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.)

How does Google SafeSearch work?

The internet has really revolutionised the way in which we live over the past decade. Being able to contact friends and loved ones anywhere in the world and providing unlimited shopping opportunities; life is certainly much easier thanks to the World Wide Web.

However as useful as it can be, there are also a number of issues that come with this magical online world. Families in particular have many things to worry about in terms of keeping their children safe online.

If you’re using a family computer, you may want to consider using Google’s SafeSearch feature.

What is SafeSearch?

SafeSearch is a great tool offered by Google that prevents children seeing adult content. It’s a filter that stops them being able to search for anything that isn’t age appropriate.

Google admits that no filter can ever be 100% accurate. However, this particular feature uses advanced technology and will help you to avoid most inappropriate content.

As you’ll discussed at lengths on parenting sites such as Quib.ly - child friendly websites are often difficult to find due to the still very open nature of the web and keeping your children safe on it can seem like a full time job. Using a feature such as SafeSearch will help to make your job a little bit easier.

Using SafeSearch

In order to turn the SafeSearch feature on, you’ll need to visit the preferences section on Google. You’ll see the SafeSearch heading and there’s a little box you’ll need to tick saying ‘filter explicit results’. It’s as simple as that.

Once you’ve clicked that box and saved your changes, the filter will automatically work and no adult content should show up in search results. You can turn it off again by going back to the preferences page and un-ticking the box.

There’s an alternative option if you don’t want to change the settings completely. You can ensure that your kids use the actual SafeSearch website. This has the filter built in and you can bookmark it ready for your kids to use.

You will need to monitor their usage of the internet while they’re using this just to be sure they don’t stray onto the standard Google search engine.

Reporting explicit content

As mentioned, no filter is ever 100% accurate. Therefore if you are presented with explicit content on child safe websites, you should report it to Google straight away.

No matter how many safety features you use on your family computer, nothing can replace keeping an actual eye on your children. Don’t leave them too long on their own while they are using the internet. Keep an eye on the things they search for and how they use the computer. It’s scary to think that children these days know a lot more about technology than their parents. You need to stay tech savvy if you’re going to keep your children safe online.

SafeSearch can be a great filter to switch on as it’s simple to use and will block most adult content. It has come under fire due to the lack of customisation involved, as once upon a time you could choose how strict you wanted the filter to be. However, these days, SafeSearch will block all explicit content.

Disclosure: This post has been bought to you in association with Quib.ly