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The Best Tablets for Kids in 2022
Kids love tablets, but which is the correct one for them? Check out our height lab-tested picks for didactics and amusement—and to keep your kids from stealing your iPad.
Our Experts Have Tested 24 Products in the Tablets Category in the By Year
Since 1982, PCMag has tested and rated thousands of products to assistance you lot make better ownership decisions. (Run into how we test.)
Kids desire tablets. My daughter has had one since she was pretty small. Beginning, it was a music actor helping to lull her to sleep at night. And so it was the indispensable movie theatre for long aeroplane and train rides. Afterward that, it became a vehicle for Marvel Unlimited, the infinite comics app. Now, information technology's what she draws fan art on.
Simply tablets are fragile, expensive gadgets with potentially unlimited access to the internet, both bug that challenge parents. A good kid tablet is different from a good adult tablet: While you want a grown-up tablet to be slim, lite, and fast, you lot want a tablet for kids to exist cheap, rugged, and protected.
Our picks here are some of our favorite tablets for children, called for a balance of affordability, durability, and historic period-appropriate features. Whatever tablet you go, be certain to buy a example and some kid-friendly headphones. These small investments will pay for themselves.
The Best Tablets for School
The best tablet for school is probably a base model iPad. The iPad'south dominant role in the tablet landscape means it'due south supported by nigh schools, many teachers will have them, and it will be easy to get tech support. Other tablets may not exist able to run the third-political party apps that schools demand, or even fill out the right web forms. The worst offenders hither are Amazon's Fire tablets, which are inexpensive and popular, but aren't designed for productivity.
If an iPad won't do for your school, you're probably going to desire something with Chrome OS. The Lenovo Chromebook Duet in this roundup fits the bill, but information technology can be hard to find in stock considering it'southward such a great value. Head over to our roundup of the all-time Chromebooks for kids for more recommendations.
Specs Still Thing
Don't assume a tablet for a kid should be a piece of junk. Hardware specs volition assist you find a tablet that works well enough to avoid frustrated meltdowns. Let'due south starting time with screen size and resolution. An 8-inch, 1,280-past-800-pixel display is good for reading comics and watching videos, so utilise that as your baseline.
Also pay shut attending to storage specs. We recommend 32GB of storage (or more) rather than 16GB. This will let y'all install more than apps and take more pictures and video. A microSD card slot can't hurt either, specially if you want to download movies to watch on long trips.
Meet How We Test Tablets
Look for 2GB of RAM or more than. This will aid apps launch and run more smoothly, especially if there's anything else running in the background. Bombardment life is another gene to keep in heed—you don't want the tablet to die in the middle of a long auto ride. Carrying a backup battery can help.
Amazon Fire HD 10 Kids (Photo: Molly Flores)
iPads for Kids
The about recent iPads have really come down in price and give tremendous value for what you pay. An iPad will always take the best tablet apps, will grow with your child, and can double equally a pseudo-laptop for schoolwork. Apple's operating organization has tools to allow you monitor your kids' tablet use and continue an heart on what applications they're using and for how long. Apple too has parental controls that tin block apps, filter content, and prevent purchases, and y'all should utilize them to keep your kids from spending money without your permission.
The iPad has past far the best ecosystem of accessories for productive and creative kids of any individual tablet model: cases, keyboards, and the Apple Pencil stylus. Information technology'due south versatile and extendable.
Equally you probably already know, iPads too let kids use iMessage and FaceTime to talk to other friends or relatives who take Apple tree devices, without you having to go the child a phone.
The residuum of this roundup is primarily for people either with very small-scale children, people who are entirely in the Android ecosystem, or people who don't want to spend $300 or more than on an iPad.
Prepare Your Kids on Fire
Amazon'southward inexpensive Fire tablets accept been family become-tos for years. They are inexpensive and take a Kids Edition that comes with a safety case and a no-questions-asked ii-twelvemonth guarantee. The eight-inch Kids model (based on the standard Fire Hard disk 8) costs $139.99 right now.
Amazon's tablets have a simplified interface, strong parental controls, and Kids+, which is basically a behemothic saucepan of content for kids. A Parent Dashboard lets y'all proceed track of what your children are doing and restrict their screen fourth dimension. You tin can put multiple user profiles on the tablets also.
Falling Back on Android
For many years, my family didn't utilize an iPad or a Fire. Nosotros used an Android tablet. Here'south why.
Our family was all-in with Google services; nosotros communicated through Hangouts and my daughter had a K Suite email account that I supervise. If y'all primarily use Google deject services and Android apps, an Android tablet can get yous what you lot demand for a little less money than an iPad, and information technology'south not locked downwardly to Amazon services the way a Fire tablet is.
In terms of parental controls, Android has restricted user profiles that tin can also prevent accidental purchases and filter Google Play apps. Only if you intend to permit your kids utilise one of these tablets out of your sight, you should actually consider installing some parental control software.
Toy Tablets: All-time Avoided
Companies such as Fuhu, Kurio, and Leapfrog have made their names with highly restricted tablets that come preloaded with kid-friendly software and, past default, don't offer admission to the open internet. By and large, though, these tablets oasis't been updated for years and are running erstwhile, insecure versions of Android that we no longer recommend, so do your research before buying.
While you lot're shopping for Junior, check out our lab-tested picks for the best kids' phones and the all-time kids' laptops. For a broader pick of tablets for older kids and adults, take a look at the the best tablets nosotros've tested overall.
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Source: https://www.pcmag.com/picks/the-best-kids-tablets