There was some issues with the original Kurio’s and I never managed to download any apps that were not already pre installed.
Kurio knew that things were not perfect so they worked hard on releasing the Kurio S in 4″, 7″ and 10″ versions. I saw these at Christmas in July earlier this year but they were not quite finished then and I have looked forward to getting my hands on the new Kurio and when I was sent the Kurio 10S I was really impressed with the feel of the device.
The original Kurio felt very plasticky but the Kurio 10S feels a lot better. It is thinner too however the original Kurio has a thicker bumper.
The Kurio 10S comes with more than 60 preloaded premium apps including some of the girls favourites like Cut the Rope and Where’s my water. It also comes with some brilliant Disney apps that the girls have really enjoyed.
You can have up to 8 individual profiles which allows you to give different children different access. You can restrict internet or take it away completely, you can allocate different apps to different profile and even set time limits too.
The Kurio 10S has two cameras, a front and rear one, that are both 2.1MP. It can connect to Wifi and also has a Micro SD slot so you can expand the 8GB memory (although actual space available is just under 5GB) to hold more films , music or apps. It runs on android 4.2.
We have come across a few issues, for example we loaded a video onto the device but we cant find how to get that into Elizabeth’s profile and she has to watch it in the parent area.
Some apps such as the Kurio Video store state that they do not work in this country.
I downloaded the Amazon app store into the parents area, downloaded some apps and allowed them to be used in the children’s profiles. When I clicked on the apps in the children’s profile the apps would not run as it thinks that the Amazon app store has been uninstalled. This meant I had to give her access to the Amazon App store and then full internet access (Kurio genius filtering does not allow the app store for under 7s – not sure about other ages) within her profile to allow her to use any of these apps.
Not having access to Google Playstore is a disappointment for an android device.
These were not my only issues. The screen resolution is not very good, it holds smudges and finger prints easily, the battery life is pretty poor and it is very sluggish for a 4.2 android device. Ok so these things would matter if they were for me and the kids dont really mind but when you can pay up to £199 for this device then you would expect these things to be better.
The idea of a Kurio is very good, a child friendly tablet with access to some great app stores, brilliant parental settings and the ability to play apps, listen to music or watch a film and a good quality bumper. The practice however is not as good as I would expect for this sort of money.
It is hard to write such a negative review for something that my kids actually enjoy playing with but for the price of this technology I would expect the hardware to be better. The inclusive apps are great, the kids love being able to use a big tablet (most kids tablets are around 7″) and the bumper certainly makes it kid friendly but with tinny music which becomes muffled by the bumper, poor resolution and issues with accessing apps I find I cant recommend the Kurio 10S as something you should be buying your kids this Christmas.
The Kurio 10S is £149 in Toys r us at the moment. Other options that I have reviewed are the Leappad Ultra and the Kindle Fire HDX.