Was looking at ipad minis for daughters birthdays but at nearly 600 quid for both it seems a little much for 4 and 8 yr olds. Is the nexus 7 a viable alternative? What is the games selection on android like for kids compared to ios? I hear that android doesn’t have much specific tablet app selection but I’d have thought that should be too much of an issue on a 7″ display….?

If its for kids that young how about Tesco’s new Hudl – it seems to be getting decent reviews (for the price)…

http://www.tesco.com/direct/hudl/

We let our kids use the Kindle Fire’s we have (they are 3 and 18months), they love the games on them. They are also robust as they are still working! Only £130 each. The 3 year old knows how to Skype with Granny and Grandad and also buy new games 👿

You can pick up decent factory refurbed Nexus 7’s for around the £100 mark. For kids they’re more than enough bang for buck and a much more sensible option.

Games comparable these days between iOS and Android shouldn’t have any worries there.

Just try and lock down any in-app purchases otherwise you may be in for a shock come month end…

Re in-app purchases – I’m not sure how Android works but with Apple I created a new ID for my daughter (which isn’t linked to any credit/debit card), and then I ‘gift’ her a £15 voucher every so often. And once its gone its gone!

Its also worth noting that with Android there are apps that effectively ‘child proof’ the tablet so you can choose which apps they can access. You can even have different user profiles for you and the kids so they restrictions get applied to them and not to you. Apple are way behind Android in this respect.

Got my son an Nook HD for £79 for his 8th birthday last month.

I have to say it’s great for kids. It’s lighter than a Kindle Fire, has an HD screen which is incredibly good and also has Android so he can get all the games he wanted.

You can set it up with a parental account which is pin protected from which you can allow what the child can do whether it’s internet access, downloading apps etc

For £79 it seemed a bargain.

Just bought 2 hudl’s for the kids for Christmas. Running on decent android system and getting very good reviews to be fair. Plus as we’re tesco cc holders got some bounce back from the tesco vouchers and got em for 80 quid each.

Plus unlike most of the others you can put a 32gb card in for films/music etc.

Ipad for a 4 year old – really? Sets a bit of a precedent for future years!!

Junior got a Nexus 7 back in January with his saved up birthday and christmas money.
He’d cracked the screen within a month and it’s repair would have cost more than he paid for the tablet itself.

I got a hudl last week. Very impressed with it for the money. Battery life is reasonable rather than brilliant, likewise the camera. There’s a range of kid-friendly “bumper” cases for the tablets too to protect them from drops.

I actually took mine back as I realised that I don’t want a tablet, but that’s cause I don’t want a tablet not cos of the tablet itself

Ipad for a 4 year old – really? Sets a bit of a precedent for future years!!

I agree wholeheartedly. But our problem is is that both girls were born on the same day. I’d have had no problem getting an ipad mini for the eldest, but as they’ll be opening presents on the same day at the same time the younger one will expect the same as the older one and I think it’d have been a bit mean for the oldest to get an ipad but not tte younger one. They are always on my ipad so they definitely will get a tablet and that’s what both have been asking for.

We have a policy where birthdays is one or two large presents where as Christmas, just over a month later, is loads of smaller things, probably Sylvanian Families stuff this year.

The newest Nexus 7s have multiple user accounts, so you can have one for yourself as an admin and then a locked down version for the little one.

Or, you could buy one and give them both an account on it. That way they get to learn the valuable lesson of sharing.

Ipad for a 4 year old – really? Sets a bit of a precedent for future years!!

Certainly does it helped both our kids and still does, we downloaded al the old Ladybird books on an App which helped with the youngest’s reading, a phonics one which helped them both and various maths ones. Now their school are getting them for certain lessons and are proving for successful, the advantage is my kids are familiar with them so understand how to use them.

Funny I remember people moaning about kids getting BBC Micros in school when I was a kid and having them at home how it was wrong. Yet some how they did no harm.

We have 1 iPad which is shared, we’ve been thinking about getting them one each after seeing how it’s helped them out at school for Xmas too. I’ve considered the Nexus too so thanks for posting this thread.

If you do I’d get them one of the rubber cases from the Nabi tablet. I’ve list count of the times my lads Nabi has gone on the floor, I’m certain an unprotected one would have broken. The case fits a Nexus.

I got my lad a samsung tab 2 7″ for this chrimbo, had a play and was impressed. £130 for mk2 now mk3 has just come out.

Nexus 7 are great ,kids have iPad minis they love them too …..lot of money buying 2 minis though

We have a policy where birthdays is one or two large presents where as Christmas, just over a month later, is loads of smaller things, probably Sylvanian Families stuff this year.

You don’t have to justify your purchase to anyone here, none of their business.

For what it’s worth I’m in a similar position, but my girls are 5 and 8 – I’ve been looking at the Hudl from Tesco too but you can get the Kindle Fire HD from Amazon for the same price now (unless you’re using clubcard points or have a Tesco CC) and from what I’ve read online it’s a bit better. The Nexus 7 looks great though and if you can set up multiple users as said above that’s quite a handy feature.

Just bought a kindle hd fire for my 7 year old for Xmas,£119 at the moment which is 25% off from amazon.

Certainly does it helped both our kids and still does, we downloaded al the old Ladybird books on an App which helped with the youngest’s reading, a phonics one which helped them both and various maths ones. Now their school are getting them for certain lessons and are proving for successful, the advantage is my kids are familiar with them so understand how to use them.

The secondary my eldest starts in September has an iPad leasing scheme, so she’ll be getting one of her own in September. They have them to use at home and in school, in all their lessons.

Funny I remember people moaning about kids getting BBC Micros in school when I was a kid and having them at home how it was wrong. Yet some how they did no harm.

Anything invented before you’re 11 is normal and boring. Anything invented between 11 and 35 is an amazing new technology with everyone should get. Anything invented after you were 35 should be banned and is clearly harmful. 🙂

The media, and certain sections of society (and Baroness Greenfield), are absolutely desperate for evidence linking computers and computer games to something negative, but all the research keeps showing benefits.

My youngest got a Nexus 7 when he was 10 and still loves it. Had a charging problem and it got fixed by Asus under warranty.

Having said which – he then saved up presents and stuff and bought himself a proper laptop. Still uses the nexus plenty and downloads a lot of kids games on it.

My kids use a cheap generic Android tablet, no complaints so far – you certainly don’t need the latest and greatest, they’re too young to notice.