Best Tablet for Kids 2024: 7 recommended options we’ve tested and reviewed

The Amazon Fire HD 10 Kids 2021 is the tablet we’d recommend for children aged seven and below. The main reason for this is that it’s impressively rugged. The 10-inch tablet sits inside a bumper case, which comprises a shockproof foam and plastic outer shell.

The case is a little chunky, and likely means most older kids wouldn’t be caught dead walking around their school with it – as confirmed by former Editor-in-Chief Alastair Stevenson’s god-daughter, who told him she’d “rather not have a tablet” if that was what she’d get when offered one. However, the exterior here also makes the tablet the only one on this list that we can 100% confirm will survive a full-blown toddler tantrum. During testing it survived everything from animated throws across the room to a game of tug of war with a dog without issue.

In addition, Amazon offers this tablet with a guarantee and kid-specific extras that make it a perfect option for younger kids. The most significant is its returns policy, which will see the company replace any broken Amazon Fire HD 10 Kids (2021) free of charge, no questions asked, for two years after purchase.

For adults and older kids, though, we found the HD 10 Kids FireOS software a little prohibitive – which is was the case with past Amazon tablets we’ve tested, too. The OS here is a custom version of Android that swaps Google’s traditional Android UI and app store for Amazon-specific equivalents. It pushes Amazon Prime shopping, Video, Music and Kindle to the forefront of the UI, actively encouraging you to shop.

However, based on our time with the device, the customised version of the software for kids on this tablet works very well given its intended audience. For young kids, who we’d really rather didn’t have access to a completely unrestricted app store or media library, the locked-down nature of FireOS is actually a blessing.

In tests, we were seriously impressed with the intuitiveness of the device’s parental controls. Within minutes of launching and completing the setup process – which takes about 10 minutes and requires a live Prime subscription – we were able to easily filter content, restrict or block in-app purchases, and set limits on how much screen time the tablet allowed each day.

Using the bundled one-year subscription to Amazon Kids+, our test subject toddler was able to find numerous age appropriate videos, books and games to keep them entertained for at least half an hour. The only time we experienced any issues related to the device’s hardware, which can cause some frustration, even for younger users.

The 10-inch LCD screen is more than sharp enough for kids, although compared to an iPad, it undeniably looks a little washed out. The MediaTek CPU at the heart of the device is very low power, which means that certain apps do sometimes chug. While an adult might have the patience to see through any delays, we found that it could occasionally cause frustration in younger users, with our toddler tester occasionally slapping the device or throwing it when a slowdown caused them to lose a game.

This, plus its design and locked-down ecosystem, is the reason we recommend parents invest in a higher-cost tablet such as a non-Pro iPad or a reliable Android tablet for older kids.

Battery life also leaves little to be desired. During our tests we found it is all too easy to drain the battery life in less than four hours when streaming video or playing games. This means you’ll need to invest in a battery pack if you want the tablet to make it through longer car or train journeys, without risking a tantrum when it dies mid-way through an episode of Paw Patrol.

Reviewer: David Ludlow
Full review: Amazon Fire HD 10 Kids Review

We’ve already recommended the larger Amazon Fire HD 10 tablet in this list, however the smaller (and let’s not forget much cheaper) Fire 7 Kids is a fantastic pick if you want a more portable slate for the kids.

Like all of Amazon’s Kids tablets, this one comes with a bumper case available in a number of colours, a year subscription to the Kids Plus service, and a worry-free guarantee that’ll allow you to get the tablet replaced if it’s damaged within two years.

Our reviewer said his younger kids preferred the form factor here compared to many other kids tablets for travelling, as the smaller size meant it was much easier to pack inside a rucksack. Of course, the smaller 7-inch screen might put some off as it could be harder to see.

Battery life is around 10 hours, performance is fine for basic tasks and Amazon’s software allows you to really tweak what content your kids can view.

