1y ago

Kids Tablet recommendations.

I need some advice, and the amount of marketing spam had made sorting the wheat from the chaff annoyingly difficult. Hopefully you can help.

I've a young daughter, who uses an old tablet of mine to watch netflix etc. unfortunately, it was old in the tooth when she was born, and it's now become extremely annoying to use.

She currently has a Samsung Galaxy Tab A (2016). The size (10") works well, but it's gotten slow as sin, and only has 16Gb of internal memory.

Preferences wise:

10" screen (±2")
64Gb+ storage.
Long expected lifespan (inc security updates).
Headphone socket (adapters are asking to get broken, Bluetooth go flat)
Decent WiFi (more than just 2.4Ghz).
USB C charging preferred.
Wireless charging would be very helpful but not required.
Lower budget preferred (£200 range).

What would people recommend?

43 comments

I recently got both my kids a Lenovo Xiaoxin Pad 2022 each. They are the same as a Lenovo M10 Gen3 except they have the better Qualcomm Snapdragon 680 chipset and 4GB Ram, plus unlike the M10 they have a Dolby Vision licence and Netflix certification. They are affordable within your budget. You can buy them from china from AliExpress, and you can ask the seller for the Global Rom installed, that has english language and Play store enabled.
They are a popular kids tablet in China, used in schools and such, they have lots of good protective cases available online. Cases for the M10 Gen3 also fit.
- That does look like a promising option. It's one I hadn't run across too.
  
  If you're thinking about going this option, there is one more point to consider. I've read that if you get the Xiaoxin Pad 2022 with the Global Rom installed, it's simply the rom from the M10 Gen3, so you lose the Netflix certification and Dolby Vision stuff, plus it no longer can receive OTA updates.
  With ours, I asked for the tablets "sealed box" condition with the Chinese ROM, you can switch it to English during the initial setup and you can sideload Google Play Store if you know how. They recently got the OTA update to Android 13, and the experience overall is pretty great for a cheap tablet. My kids usually just watch YouTube and Netflix on them, and play some small kids games.

I'd look at the Samsung Galaxy Tab A9+
https://m.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_tab_a9+-12617.php
Also, a factory reset on the tablet might get it to run a bit better again.
- That looks like a good option. Thanks!
  I had completely missed that one.
  The current tablet is as fast I as I can make it. I've also disabled, and uninstalled all I can, to free up space. 16Gb doesn't go far, when most streaming services don't allow installing or buffering to an SD card.
  It's also not had a security update since 2020.
  
  Samsung Galaxy Tab A 2016
  Regarding the security update situation you could try using LineageOS on it - but I imagine that would be for your use, not your daughters.
  https://xdaforums.com/t/lineageos-19-1-for-sm-t580-gtaxlwifi-sm-t585-gtaxllte-sm-p580-gtanotexlwifi-and-sm-p585-gtanotexllte.4432957/
  
  Got a galaxy tab a9+ for my 4yr old son. Plays games and watches youtube and other streaming things no problem. Not so expensive that I would cry if he breaks it.

Honestly an updated tab a wouldn't be a bad call. I've got a 2019 tab a7 that's still going strong. Granted it only has 32gb of storage but you can get one that has 64. They can be had secondhand for pretty cheap (75-150 range)

Honestly, I bought my kid a used Chromebook. No regrets. Lots of benefits.
- Can you recommend a good one? I got one a couple of years back and it is sloooooooow.

Fire Tabs are pretty good spec and their kid focused ones are well built. Really young Fire tab kids "7 HD kids pro if their pre-teen
- Huge disagree on the Fire tablets, especially the 7”. The one we have is unusable with how laggy and slow it is.
  
  Agreed. Fire tablets are garbage. Super slow, outdated tech designed to shovel ads at your kids.
  The uncomfortable truth is the best tablet for kids is a new iPad Air. It’ll be up to date for its lifespan of years and the parental controls, ecosystem and screentime functionality make it great for kids.
  You can hate Apple but as a parent the iPad is great for kids.
  
  I got a Fire Kids tablet for my kid to use occasionally, but the interface is so horrible and the parental controls are abysmally bad, it's been trash from the get-go. I wish I could figure out how to get stock Android on it.
- I've heard quite a lot of issues with the Fire.
  I'm also trying to keep my daughter as ad free as possible, for as long as possible. The Fire seems antithetical to that as it's possible to be.
- Both my kids (4 and 7) use fire tablets and we have the subscription with it to get them access to lots of free apps.
  I put memory cards in both, as what they come with is insufficient. The older versions we had were a little janky, but we haven't really had any issues with the current ones.
  The parental controls could be better but work okay. In the kids version of the interface you don't really see ads, just app recommendations. Some of the apps still have gated content, but it hasn't really been an issue.
- Agreed but just start with the pro and always buy it on a sale, they go on sale for basically every possible reason.

I like the Walmart sold Onn. brand. I think we have the 10 inch version which was very reasonably priced. The reason I bought it is that it supports Google's Kid Space. Think of it like the ui used on the Amazon kid tablets but more open to other apps. You can still install any Android app - but the UI is more kid focused.

