Tablet Wars: Kids

Ten times a day on CNBC I hear how tablets are taking over the crown of consumer computing, and say goodbye to home PCs.

First of all tablets are strictly for consumption. Despite Samsung note commercials, the only person actually designing a presentation on their tablet is frantically slapping it together during homeroom for their book report next period. Consumption is the name of the tablet game. News, Tweets, arcade games, multimedia, and email are the reasons for this computing revolution. Don't get me wrong, to someone giving a presentation on the road a tablet can be essential, but they better design it on something with at least a plastic keyboard and fingerpad. That said, the game changes when it comes to education.


 
Recently we decided to get a tablet for the family. It was to be mostly for my 3-year-old daughter to use educational apps, but we didn't want some off-brand without access to one of the big app stores. (cough.. Fuhu Nabi 2)




After some research I wanted to get a Google Nexus 7.
I was sold, at $200 you get a quad-core Tegra processor and every little bit of new tech except for a rear facing camera. People
who take pictures and video with tablets look silly anyway, so
who needs it. When we got to Best Buy to play with one my wife vetoed the entire 7-inch form factor altogether. She thought they felt like large phones and would be tough for our daughter to use. So with only 9 and 10.1 inch tablets to choose from I came to the conclusion that we were going to have to pay at least $400 for new tech. Well, at that price we might as well shell out $450 for the New iPad 16gig at Micro Center. Even for a staunch anti-Apple techie like myself I have to admit that at a similar price level, the iPad is superior hardware.

  

My 3-year-old daughter loves the iPad. There are lots of apps geared toward education for little kids and the 10.1 inch screen allows her to be less exact with her finger touches. The biggest reason I like the iPad for kids is there is only one button on the whole front of the tablet and it is a push-down button. My daughter often hits the 4 touch-sensitive buttons on the front of my Droid 2 by mistake. This frustrates her and myself to no end. She will be in the middle of a dinosaur puzzle and hit the voice search button which will pull up a prompt screen. Not only does this ruin the app experience but it also requires mommy or daddy to navigate back to the app. It is no wonder newer Android devices have dropped this button. Another bonus to the iPad is a large side and top bezel so kids can grip it without touching the screen with their off -hand.

The pain I will endure will be eclipsed by watching my daughter learn on her new toy. This means hours of transcoding my video library for craptastic iTunes.

Which tablet to buy for kids verdict is: suck it up and buy an iPad.


Java applets and flash enabled sites are not supported by either iPad or Android. How mobile is changing the content of the internet in our next post. Post coming soon




Erik Hughes is an Investment Adviser Representative for Halvorson Research Associates, LLC
Market commentary and fundamental stock valuation available every on their website. Link below.
HRA Market Commentary