Parents will be familiar with “disappearing touchscreen syndrome”, when their smartphones and tablets vanish and are later found in their offspring’s bedroom with a half-completed game of Angry Birds on the display.
Now parents can regain control of their gadgets thanks to the ChildPad, an affordable 7in Android tablet with pre-loaded apps and games. It provides parental peace of mind by having a child-friendly web browser and linking to a vetted version of Google Play — the Android app shop previously known as Market.
The ChildPad puts many other tablets to shame in performance by being one of the first tablets to run Ice Cream Sandwich (the latest version of Android) and by having a respectable 1GHz processor and 1GB of Ram — as much as the Apple iPad.
Archos has given the Android home screen a colourful makeover, and has installed 28 popular apps, including the Android version of those irritable avians. The device goes on sale online at the end of March.
Archos ChildPad £99. archos.com