We've stuck with fire tablets forever, they can install the Google Play store and the kids tablets still receive updates a few years later. The newest ones have USB-C, headphone jack, good enough WiFi for us 2.4 and 5GHz, and can be picked up under $100. The 8" version is really good and they have a 10" version as well. I know fire os isn't amazing and gets a ton of flack but it works for what it's designed to do.
- This and the no questions asked two year replacement policy is amazing if you have a toddler.
  The bundled foamy case also is really great.
  We slapped a 256gb SD card, and have almost it full of videos that he watches when we travel.

Budget android is a crapshoot.
While you can get a fire tablet with Netflix, or an Old Samsung. The OS and software feels so slow that its hard to use compared to an iPad.
I have an old Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e and a current gen Amazon fire tablet. Out of the two I'd recommend getting an old Samsung tablet.
My advice would be a model or two newer than the Tab S5e though double check for headphone jacks as Samsung has a tendency to drop those on their "premium" tablets.
Another option is to see if you can install LineageOS as most of the lag comes from the bloat from Samsung and Amazon. Like Kindle Book recommendations and Samsung Game mode.
Now if I was to buy a tablet for my kid. It would be a 5/6th gen iPad, or a 3rd gen air. The 5th gen just stopped getting the newest iPadOS but is still supported while the 6th gen and air is on the latest OS. They all have a headphone jack, and if they are anything like my first gen mini, will have better performance than any cheap tablet you'll get from Amazon.
- I'm familiar with android and it's ecosystem, as is my daughter. I've a personal dislike of apple, so would rather not have to deal with their systems.
  As for her current tablet, it's still working remarkably well. Unfortunately, 16Gb of storage is extremely limiting, when it comes to installing modern apps. I don't think LineageOS will help much with a lack of physical memory, and modern software bloat.
  
  I am in the same boat for Apple, don't like their practices and the inability to install what I want like a web browser outside of Safari. But last year I got myself an iPad Pro for myself and it's been the best tablet experience I've had in terms of app, and support for a large screen device. If you are reading books, and streaming paid subscription services I've not seen an Android tablet which can compete.
  Now with that said the locked in ecosystem, proprietary hardware, lack of headphone jack on newer tablets which totally has the space for one, does drive me up a wall, and I usually use my Android Phone (Poco X3 Pro with LineageOS installed) for everything else.
  Now here is my goto for finding new phones/tablets. GSM Arena has a wonderful database which an easily searchable option, that helps me narrow down option based on specs. Won't tell me if it's any good but it's a nice starting point especially if you know what specs it needs to have.
  From my experience, you want to buy a Flagship, or flagship spec deceive, hence the iPad suggestion. LTT Did a roundup a few years ago going over this very issue with their conclusion that an older flagship will still outperform a new device, and be cheaper to buy.
  For my two cents based on the devices I have, and Mr.Mobile's many reviews on Android Smart Watches, Google OS's love to have more RAM and perform better with it. I'd suggest a min amount of RAM should be 4GB though I'd recommend 6GB if you want a good time. I can see a few Tablets with the specs you want, but I can't speak for their quality myself.

Buy used! For that price you can easily get a Galaxy Tab S6 or Mi Pad 5.

Not a current model but seeing as you don't have many suggestions yet, my kid has a Samsung Galaxy A 10.1 from 2019, I think we bought it 2020 or so, still running pretty great.
Video watching, games, and we got a big chunky case with handles for it. Using the standard family link in combination with a custom launcher to modify the interface and lock out some things and set screen time and so on.
- 6" screen is likely too small. Her current 10" seems to be the right balance for us. I also suspect a 5 year old design will soon have the same issues we currently have. Ditto for the 32Gb internal storage.
  Appreciate the idea though. Thanks.
  
  The Galaxy A 10.1 is a 10.1" tablet.
  
  As the other commenter said, its 10 inch. Also, like I said, we got it 4 years ago, I don't see any performance issues with it. Maybe my kid does not play super high detail 3D games, but all the games on it work fine.
  As for the 32gb, I think it has an SD card slot? But not sure, we don't use it.

Google Pixel Tablet with GrapheneOS.
AOSP may completely suck for Tablet UI, but afaik it has DRM support and GrapheneOS is simply the only Android I can really recommend.
The rest is just spying, on Kids, which is sick as fuck.
- Isn't that considerably over budget?
  
  Oh, okay.
  But a low end tablet with updates longer than like 2 years that you can ethically give to a child... is a bit more expensive.
  Maybe a used Pixel tablet is an option. People may be disappointed, its a pretty new thing, so I think the used market is big.

I have the same tablet and after installing lineageOS on it it feels like a new tablet. Maybe give that a shot before buying a new one if your main complaint is that its slow.
- The slowness we can deal with, it's the 16Gb storage that's the killer.
  
  Ah fair enough

steam deck
- I have a steam deck, along with a steam controller, and a steam link.
  The steam is definitely not a good replacement tablet for a young child.
  
  why not? Also, to answer your question on Android specifically. The only 2 companies that don't abandon their hardware in a year or two are Google and Samsung. And I wouldn't recommend giving a Samsung device to a child. https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/samsung-galaxy-tablets/

43 comments