Tuesday 9 June 2015

The little tablet that could

A got a lot of money for her birthday from her friends. It seem to be the "in" gift of 10 year olds. She had about R1500 including a bit of savings and by March (her birthday is on 11 January) she was still wondering what to spend it on - because spend it had to. Saving is fine if you are 10 - but with a target in mind. Her target was the almost impossible - an iPad mini. She wanted a tablet of her own and we worked out how much longer she had to save all her pocket money to get there. It seemed a hard to achieve task. But I let her be - that is what she wanted -we are all for saving.
Normal credit card size next to it for comparison.

One day she returned home from visiting her BFF with the news that her brother just bought a small android tablet for just over R1000 and that it was just the thing. It was small and easy to handle and had all the right games (read Minecraft mostly). So she asked that we look around for something similar for her. I was hesitant knowing only Ap*ple tablets but in the end after a bit of research we bought a Proline M7853GDC 7" 3G & WiFi 8GB on what was then Kalahari for R1045,00 (on a special deal). It arrived two days later and I registered an account on Google play and off we were.

I loaded music for her, games and apps, Kindle (which is great because she reads a lot and I can find what she wants to read ) and a whole lot more. It has plenty of space. No social media stuff though. It does not even have a sim card in at the moment. We also still limit screen time - that was the original agreement we made with her.
Just the right size
Boy is it a hit! Its a wonderful, fast little tablet. It runs on Jellybean 4.1 and is faster that my old iPad 2 at times. Easy to operate and no glitches whatsoever. It came with a screen protector on (and a spare one) and a little bag to store it in. Really a great option for the older kids (it's not for toddlers though - it is small and light but will easily shatter screens etc)

Just goes to show that you need to explore further and see what you can get for your money. (BTW she spent the rest on Sylvanian family stuff).

We bought this tablet and was not given anything or asked to review it at all. This is purely out of our own great experience that we are sharing this.

13 comments:

  1. Nice!!! I'm sure she's happy with it and knowing she saved got it makes it even more cherished.

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    1. She really looks after it with great care - I think partially because she paid for it herself

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  2. It's great that she was able to be so patient and save up for her goal :-)

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  3. It's great that she is able to save up and be patient ... working towards her goal! :-)

    PS. Also struggling to comment on your blog from Chrome for some reason. Trying this one from IE

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  4. Nifty! I'm kind of torn on this because I'm a complete Apple fanatic and I really like the Family Sharing and other perks to having Apple devices in the family. That said, I'm not sure I'm ready to spend the Apple kind of money on devices for the kids. Also, the high school Megan is going to next year uses Lenovo tablets and I'd rather that she have the kind of tablet that will allow her to do things the way the school's system is set up for...

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    1. It is indeed nifty MeeA. I was totally surprised

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  5. Gosh, wish we could teach Liam how to save. It's spent faster than he gets it, ie, he's spoilt from Mum and Dad's pockets. Probably comes with age though, he is only 6
    Do you find that screen time makes the kids grumpy?

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    1. My 7 year olds are doing very well with the savings thing but I do think it's a question of seeing the big sis doing it and enjoying what she can buy. Grumpy? No, but distracted, yes! So we limit it

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  6. That is so cool. My kids are pretty good at saving, but not so good at coming up with what they would like to buy with it. Although in saying that Caitlyn really wanted a bike and managed to pay for most of it out of her savings.

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  7. I think it is fantastic that she saved for it herself...kids these days gets things much to easy. Even Stefan has already got a tablet...his mom indulges him with everything.

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  8. I'm glad you found an affordable one that she could use well.

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So what's on your mind?