laptop, ipad or android tablet?

[marykat2004]

DD is going to be 8 in a few weeks. She has expressed interest in some sort laptop or ipad. We have only one computer in our household anyway (Mac desktop), so it's seems not unreasonable to get her one, and in fact a better it is option than lots more stupid plastic toys to clutter up the place..

Anyway... what would be the best recommendation for an 8 year old? Ipad, android or laptop? At the moment she goes on websites like hoodamath, myfreezoo, and various children's games. She also likes to make music and movies (imovie and garageband). We do not have a huge budget though! A Macbook would be out of the question. An older ipad would be just about manageable.. but the Androids look much more affordable. I don't know much about PCs, only that they get viruses and you have to update the virus software all the time.

Any ideas? Anyone given 8 year old ipads etc?

Thank you

I have been investigating similar for my 8 year old and saw on Amazon the Kurio 7 tablet. It comes with loads of Apps and games preloaded and apparently has really good parental controls built in - something I always worry about when dd uses the iPad (she is a master googler!) Obviously much cheaper too!

Sounds good, I will check it out.

I will add that I have a Samsung galaxy phone that DD loves (more than I do), so, she's not an Apple snob...

I'm looking at some other threads on Mumnset, scroll down and there are a few similar discussions already going on.

Oh - thanks! I will have a look later....

I have one of these from Amazon Warehouse Deals. It is very good and for 80 odd quid is a good basic Android 7" tablet - Lenovo make a lot of company laptops so it should last. I have updated mine to Android ICS (4.04) and it works well, plays Angry Birds etc :-)

Lots of kids websites are heavily dependent on Flash animation. I believe the ipad does not support Flash animation, so an ipad would probably be a bad choice.

Here is a list someone sent me of tablet devices that support flash. thanks for the heads up, Cruel, I didn't know that.

www.adobe.com/devnet-apps/flashruntimes/certified-devices.html

We are leaning further away from the ipad now which is good because Androids are cheaper.

Thinking about nipping into the nearest PC World and having a look at a few of these devices in person. I'm not that great with technical stuff (lol I used to work in website design but the actual techie stuffed never interested me in itself) so if it's a device I can understand then DD will get it. She has a better idea how my phone works (Samsung Galaxy) than I do. If there is a tablet similar to that, where she can also view her favourite websites and make movies and take photos, and discover new games and apps, that would be perfect for her.