The Kurio Pocket Tablet review Pt1

Good morning all,

Recently we were chosen to be Kurio Family Bloggers, and with this kindly sent us a Kurio Pocket, a four inch android tablet with children in mind. To celebrate this I've let our resident junior tech Lissy unbox it for your viewing pleasure



On unboxing I was extremely impressed with the contents, including

• Micro USB on the go cable, for using mouse, keyboards or even 3g dongles 
• Micro USB pc/charge cable 
• High quality wall charger, 
• Sturdy, yet good sounding in ear headphones
• Basic instructions with more detailed instructions on the device itself.
• Game trial code,

The tablet itself has a nice, sturdy feel in the hand with no noticeable creak or flex, this I suspect to be due to the way rear panel is clipped together on the device, this is designed to take a decent proportion of the stress away from the Kurio Pocket's internals. Additionally, I noticed the touch panel does not feel like a glass panel leading me to believe it's a composite plastic/glass mix so it'll take a lot more stick than typical glass panels, additionally the rear casing is an ingenious extra layer of protection, hats off to the development team who designed the device as in looks and build quality they have done a fantastic job, and that's just the outer shell!

The specifications on the Kurio Pocket are quite modest and suitable for the majority of childrens needs.

• Display: 3.97” capacitive touch screen
• Resolution: 800 x 480 pixels
• SoC (System on Chip) Allwinner A20
• CPU - 1GHz Dual Core
• GPU - ARM Mali400 MP2
• OS - Android 4.2 Jelly Bean
• Internal Storage - 8GB
• Card Slot: Micro SDHC 32GB max
• Ram: 1GB DDRIII
• Camera: Front: 0.3Mpx, Rear: 2.1Mpx
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi, 802.11 b/g/n and micro USB:
• Micro USB 2.0 - OTG support W/Cable
• 2000MaH Battery.


Now before you go and say it's not the highest specced device bear in mind this is a pint sized tablet for children, crammed with 50 free games and housed in an adequately child proof casing, perfect for children to play with, stopping them from pinching your tablet all the time.

Settings Protected
in kids mode

Setting the Kurio Pocket up was a breeze, from individual user accounts to internet restrictions, it's a simple process you can get through within half an hour, I will say that I've not paired my Google account to the device yet but that's not a problem as updates for pre-installed applications are handled through Kurio's services and exclusive App store, yes it has it's own app store. I hear you, it's another account to deal with, but see this as a gateway to child safe applications, and for those worried about app permissions, the Kurio Store shows relevant information when you browse an applications information page.
That said if you wish to use the Play Store, it's all ready to go. Just bear in mind the Google account pairs with additional Google services. I discovered this when the girls opened the YouTube app with it being full of C64 demoscene which they somewhat disliked, if possible I would recommend a separate Google account, unless there is a way to manage individual devices within a GAccount, let me know!

Now for playtime!
The Kurio Tablet comes preloaded with 50 applications, while many are exclusive to the Kurio product line with a wide variety of educational, fun and freemium* applications avaliable the girls are actually doing their little jobs around the house to get the chance to play on the tablet with no arguments. The individual logins makes this easy to manage the time they're allowed to play on it too. Also, KD  Interactive are happy for developers to join the Kurio Store, for info on developers joining click here,

I won't lie I was sceptical about the device prior to delivery, however those concerns vanished on using the device. from it's  decent video playback to music streaming services including Spotify this is a well thought out tablet through and through,
To get one of these Child friendly and where to buy click here! (I hear it's Christmas, just sayin!)

We'll come back to the Kurio Pocket Tablet for a larger scale review over the next few weeks. if there is anything you'd like us to try with the tablet please get in touch and we'll consider adding them to the second part of the review.

Paul and the kids!

(*Freemium is a pricing strategy by which a product or service is provided free of charge, but money (premium) is charged for proprietary features, functionality, or virtual goods.)