Reverting to a second (or, more likely, third) childhood, Michael checks out a LeapFrog product
The different aspects of Explore, Play, Imagine and Create provide the name for LeapFrog’s latest product aimed at young children. This is the LeapFrog Epic, an Android tablet aimed at children aged between three and nine.
Ensuring that this tablet, with its 7" capacitive touch-screen, is not mistaken for anything other than a child’s device, is the LeapFrog green bumper that surrounds it. This bumper has a slot for holding a supplied stylus attached to the tablet with a cord. As well as providing an useful area grip, the bumper also helps protect the unit if it is accidentally dropped/thrown across the room at a sibling.
The tablet’s screen has a resolution of 1024 x 600. While hardly state of the art, this resolution is adequate for its purpose. The viewing angle is rather restrictive, though, which is could be problematic when a child is trying to use the product with friends.
Everything is powered by a 1.3GHz processor with access to 1GB of RAM. As standard, you get 16GB of storage but this quickly gets reduced to around 10GB once the Android operating system and software has taken its share. There is an option to add a further 32GB of storage by inserting a micro-SD card, though. A lithium-ion battery, recharged via a micro-USB port on the base of the tablet, should give around six hours of use from a single charge.
LeapFrog has fitted both front and rear mounted cameras for capturing still images and video clips. However, neither camera has a zoom capability and flash is not provided. As a result the quality of the captured content is barely adequate from these 2MP cameras.
The tablet has a built-in motion sensor accelerometer feature that is required for some of the apps. Support is provided for wireless wi-fi 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0 with the latter being turned off by default.
During the initial setting up of the product, when the parent can set restrictions on the devices use, a LeapFrog account will need to be created. Information regarding a parent and any children will need to be entered. This information will include an email address, parental numeric lock code along with the sex and age group of each child using the tablet.
On subsequent boot-ups of the tablet – a process taking approximately 37 seconds, following a three second depress of the power button on top of the device – a child’s log-in screen will be displayed. This will be followed by a Home screen with a scrolling city landscape and a customisable group of six apps, these include a calendar, camera and search, but can be changed for others that the child prefers.
While some of the apps have educational value, this has to be put up against the strong American bias, seen in both the content and the voices used. I also felt that the initial selection of apps seemed to be more suited to those at the younger end of the stated age range. Of course more apps are available for purchase from the LeapFrog store, where the content is classified under headings such as Originals, Best Selling, Games and Ship by Age or Skill. Prices at this store tend to fall in a range between £3.50 and £15. Michael Fereday
A reasonable product spoilt by its obvious American bias.