I have two daughters, 6 and 3, both love Disney and all things Princesses, so when I saw this tablet pop up, I had to get one and let the girls review it, while I sit back and relax.
Features
- Frozen ll themed, with exclusive games, apps and e-books
- Access to an app store with 500 additional games and apps
- No in-app purchases and no ads!
- Full parental control
- Bumper case included for added protection
- 7″ 1024×600 – 159 dpi display
- Quad core 1.3GHz processor, 1GB Ram, 16GB Storage
- 2700mA battery, front & rear cameras
- 2 year guarantee
First Impressions
The tablet comes with a thick, rubber protective case, which is the first thing you touch, feel and inspect when you take it out the box. It feels nice, it’s soft to touch and looks like it will protect the tablet very well. The case is thick and at the front, there is a decent lip, which helps protect the screen from drops, and if it’s dropped on a flat surface, like your floor, the screen should be safe. There are cut outs around the case, to gain access to buttons, camera and speaker. The case can be removed if desired, although it’s quite a snug fit and difficult to get on and off.
Take the case away and you’re left with you’re typical black 7″ Android tablet, although that’s not a bad thing. The overall shape, size and design of the tablet is quite sleek. To the front you have a camera in the top right, with another to the rear. There is also just a single speaker outlet to the rear too. To the right hand side is the power button, volume control, headphone port, micro USB port and a micro SD card slot too.
In the box you get the tablet, the bumper case, power brick and USB cable, plus a user manual.
Performance
From my point of view and as a tech reviewer, the hardware itself is fine, nothing special, it does the job. The screen resolution is ok at 1024×600 with 159 dpi and the screen is responsive enough for what you need it for. It’s got an Android back end, with some Pebble/Disney overlay which is nice but when you go into the app store, it’s traditional Android. The sound is average, just a single speaker, facing the rear, which isn’t ideal. Cameras are grainy and don’t take very good pictures. It can be connected to your home network via WiFi, allowing you to download extra content. There is only 16GB onboard storage, which should be enough as the games available are not huge.
From my 6 year olds point of view, she found it worked perfectly. Icons and controls were easy, everything was just there and she just knew what to do, out the box. It is a very child friendly interface and she can no complaints.
One of the key features of the tablet is its parental controls and I have to say, they’re pretty good. Upon initial set up, you’re given the option to set up the parental controls, under a parent profile, which is passcode protected. The emphasis on the usage of the tablet is prominent and it allows you set which days, time frames, and the duration your child is allowed to play the tablet. For example, they can use the tablet for 1 hour, during 4-5pm on a weekday, and 2 hours on a Saturday only and if they try outside of these times, they just can’t, it’s locked out. The shortest duration to play can be set to 5 minutes if you’re feeling mean. You can set different timings for weekdays and weekends but not specific days. There are also options to select which apps, stories or features are available to use during those times, which is nice. I like the idea of my eldest only being able to read stories between 7-8pm at night, I’m ok with that. You can also monitor playtime, reading time, which apps have been used and when ect, it’s really quite thorough. Lastly, if you wanted to treat your child to some extra tablet time, there is an ‘extra time’ feature, add an hour or something, just that one time, without the need to changing the existing schedules.
As for the app store, Pebble is calling it GameStore Junior, which is a paid subscription service. The first year is completely free and then after that, it’s either a monthly, quarterly or yearly fee (£39.99), which gives you full access to the store, download and play what you want, for ‘free’. Pebble has this paid subscription because all the apps are ad-free and don’t include any of those in-app purchases. You’ve seen the headlines, “8 year old spends £500 on gems”, well that won’t happen here. I’m pleasantly surprised at what apps are available too, as I thought they may be unknown, rubbish games but in fact, you’ve got things like Subway Surfers, Ryaman, Pacman, and of course that Disney content too. I tried a couple of games, Pacman Racing being one of them and it ran perfectly fine.
Verdict
I really like this Pebble tablet. It’s not at the for-front of tablet technology but at £79.99, it’s affordable and it does what it’s meant to, keep the kids entertained as a treat. I like the Disney affiliation, I like that I dont need to worry about ads and random purchases within games and I like the parental controls. I’m in two minds as to whether I want the ability to play video content, it would be good but I do like that this is purely a ‘games console’ or e-reader.
It would be a 7/10 for me, higher points for the features over the tech inside. My eldest would give it a 9/10, “Can I get Netflix on this Daddy”…
For more info and to purchase, head over to the official Pebble website.
