Today's kid tablets have grown up

Tablets meant just for kids can come with some very grown-up features, as we discovered in our first review roundup last December. Now more and more of these child-centric Android tablets are hitting the market; we tested six of the newest in time for holiday shopping.

What distinguishes kid tablets? Children-specific content—such as games, educational apps, art programs, e-books, music, and videos—comes preloaded in most kids' tablets, some of it exclusive. And parents can download more content to these tablets, too.

Perhaps more compelling are the controls and filters on each tablet that can keep kids safe online and regulate their usage of the tablet. These vary in the amount of control they give to the parent, and also in how easy (or not) they are to use.

The cost of these kid tablets isn't so child-sized—they range from $70 to $230—but they do cost less than most grownup tablets. Still, as you'll see from our reviews, these tablets have a lot to offer. Best of all, with one of these in your children's hands, maybe they'll leave your tablet and smart phone alone!

How we test

In our labs, we test the display quality, battery life, ease of use of the touch-screen interface, and features of each tablet.

For display quality, we measure screen brightness and size, and our experts judge color accuracy, viewing angle, and readability in sunlight. For battery life, we time the length of operation on fully charged batteries, using continuous Web-browsing activity.

The touch-screen interfaces are graded on responsiveness, required pressure, dragging accuracy and speed, and use of multitouch functions, such as pinch-to-zoom.

We also look at a variety of other features on each tablet. And we evaluate the parental controls the tablets offer.

For more information and advice on all tablets, see our buying guide and Ratings.

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