Like most families we've become a bit obsessed with technology here at Imwellconfused towers, but at the same time we're concerned about application safety, dodgy adverts based on our search histories and malware laced full games. While many of these concerns are easily resolved by common sense, it's not always cut and dry when it comes to applications. But for protecting the kids we do have an ace up our sleeves - The Kurio Pocket Tablet.
The Kurio Pocket is a small 4 inch android tablet the size of many android phones on the market, loaded with an adapted variant of Android JellyBean with multi user accounts, internet and game restrictions and individual time settings for all user accounts on the device. Add in the 50 pre-installed games, multimedia apps, utilities and educational tools and the opportunity to install a host of additional apps through either the Kurio store or the Google Play Store, with enough safety tools built in to keep the most worrisome parents calm, trust me.
Hardware wise the Kurio holds it's own quite reasonably, while not a speed demon it's more than capable for children to play games, watch YouTube videos, Skype their friends and browse the internet without throwing a wobbler. Even HD video clips my personal tablet struggles with the Kurio Pocket plays without a hitch. only finding the odd slowdown when the tablet's been on for more than 2 days where the girls have been catching up on their My Little Pony Game, leaving the device overnight on charge and going back to it.
The battery life is very impressive, lasting most of the day if the girls are mooching on YouTube, Spotify or any other bandwidth hogging applications the buffering can eat into battery life, but games and applications seem to be less taxing on the pint sized tab. With an Idle test from full to flat we were able to pull 75 hours of runtime, with the screen on full brightness and WIFI on that's better than my personal tablet in flight mode.
The screen and touch panel are adequate for the Kurio Pocket tab, while many geeks would hope for higher resolutions or a slightly larger screen it's a perfect balance. A higher pixel density would eat more battery and memory and a larger display size (not resolution) would cost more to manufacture. A good compromise in my mind. Also, the reinforced plastic screen is ultra tough, designed to take a lot of stress from most users without failing, most manufacturers should take a leaf out of Kurio's book here.
The Kurio Pocket has 8gb of storage, with a larger than normal amount taken for the OS they make up for this with removable applications and for those who need a more space the MicroSD card slot can accept upto 32gb of extra storage, but with the vast majority of software being removable meaning the 8gb storage should be adequate for most purposes.
The cameras aren't the highest of quality but suitable for Instagram, skype or making simple YouTube videos of their toys, with the built in microphones picking up voice exceedingly well, including the one on my headphones.
Audio playback quality is good, I've commandeered the headphones for the main PC as they have volume limited cans for their ears, the Kurio seems to have limited audio playback volumes to a safe level. Playback is decent with good sound levels with the bundled headphones.
The micro USB port accepts USB on the go, meaning you can use a mouse, 3g modem, memory stick, or other USB powered device on the tablet with the bundled OTG cable, making the device extremely versatile something many devices lack.
Software wise there's a host of pre-installed games and educational titles on the device but it's main feature being Kurio Genius™ Kid-Safe Web Filtering System, keeping kids safe online and updating daily. Children can't also bypass the protection is tightly integrated into Android for a seamless layer of protection the kids don't realise is in place.
Bundled applications are a pretty good, with the odd trial and ad supported game. They play well, but the girls prefer specific games in the play store being Nyan Cat - Lost in Space, My Little Pony, Toca Boo (Interesting note - Lissy named the ghosts in the game) and Youtube to name but a few. They're happy and on a safe environments so I'm happy.
Both girls really like the Kurio Pocket. while Lissy has her own android tablet already, Vee's taken a shine to this tablet, using it to research her homework from school, play games and we've been working together on programming in BASIC using Frodo, and when they're feeling under the weather they load their favourite online radio station up to help them sleep the night through. To the girls its a fun, small tablet that's come with us everywhere we've gone so far this year with a large amount of the Instagram pics I took at the London Bike Show taken with the Kurio Pocket tab and had enough juice left for the kids to play games on the train. Seriously it's fantastic.
While overall we're impressed with the Kurio pocket tab it does have the odd complaint, with the screen taking 3-4 seconds to re-initialise if the tablet has been unused for more than 10 minutes, more of an annoyance but it's nothing to really complain about.
Overall the Kurio Pocket tab is an amazing little device with enough functionality for the entire family to get on with and at a fantastic price point. The girls both love it and I love the safetynet features built in like real-time web filtering, protection from malicious sites, and in app purchase protection with pin codes.
You can get one by clicking here, and for more information about Kurio's Tablets click here and to find out where you can buy one click here.
If you want to know anything about the Kurio Pocket, please let me know and I'll get back to you asap (yes, there is an update coming I've heard)
