Tablet World.pdf

REVIEWS Kurio 7
Kurio 7
Described as ‘the ultimate Android tablet for families’, the Kurio 7 offers
plain old Android 4.0 for adults and curated user profi les for kids
● PRICE £150 ● COMPANY KURIO ● WEBSITE kurioworld.com
PROS
Decent parental
controls; one of the
better tablets to
leave unsupervised
with a child; tough
design; user profi les
CONS
Slow processor;
poor battery life
VERDICT
Only the hardware
holds back what
would otherwise have
been a great tablet
for all the family
OVERALL SCORE
70 TABLETWORLD
On paper, the Kurio 7 almost lives up to its tagline as ‘the ultimate Android
tablet for families’. It has a customised interface and preloaded content for
children, full controls and access to the Android Ice Cream Sandwich interface for
parents, web and content fi ltering, plus a protective rubber bumper.
Turn on the device and you’re guided through creating user profi les, choosing
age-appropriate content fi lters and specifying which apps can be accessed. You can
also state at which times the device can be used by a particular user, and for how
long. A global control lets you set a start and end time for each day, too.
Although none would break the bank if you were to buy them from Google
Play, it’s good to see Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, Fruit Ninja, World of Goo,
Doodle Jump and Where’s My Water? preinstalled. Separate Boys Colour and
Girls Colour apps are also decent, while MeeGenius includes 20 books that are
read aloud, with words highlighted on the page to help your child learn to read.
Other apps are less impressive. Preinstalled Mr Nussbaum games look as
though they were made in the 1980s, and present basic arithmetic puzzles that
don’t reward kids for doing well.
Although the Kurio 7 supports Flash, some kids’ websites wouldn’t correctly
load, such as mrmen.com. It also failed to play video on the popular Channel 5
Milkshake site. Plus, the low resolution means that most sites don’t display
properly, such as peppapig.com. The tablet’s slow processor can’t really handle
these Flash-based sites anyway, and they run extremely slowly.
Kurio provides its own web browser and sensibly uses Google’s SafeSearch for
Kids, which provides reasonable protection when searching. If a questionable link
does appears in the results, Kurio’s content fi lter will usually kick in and block the
site. The Kurio 7 is one of the better tablets to leave unsupervised with children.
At this price, comparisons with Google’s Nexus 7 are inevitable. The Kurio has
a lower screen resolution, but it’s the poor quality of the display that’s the real
problem, with limited viewing angles. The slower processor means websites take
an age to load. The Kurio 7’s battery life is also short.
“The Kurio 7
is one of the
better tablets
to leave
unsupervised
with children”
SPECIFICATIONS
7in (800x480) capacitive
multitouch screen; Android
4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich;
1.2GHz Allwinner A10
single-core processor; Mali
400 graphics; 1GB RAM;
4GB storage; microSD;
802.11b/g/n; 0.3Mp, 2Mp
cameras, 720p video;
Mini-USB; Mini HDMI;
3.5mm headphone jack;
195x122x11mm; 352g