Modern tablet PCs are designed to do all sorts things from organizing your daily routines to doing basic Internet tasks. Equip these tablets with applications and games and they can be fantastic entertainment devices. The iPad and its iOS ecosystem really pushes the limit of tablet computing. It has a speedy CPU and GPU so you can play all sorts of 3D games or multi-task by running several applications at once. However, the most affordable iPad costs £400 and the tablet is very fragile. This isn’t the kind of device that you want to give to kids. Fortunately, there are cheap tablets for kids that may not have the performance power for reliable productivity but still maintain the core functions that kids need most.
The NATPC M009S is a tablet PC that runs the Android operating system. Android is the most popular mobile operating system in many countries so developers are very active in making applications. Because this tablet PC costs less than £100, you can expect the specs to be quite minimal making it impossible to run those high-end 3D games. Fortunately, the latest model of the NATPC M009S runs on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich which is faster than older versions of Android. The Mali 400 graphics processor can handle many casual games surprisingly well making it a great tablet PC for kids. It handle all modern apps with ease aslong as you don’t have a lot of other things running at the same time. While there is only 8 GB of memory onboard, you can add a microSD card to its built-in slot so you have additional space for applications, games, movies, music and pictures. This tablet also features a front facing camera so your kids can run Skype and engage in video conversations with other members of the family and/or their friends.
You cannot build a £100 tablet without making some sacrifices and NATPC made the right compromises by keeping the capacitive 5-point multi-touch usability and dialing down the screen resolution to just 800×480. 800×480 is really a resolution for smartphones but it doesn’t look too bad since this is a 7-inch tablet. There is also no camera on the rear, which is rarely used anyway. But as far as performance goes, apps and games are pretty snappy thanks to the OS so kids should be able to have more fun with this than any handheld gaming console for the price you pay.
Dave is a keen blogger an all things tablet pc. One of his favourite devices is the m009s capacitive aswell as using his mini hdmi to hdmi cable to hook it up to his HD tv