Reviewer: David Ludlow
Full review: Amazon Fire 7 Kids Review

If you have a tween or teenager who wants a cool playground-worthy tablet on which they can complete schoolwork, then the iPad 10.2-inch is our tablet of choice.

Although it’s undeniably pricey compared to Amazon’s Fire range of devices, the tablet hit the sweet spot for technical performance, long-term software support and price during our tests.

The tablet doesn’t have the modern stylings of the iPad Air 2022 or current-generation iPad Pro, which come with far smaller bezels around their screens and are slimmer too. However, in tests we found the slightly retro design was still great for kids. The aluminium frame proved suitably rugged to survive being slung into a satchel, and capable of surviving the odd drop.

Hardware-wise, the iPad 10.2-inch is also a significant step up on the Fire HD 10 Kids Edition and most of its Android competitors. Putting it head-to-head with the Fire tablet and Xiaomi Pad 5 – which is the tablet we recommend to most people in our best Android tablet guide – the iPad’s display performed well.

But the hardware isn’t the main reason for us to recommend the iPad over competing, similarly priced tablets such as the Xiaomi Mi Pad 5 or the Realme Pad. It’s the tablet’s iPadOS software. The fact is, Apple is much more stringent about the services it will run on its platform. Every app is security checked and it’s far more difficult to sneak malicious software onto Apple’s iPadOS than on Android, so kids won’t so easily be able to download malicious data-scraping apps onto the device, or stumble on a duplicate app laced with malware.

As an added bonus, the tablet will also offer software support for longer. Apple tends to update its devices to new versions of iPadOS so long as the hardware can handle it, making it a much better investment than most Android tablets, which only tend to receive 1-2 years of support based on our experience.

This, coupled with its significantly more developed tablet app library that features all the stuff any kid will need for school, a selection of family-friendly games and all the streaming services you can think of, make the iPad 10-inch the safest and most flexible choice for most youngsters.

Add to this the optional folio keyboard, and within seconds of setting up the device we were able to install every app and feature any tween or teen would need for entertainment and to complete homework.

Reviewer: Max Parker
Full review: Apple iPad 9 review

If you want a tablet for a tween that’s both rugged and offers slightly better performance than most kid-focused tablets, the Fire HD 8 Kids Pro is one to consider.

The core tablet within the rugged case is actually the same as the standard Fire HD 8, though the overall look and feel are different.

That starts with a rugged case that’s not quite as chunky as the Fire HD 8 Kids measuring in at a slightly reduced 17mm thickness that gives the tablet more of a ‘grown up’ look while still offering all-round drop protection including raised lips around the display. The helpful carry handle is also present and accounted for.

There’s also a change to the buttons and USB cutout, with easier access than the standard Kids tablet, and Amazon will offer a complete replacement if yours breaks within the first two years of ownership.

The 8-inch display has a fairly low 1280 x 800 resolution that won’t be competing with the likes of the iPad and high-end Android tablets anytime soon, but it’s more than fine for watching kids’ TV shows, cartoons and movies via the likes of YouTube and Netflix. It’s plenty bright at 477 nits, although that brings about a problem with contrast, with images and videos not looking quite as punchy as on alternative tablets.

Where the Fire HD 8 Kids Pro tablet really differentiates itself from others in the Amazon family is in the software department, with a revised version of Amazon’s Kids UI. It’s essentially split into two tabs, with the first offering a rejigged version of the Kids UI with big, square buttons to take you to apps, games, books and video content from the Kids Plus service.

The second provides something closer to the regular Fire OS Home screen with access to the likes of Audible and Amazon Music and a custom version of the Fire OS browser, Silk.

You’ll also get a year’s subscription to Amazon’s Kids Plus service when you purchase the tablet to further sweeten the deal.

In terms of parental controls, you can control which sites your kids can visit by using a blacklist to block forbidden sites, and the default Bing search has Safe Search permanently turned on. You can also install additional apps for your kids upon request via email, and a similar system for paid-for content too.

