Tablet for Child

Fuhu Nabi 2 Tablet

 
Until recently, kid-friendly tablets have been held back by cripplingly slow hardware and half-hearted ecosystems built for children. The original Fuhu Nabi Kids Tablet was no exception. Fuhu has learned something the second time around, and has made great strides with its successor, the Nabi 2 ($199.99 list). Powered by a quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 processor and preloaded with plenty of compelling children's content, the Nabi 2 is fast, responsive, and a joy to use. It bests the other kid-friendly tablets we've tested, but it's also a great full-featured Android tablet that has the chops to take on the Nexus 7 $235.88 at Amazon.com and Kindle Fire HD. 

Design and Features
From the front, the Nabi 2 looks a lot like the original Nabi, complete with its signature red bumper with large rounded corners. At 8.7 by 6.1 by 1.14 inches (HWD) and 1.31 pounds, the Nabi 2 is actually quite thick and heavy for a 7-inch tablet. To put that in perspective, the 9.7-inch New Apple iPad $499.00 at Apple Store is 0.37-inch thick and weighs 1.46 pounds. A very small child might find the Nabi 2 a bit unwieldy to carry. That added heft comes courtesy of a new customizable back plate, with three rows of square pegs to which you can attach little charms for personalization. None come with the tablet, but you can buy a pack of Kinabis ($24.99), which are non-toxic silicon squares that feature colorful letters that snap easily on and off of the Nabi 2's back panel. Fuhu also plans on releasing additional accessories like a kickstand and a car headrest mount that attaches to the back grid.

The bumper itself is thick, but it's easily removable, which could be a good or bad thing, depending on how curious your kids are, and how much extra protection you need for the tablet. Even without the bumper, the Nabi 2's white plastic body feels solid and able to withstand some abuse. You can also buy replacement bumpers for $29.99 each in a variety of colors, including one that glows in the dark.

On the top edge are Volume and Power buttons, while the bumper adds raised rubber covers for easy access. Along the right panel is the 3.5mm headphone jack, mini HDMI and micro USB ports, microSD card slot, and a connector for the included AC adapter. For a kid's tablet, it's a very generous selection of connectivity options, outdoing even full-featured tablets like the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire HD, which lack HDMI and microSD. All the ports are exposed, though, which is good for easy access, but also leaves the tablet vulnerable to liquid or other debris and the microSD card could present a choking hazard for a small child.  

The 7-inch 1,024-by-600-pixel display is on par with the screen on the original Kindle Fire $199.00 at Amazon. Newer tablets, like the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire HD, feature higher-resolution 1,280-by-800-pixel displays, but the Nabi 2 still looks bright and sharp. Viewing angles, however, leaves something to be desired. When viewed off angle, at about 45 degrees, the screen begins to darken substantially. 

Above the screen is a 2-megapixel front-facing camera. In my tests, photos were typical of front-facing tablet cameras, which is to say pretty underwhelming, with plenty of image noise and poor color reproduction. The camera is fine for Skype video chats. There is no rear-facing camera, but Fuhu says it's working on a camera accessory that will attach to the back panel and add augmented-reality games to the Nabi 2.

As far as connectivity, the Nabi 2 connects to 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi networks on the 2.4GHz frequency. Bluetooth 3.0 is also integrated, and worked fine with a pair of wireless headphones. The tablet comes in a single 8GB model, of which 4.49GB of the built-in storage is free and our 64GB SanDisk microSD card worked fine to increase capacity. The mini HDMI out also worked fine for playing videos on an HDTVs at up to 1080p resolution.