EE's £130 Robin tablet is aimed squarely at kids
Tesco might be easing back on building family-friendly phones and tablets, but UK retailers and carriers believe there's still plenty of interest in such products. Amazon recently surprised us with a very capable £50 Fire tablet, and now EE wants a piece of the action with its new kid-centric Robin slate. The 4G-ready device features a 7-inch 1024 x 600 display, a quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage (with microSD support), 2-megapixel camera and is powered by EE's own Kurio OS, which is based on Android 5.1 and offers plenty of parental controls out of the box.
There's no doubt that EE is targeting parents who might be looking to buy a budget-friendly tablet for Christmas. To make it even more appealing, the Robin will feature more than 40 pre-installed games, kids apps and ebooks. EE's also throwing in a three-month trial for Hopster, a streaming service that offers access to a variety of children's TV shows including Postman Pat and Thomas & Friends. Customers on an Extra plan get access for the life of their contract.
At £130, a SIM-free Robin is closer to Hudl2 territory than Amazon's super-cheap tablet. With no current plans to release a Hudl3, Tesco will likely continue pushing its HD tablet during of the holiday season, even if it is now more than a year old. EE could tempt customers by letting them spread their payments, with Pay Monthly plans starting from £13 after a one-time payment of £30. The Robin can also be purchased on a two-year, £15 per month plan, which removes the upfront cost and throws in 10GB of monthly data.
The Robin will available in a small number of stores from October 23rd before its nationwide release on November 2nd.