Don’t expect to run demanding games like Genshin Impact or PUBG on the tablet, with it featuring the same processor as the standard Fire HD 8, although it’s more than powerful enough to keep things running smoothly on most basic apps. It will last around 13-hours on a single charge however, with the caveat that it takes 5-hours to fully charge.

Reviewer: Stuart Andrews
Full review: Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids Pro (2022) review

We’d recommend the iPad 10.2 for most kids, since its larger screen makes it a better device on which to watch films, play games and complete school work. However, if you child wants a more compact device then the iPad Mini 6 is the best option.

As we noted in our best tablets guide, the iPad Mini 6 is the best small-form-factor tablet we’ve tested. While its smaller size proved a bit of a pain for adults wanting to use the device for work, or to get the best movie-watching experience possible, for parents simply wanting a small tablet that could easily and safely fit into a kid’s rucksack, it was a blessing.

The compact 8.3-inch slate easily slotted into our 8-year-old’ test subject’s Ben 10 bag. To our surprise, it also proved sufficiently rugged with the official Apple case attached to survive a full week of use, including trips back and forth to school, without any noticeable scratches or signs of damage. The robust parental controls are identical to those found accompanying the larger iPad 10.2, which offered peace of mind when letting younger kids use the tablet unsupervised during testing.

Among older kids, Mini 6’s design has enough playground street-cred to make it desirable to most teenagers. It looks like a shrunk-down iPad Air 5, which is our current recommended tablet for most adults.

Performance-wise, while it isn’t powerful enough for most adult power-users, or older kids looking for a laptop replacement or tablet on which to digitally paint or edit video, the Mini’s hardware is up to scratch.

Note that the A15 Bionic chip running the device isn’t Apple’s latest, and during synthetic benchmarks – simulated tests to gauge a product’s performance in key areas such as web browsing, gaming and content creation – it didn’t come anywhere close to matching the iPad Air 5 M1 chip’s scores.

But our test subject didn’t experience any issues with the Mini’s performance, nor did they make any complaints about using it – despite being different to the more expensive hardware being used by their sibling. Based on our experience, the tablet remains fast enough to play every game on Apple Arcade and the App Store. The only time we suffered any issues was when attempting more demanding creative work, such as large-scale vector graphics projects in Procreate.

The more serious issues stem from the Mini 6’s size. While younger kids may appreciate the more compact dimensions, it does come with a few drawbacks. For starters, older kids who want to use the device for schoolwork will struggle with the iPad Mini’s lack of support for an official Apple keyboard dock. This is one of the main reasons we recommend the 10.2-inch iPad over the Mini for most older kids.

Battery life also isn’t quite up to scratch for prolonged, heavy use. In tests, the iPad Mini struggled to survive a full day of heavy use. Streaming video on loop, the tablet lasted only 5-8 hours, which will be an issue if you plan to use it to keep kids entertained during long journeys or camping holidays.

Reviewer: Max Parker
Full review: Apple iPad Mini 6 review

If you want a tablet for your tween or teenager, but aren’t a fan of Apple devices, then the Realme Pad is the best option we’ve tested to date.

Despite costing less than $250/£250, the 10-inch tablet offers fantastic build quality and a decent enough experience to keep kids entertained during long car trips, as well as for happily streaming video or playing games at home.

Out of the box, we were immediately surprised by the tablet’s build, with it featuring a robust, distinctly iPad-looking aluminium body. The body isn’t quite as rugged as that of the Amazon Fire HD 10 Kids edition, and we’re not certain it would survive a full-on tantrum. However, for older kids, the chassis is suitably scratch-resistant, the device surviving a week’s back and forth to school without issue.

Although there were a few grumbles from our test subject about wanting an iPad, once the Realme Pad was set up and their favourite streaming services and games installed, there were no problems.

