With Android tablets expected to flood the market this year, it’s nice to see that some companies are looking for ways to distinguish their products. The folks at Brainchild have designed a tablet that’s aimed specifically students and children.
The Kineo tablet might not have the most impressive specs, but it packs security features which schools can use to limit students’ access to unapproved web sites, books or other digital content. The company also offers software for synchronizing data on the tablet with a computer. Perhaps most importantly, the tablet has a rugged case design so it can take a bit of a beating from little hands.
The Kineo has a 7 inch, 800 x 480 pixel touchscreen, an 800 MHz dual core CPU, 256MB of RAM, 2GB of storage, and 802.11b/g/ WiFi. It has a 4500mAh battery for up to 0 hours of run time and runs Google Android 2.1.
The tablet features HDMI output, a headphone jack, USB port, and SD card slot for expansion.It has a number of buttons on the side of the tablet for answering multiple choice questions (although I’m not really sure why you need those buttons in addition to the touchscreen). The device also appears to accept stylus input which seems to suggest a resistive touchscreen — although the web site doesn’t make it clear what kind of touchscreen technology Brainchild is using.
WAY too expensive. Only rich kids can get one. BOO!
The reason for the ABCD buttons, back button, and physical volume control, is to accommodate students with disabilities as they perform commonly-used functions. The lack of a camera and video capability is due to multiple lawsuits and law enforcement issues related to students who use those things maliciously. The focus of Kineo is to be the safe and powerful learning tablet for schools.
If this device is affordable and has truly usable handwriting-input, I’ll buy several.