Android-run Robin available in select stores from Friday before being made widely available from November 2
EE has unveiled the Robin – the world’s first 4G connected tablet designed specifically for parents and their children.
The Robin will be available in select stores from October 23 and nationwide, online and through EE telesales from November 2.
It will be available on contracts starting from £13 per month. It is free for existing contract customers (one off £29.99 cost if a non-EE contract customer) on a £15 per month on a two-year plan, which comes with 10GB of monthly data.
The tablet is also available for £129.99 on prepay and comes with Hopster free for three months. Damage cover is available for £4 a month and protects against cracks, smashes and spills with a next day replacement service.
The Robin, which comes with the Kurio OS, a child-friendly interface that sits on top of Android, includes parental controls allowing them to manage everything from web filtering to app management and time control, providing them with the ability to set up bespoke user profiles.
The web filtering service categorises and updates over 450 million websites daily, and prevents inappropriate content by managing ‘safe’ and ‘block’ lists.
The app management system enables parents to decide which are appropriate for their children, and can block whichever ones they choose to.
Time control gives parents the option to limit how much time their children can spend using non-educational apps, while keeping educational apps open to use as much as they want to encourage learning.
The Robin comes with a specifically designed child-proof bumper, running the Android 5.1 OS and powered by a quad-core processor. It has a seven inch touchscreen, two megapixel rear camera, 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal memory that can be expanded by up to 32GB with a microSD card.
It can also be used as a regular Android-operated tablet and when in this mode, parents have full access to their data, such as emails, contacts and messages, as well as the internet.
The Robin comes with over 40 pre-loaded games, educational apps and eBooks. New content can be downloaded from Google Play, with every new download requiring parental approval before the child can use it.
Children will also have free and unlimited access to Hopster, a TV streaming app that combines over a thousand episodes of children’s shows with educational games based on the EYFS curriculum. Through Hopster, children can access a library including family-friendly shows such as Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom, Thomas & Friends and Postman Pat.
EE director of connected products Christopher Traggio said: “Parents know their children love using technology gadgets more than ever. The Robin from EE allows kids to enjoy that experience and benefit from e-learning too. What’s more, the Robin has been designed to provide parents with the peace of mind that their child is protected online.”