Using the device for entertainment, the tablet performed well. The 10.4-inch panel doesn’t offer the best-in-class screen quality seen on more expensive tablets such as the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra. In addition, head-to-head with the iPad 10.2, colours on the Apple slate were slightly more vibrant and blacks deeper. But for the money, we’re yet to find a better panel, with screen quality still being a clear step up on Amazon’s Fire tablets. Note, too, that we didn’t experience any performance issues streaming shows from Netflix and Disney Plus.

The Realme Pad also has a key selling point that differentiates it from the iPad: it features a microSD card slot. This may not sound significant, but it’s a big deal if you want to locally save an emergency stash of your kids’ favourite TV shows, books or comics to appease them when away from a Wi-Fi connection. This lets you expand the tablet’s built-in 128GB of space. Prior to going on a holiday, we were able to cram multiple series of SpongeBob SquarePants, an entire library of comic books, and more games than the kid could ever want onto the tablet by taking advantage of the feature.

For such situations we also found battery life to be generally okay, with the Realme Pad matching the 10 hours of video playback we recorded on the iPad 10.2.

The only real downside is the Android software. Android isn’t optimised to run on a tablet-sized screen in the way iPadOS is. As such, many apps appear blown up on the tablet; they don’t look as polished on an Android tablet as they do on an iPad. Key examples include everything from Twitter to Disney Plus.

However, the bigger issue is the OS’ long-term software support. Apple famously pushes software updates to its devices so long as the hardware can handle it. Android, meanwhile, has a pretty poor track record when it comes to software updates, with past experience showing us that the majority of tablets will at best receive one, maybe two upgrades to new versions of the operating system.

This isn’t ideal, since the tablet won’t get access to new features year-on-year. It also means the Realme Pad may not receive security updates for as long as it should, potentially leaving you in an awkward position where you need to get your kid a new tablet in only a couple of years – which diminishes the Realme Pad’s long-term value for money. This is one of the main reasons the iPad 10.2 sits higher on this list.

Reviewer: Ian Morris
Full review: Realme Pad review

The Amazon Fire Max 11 is Amazon’s top-end Fire tablet designed to take on the productivity market with its large display, improved performance and all-day battery life. We think this makes the Fire Max 11 a solid option for teens in need of a cheap tablet to stream, scroll through social media and play games. 

When it comes to its design, the Fire Max 11 looks a bit more premium than Amazon’s other Fire tablets. In fact, it bears more resemblance to the 10th gen iPad with its flat edges and similar-sized bezels, while Amazon claims the glass is three times more durable than that of the iPad 10. 

The tablet has an 11-inch IPS LCD display with a 2K resolution that we found to be pin-sharp and packed with detail. The screen also offers excellent contrast and a wide viewing angle that makes it possible for multiple people to view content at once. 

The Fire Max 11 is compatible with Amazon’s keyboard case, which includes a trackpad and stylus. We found the keyboard to be solid in everyday use and the trackpad offers gesture support for scrolling, zooming and swiping to move between apps. 

Inside the tablet, you’ll find an octa-core processor with 4GB of RAM and up to 128GB of expandable storage. These aren’t the best tablet specs we’ve ever seen, but the processor offers decent enough performance during everyday tasks for a budget device. 

The main drawback – as with other Amazon Fire tablets – is the lack of Google services. Amazon uses its own UI, browser and app store, which means you won’t find YouTube, Gmail, Drive, Docs or Sheets on the Fire Max 11. 

There are a decent amount of popular streaming services, social platforms and games available in Amazon’s app store and Microsoft 365 can be accessed on the tablet, but if you want to access Google services you’ll need to turn to the web. 

All-in-all, the Amazon Fire Max 11 is a solid budget-friendly tablet for anyone looking to stream content, play games and post on social media. However, those who rely on Google’s productivity apps for work should check out the other tablets in this list. 

Reviewer: Lewis Painter 

Full Review: Amazon Fire Max 11