Be Excellent To Each Other

Thinking of getting my daughter (5 years old) a tablet for Christmas. Best bang per buck seems to be the Kindle Fire HD at £119. Are they shit? Any others worth considering? Don't want to be spending anymore than that really.

There is the cheapy Tesco one which was just announced - its also £119 but there are rumors that they will cut them down in the run up to Xmas

There are also very cheap ones but i think you might be better paying that little extra to get something that wont cause you too much pain (dealextreme or other places have basic android 7" tablets for about £50 or £60)

** edit ** - Amazon are also a source of these cheapo Android Tablets - for example

http://www.amazon.co.uk/BWC-Premium-Wid ... in+storage

Is £60 for a 7" tablet with a display of 1024x600 , 8GB memory , Micro SD slot and running 4.1.1 (Jelly Bean)

0.40p Ibo's from Boots. Get some.

Don't fancy getting her a proper cheapo tablet, but thanks for the info.

Mentioned a nexus 7 to the mrs but she thought they were too much for her, hence the Kindle Fire HD fitting the bill. Just didn't want to order it without asking on here for opinions first.

I had a go at the tesco model yesterday, not bad for £120.

And apparently Clubcard holders with enough Boost points can get it for significantly under £100?

The Fire HD is pretty good bang per buck and has a very simplified interface which might be good for her. The downside in that respect is that it's not really like any other Android device so if she was moving on to other tablets/phones later down the line she'd be relearning the UI from scratch; although I suspect that's of little concern to you.

The real argument against the Kindle stuff is no Google Play so you don't get the same selection as other Android devices. By all accounts Google Play has the most stuff so she could end up not being able to get something she wants; plus other Android devices can install the Amazon app store as well as Google Play and thus get the best of both worlds. How much that matter to you though only you can say though.

The other usual option here would be the first gen Nexus 7 which can be had for £150 vs the Fire HDs £120 so it depends what your budget is. As far as I remember the Nexus is more powerful and has a better screen and whatnot but obviously for a kid you might not be bothered by that.

There has been lots of hints about this but I dont think they've done it like that yet (something about the value for club card points counting as double against it) - its probably worth keeping an eye on it to see if it does drop down

Ooh very important info that, Bamba. Didn't realise it wasn't a 'standard' android OS.

No, it's pretty heavily modified to hide vanilla Android and push Amazon content at every possible opportunity. Which is kind of fair enough given how much they've subsidised the thing but still worth being aware of. Grim's got an original Fire and I think he said that it's more recognisably Android as soon as you go into the options and whatnot but the basic front end is very different.

Hmm, thinking about it more, without Google Play I don't know if you get all the Google apps (Maps, Gmail, Earth, Drive, etc) which could be an issue. Grim's probably the best person to ask about the specific differences.

My brother has a Kindle Fire and he only gets the Apps from the Amazon Marketplace. Not sure he's much interested in sideloading (or would know how to)

Sideloading anything means acquiring APK installers from potentially dodgy sources so no, not worth recommending generally. The only time I've ever done it was to get the Nexus camera app and gallery on my Note 2 so I could take/view photospheres.

Hmm it might be better (for her) that it is restricted tbf.

Depending what you mean by 'restricted' the newest version of Android (which you'd get with a Nexus tablet) has support for multiple users and creating restricted profiles. I've never looked at it in any detail myself but there's some pretty detailed info about it here.

One of my work colleagues got his kid a kindle fire HD, he singeth its praises from every rooftop and says his kid loves it.

I have an Asus Memo Pad HD7 and I absolutely love it. I actually prefer it to the ipad "3" my brother in law has. I have absolutely nothing bad to say about it, and it costed me 150€.

Sold.

I don't like him though, so make sure you factor that in.

I'd get a Hudl.

I've got an Onda v973. It's basically a Chinese Android iPad2. It's pretty good, except the keyboard input is shit, but I think that might be resolved by a firmware update, cba right now. It's out of stock these days, but you can get the slightly different older version which is practically the same. (There's also a newer v975, which is similiar, or a v975s, but that has a much lower res screen for some reason, which is probably to save on battery life or something. Or maybe they ran out of retina screens at the factory?!).

