WHAT IT IS
The Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Kids is a seven-inch tablet with child-friendly features and parental control functions. But it’s not just for the young ones – adults can use it as a regular tablet too.
WHAT I LIKED
• I can decide which apps the kids use. The tablet has two modes:
Standard Mode is the regular home screen that I access with my password, and Kids Mode has a kid-friendly home screen (no password needed) with pre-installed drawing and game apps like Toca Hair Salon 2 (which the kids loved!), for preschoolers and lower-primary children. The best thing is – the kids can’t download apps without my password. I’ll have to download them from Kids’ Store (an app store in Kids Mode with curated apps) or from Google Play in Standard Mode, and move them to their home screen.
• The kids won't be able to open or delete my apps accidentally, unless they have my password.
• The Time Manager function lets me set at what time and for how long (up to a maximum of 1 hour 20 minutes) my kids use the tablet.
• The tablet has a detachable casing with a handle that makes it easy for kids to carry it. The casing can also prop up the tablet.
WHAT THE KIDS LIKED
• There’s a range of kiddie wallpaper they can choose from to customise their home screen so it feels like their personal tablet.
• With a 3.2-megapixel front-facing camera and a 1.2-megapixel rear-facing camera, they can take photos and videos, and collate them in the Kids’ Gallery.
• It comes with a plump stylus that they can draw and colour with.
WHAT COULD BE BETTER
It would be more useful on the go if it had 3G connectivity instead of only being Wi-Fi enabled. I also wish it loaded apps more quickly and that the touch screen was more responsive – I had to double-tap icons sometimes, to select them.
VERDICT
“I like that it doesn’t just pander to kids, but is also a regular tablet designed to give parents effective control over how children use the device.” – Lim Tsiao Hui
This article was originally published in Simply Her March 2014.