least I can't seem to find it for less than about £170. Is there are cheaper version, or is that the price you were thinking of for it?
 
The__Malteser said:
Am I the only one who thinks that 5 year old kids should still be playing with cars and power rangers and action man?

Yes?

Oh well, maybe I'm stuck in the old ages.
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No, it depends what they do with it.
My Son(also5) learns to spell words out on it as he wants to use youtube (searches for Mr.Bean etc), same thing happens on iplayer. I purposely make him try to spell out the words he wants.
I got the touchpad for him and I'm glad I did.
He uses it mostly for what I would consider has some lose educational benefits. Including looking items up on Google for his homework.
He could use the PC like my elder son did, but he has always been more into his MP3 player.

Having said that, i would not say i could justify an Ipad2 cost. And it was not something he asked for as such. I doubt I would allow him to demand one for a birthday or Christmas present.
In fact a good friend of mine watched my 5yr old on it and then got one for his daughter and she uses it in the same manner.
I would definitely say Tablet is far more healthy then playstation/xbox/wii.
 
funkyphantom said:
Looks like cpw have started to sell the arnova 7c g2 instead of the Archos mate. If its an upgrade it must be pretty good. However I have no idea if they're 'hackable' or not.

http://www.arctablet.com/blog/featured/arnova-7-g2-review-part-1-intro/
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Yeah, I like the look of that one. I'll do a bit of searching for reviews versus the other ones. Cheers.

funkyphantom said:
Or how about a second hand ipod touch?
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Not really. We're pretty much set on the tablet form, as things like reading and writing will be so much easier on a 7" screen as opposed to the small screens of the Touch or similar.
 
I'd say the 2 mentioned in OP are pretty much where it is at.....unless you can snag an Archos 70 at sensible money still (I too saw them in CPW around Christmas @ £100).

As for general discussion, I think Tablets can be great for kids. My 5yr old daughter is always asking to play on my 'flat computer' (which I know by the less common name of Asus Transformer) and I have dedicated one screen for her things....which include spelling and writing apps (e.g. tracing over letters) and wordsearch and sliding picture puzzles and 'pairs' games, multi-touch paint and so on. Yes, she can have a punt on Angry Birds/Cut the Rope/Cordy and so on, if she likes, but overall it is a nice fun/educational tool occasionally :)
 
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