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Onda-Allwinner- ... B00AZBASL0
http://www.onda-tablet.com/onda-v972-qu ... et-pc.html

If you want a 9.7 inch tablet for around £170, it's pretty good.


warning: You pretty much have to root them (with something from arctablet) when you first get them, otherwise they're unstable and Chinese.

MyTablet: Argos launches £100 tablet to rival Tesco Hudl
Telegraph.co.uk ‎- by Sophie Curtis ‎- 2 hours ago
High street retailer Argos has launched a 7-inch tablet for £99.99, undercutting Tesco's Hudl device by £20.

HIGH-STREET COMPETE

Interesting. Comparing the two though the Hudl is well worth the extra £20.

I would go for the Hudl, pop into your local Tesco to try one out

The Argos one has the word BUSH on the back. Apropos of nothing

No specs or benchmarks? USELESS REVIEW.

http://gfxbench.com/compare.jsp?D1=Tesc ... s+7&cols=2

The Argos MyTablet is not yet on there, so we can't put it to the test. Still, the Hudl doesn't look so bad with the Mali 400 MP.

I like the word Hudl. I'd go for that.

Hudl = GazChap Huddle.

For £20 extra I'll take a much higher-res screen, more internal storage, quad vs dual core CPU and better battery life regardless of bechmarks.

SilentElk = GazChap funny

Are they plenty of apps for the Android tablets? I've not looked at these as work hand out Apple stuff like sweets, so I have those.

Great thing for a young kid if there is plenty of cheap\free games and apps as its £100 vs £500 for Apple.

My son is 4 months now so has started to hold toys, he really likes to look at the TV, PC screen and Ipad. He will touch the screen of the Ipad and move his hand on the screen when I bring it close enough, he obviously can't do anything meaningful but I was amazed that he started to sort of get it at such a young age.

My wife loaded some kids games on her iPad mini last night. When the kids were asked for a go they went ferral. Like watching Grim... and Craster fighting over a chicken drumstick.

Might have to get two.

Google Play doesn't draw a line between phone and tablet apps; they're all just the same apps and it's left to the developer to ensure everything displays properly so it's kind of impossible to answer your question exactly as asked. In my experience of owning a Nexus tablet I've never come across an app that doesn't work perfectly well on the bigger high-res tablet screen but obviously your mileage may vary depending on the exactly apps you use. Similarly all the games I've ever played on the tablet worked as well there as they did on my phone but there's no guarantees you wouldn't get issues with some specific ones.

It should be re-stated that the Kindle Fire doesn't allow you to use Google Play.

Okay:

"The Kindle Fire doesn't allow you to use Google Play."

Ta.

My daughter got her first pad for xmas when she was 2 (Nexus 7 in a pink BOBJ cover - look em up, vital protection and the thick edges make it easy for small hands to hold)

We got it so at night time, Mrs Dom can use the other user (locked with pattern) to browse & stuff, and Little Miss Dom has a user that jumps to a custom desktop that has no browser or play store icon.
Doesn't stop her launching the browser via an advert, but mostly that just annoys her so she presses the back button pretty quick.

Also, the low (zero) cost of entry for Android programming means there are a LOT of simple small free games that she loves to play. One of her favourites is where you just have to pair up socks. Another is popping bubbles.

Lego Duplo have a couple of apps too that she likes.

& If you have a PC, it's pretty easy to get started writing your own apps

A PC!

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9383

You own a PC.

2012 model Nexus 7 for £84.

Coupon "ASUSthanks0LRYF201310".

wow that's cheap!

No. I pwn PCs.

Sold out!

The difference in screen and CPU could result in worse battery performance, even if the physical battery is bigger. What we need here is BENCHMARKS and STATISTICS.

NUMBERS, dammit!

Hah, like bringing facts into an internet discussion ever helped anyone!

I don't really want one with numbers, just pictures.