We’ve been looking at getting tablets for our kids. We have a family iPad but only having one, with a six year old and a three year old, it causes more arguments than it should. Fortunately the one year old doesn’t have an opinion on it yet! With the pandemic that is Covid-19 and the children being at home, we decided it’s probably time they had their own tablets. After much research, we decided on what I think is the best kids tablet to invest in. So, what did we buy?
Why They’ve Not Had One Before?
It might be a little alien for children not to have their own tablets these days. We’ve been aware of this, especially when they started going to pre-school and school as so many other kids have them and they tend to talk about them. We didn’t want technology to overtake their lives too quickly. It’s so easy for parents to rely on the tablet to entertain the children whilst they get on with their own lives. With that in mind we got a family iPad, mainly for connecting with family video video calls and for them to enjoy playing two player games and watching cartoons in bed on a morning. That’s the extent that it’s been used.
Why Do They Need One Now?
We’ve decided that now is probably the time for a number of reasons. Our eldest is wanting to do more typing and tech stuff, which he’s been using one of our laptops for. We’re also not sending our children back to school until it’s completely safe for them to do so. Even then we may not send them back as since they’ve been at home with us, learning via homeschool, they’ve been different kids. They’ve wanted to learn things, they’ve enjoyed it. They’ve been a lot less grumpy and aggressive. Yes they miss their friends, but apart from that they are enjoying this process. We’ve found websites and apps that they can learn from, alongside written books and print outs, so having a kids tablet of their own seems sensible. They’ll be taking charge of it. If it runs out of battery, they’ll need to charge it up. They’ll need to take care of it, if it breaks, they’ll be replacing it.
So What Did We Buy?
I looked at a lot of different tablets. From low budget to high end. I asked friends and family members who have been in this situation and who’s children already tablets. There are parenting blogs out there offering research too. There were a few key factors for me when looking at buying a kids tablet. One was to ensure it was safe. By that I mean, have some sort of kids mode that we can keep track of. Let them have some freedom to do what they want to do on the tablet but keep them safe. I read some good stuff about Amazon Fire for Kids. The next was budget. We decided an iPad each was too expensive, so looked at alternatives for under £200. The final one was longevity. I wanted the tablet to be able to last them a while, to be good enough to be used now as a kids tablet but also grow with them and allow them to use it as they move through the years.
Our Final Choice
After much consideration we decided on the 8 inch Huawei Mediapad M5 Lite. 8 inches is big enough to be easily transportable if we go out and about in the car. It has a long battery, decent speakers, good display. It has an enhanced Eye Comfort Mode, reducing harmful blue light. It’s Android which is good for getting access to a range of apps and runs Android 9.0 which is a latest version. It’s got plenty of storage, is speedy with 3GB RAM and has fairly decent cameras for a tablet too. It should work for them now, for both homeschooling and entertainment but also work for them in the years to come too. All in all, it seemed the best tablet for the money. I looked at others but they all seemed to have something letting them down. Be it the price, the amount of RAM or a terrible battery. I’m happy with the purchase and so are the kids. They just need to decide what cases they want for their new tablets!
