Pebble Gear – Fun for Kids Peace of Mind for Parents

I had no idea when I was asked to review the Pebble Gear Frozen 2 kids tablet in early March how useful it was going to become. It feels like months ago now but just a couple of weeks ago the kids were in school and Coronavirus was something happening far away.

Fast forward to late March and the kids have been home schooled for 5 days and the amount of work being set by school has taken the kids no more than two hours each day to get through.

So having an educational tablet, with no in-app purchases and minimal distractions such as YouTube etc has actually been a bit of a god-send. We can fool the kids into thinking they’re having extra entertainment time while they’re actually learning.

So here’s my review of the Pebble Gear Frozen 2 tablet

Unboxing
The box is glossy enough and instantly catches 5 year old Ella’s eye. Harrison is less sure about the design and immediately asks, “do I get anything?”. The message is clear, this is a girl’s tablet. What he doesn’t know is that there is a Toy Story version that is presumably aimed at boys.

Upon opening the box we find a 7 inch black tablet inside, with a sky blue foam cover that catches Ella’s eye with its Disney Frozen II logo on the rear. It looks like it would survive any drops or falls that a small child would be capable of causing. And I’m pretty confident that neither 5 year old Ella nor 8 year old Harrison could do any damage to the tablet while it’s in the cover.

Turning it on.
When we power the tablet on we’re met with more Disney Frozen graphics, including all of Ella’s favourite characters, Anna, Elsa and Olaf. Set up is pretty intuitive and anyone who’s used a smartphone or tablet won’t have any trouble doing this. We do have to create an account in order to download apps and it seems like this account is valid for 12 months. There’s no mention of payments anywhere and I’m not asked for any payment details.

Once we’ve set the tablet up we’re met with a variety of Frozen images along with the words “Greetings Ella”. Ella is excited to see her name on the home screen with Elsa and smiles in approval.

Swiping up we are met with a screen with icons for Ella to open the tablet or the parent to open it. The parent icon is password protected and is where settings such as time restrictions are found. There is a “rules” setting where you can set how many hours or minutes your child is allowed on the tablet and a stats icon that allows you to see which games, books or media your child has used and how long for.

Once Ella has tapped on her personalised icon the home screen displays more characters and five new icons: games, storybooks, apps and Game Store Junior, where the user will find up to 500 different apps for the tablet.

The fun part (using it)
As I mentioned at the beginning of this review, home schooling has its challenges and one of those is keeping learning fun, so the tablet has certainly helped in this respect. Ella already has a tablet but has a bad habit of gravitating toward YouTube and watching inane videos of kids or adults playing games or opening toys. Switching to the Pebble Gear for an hour a day has given her the freedom of her own device but with none of the distractions of a standard android or iPad. I firmly believe that a huge part of the attraction of tablets to my kids is the autonomy of flicking between whichever apps they want on it. But by loading nothing other than books or educational apps onto it we know she’s not going to go off on a tangent and don’t have to supervise her usage as much. Which is ideal when we’re all working from home. It means I can at least get some work done.

We specifically selected apps that fit in closely with Ella’s curriculum. Her favourite ones are the apps designed by Intellijoy, which seem to make up a good proportion on the ones in the Game Store. I was actually fairly familiar with some of these apps through my own tablet, because I’d loaded them on a few years ago for Harrison. The fact that both kids have really enjoyed these apps is probably a good sign, what’s even better is that 5 year old Ella has actually learned to tell the time on an analogue clock from their apps.

True to the claim on the Pebble Gear box, all of the apps seem free of any in-app-purchases or adverts. In know from long experience that “free” games on other devices often come with a catch. So it was great to find a device where all of the apps are chosen to be the full version without any obvious strings attached.

Conclusion
At £99 I would class the Pebble Gear as mid-range, price wise. I’ve had tablets for less money, but to get a decent cover that will properly protect the tablet from drops and falls costs extra. A Kindle for example will probably cost around £80 with the cover. In terms of build quality and resolution the Pebble Gear is clearly aimed at kids. It’s robust enough with a standard definition rather than HD display, with functional sound, but hey it’s for kids and Ella wouldn’t know Dolby from Dumbo, she just likes the cover and the games. But where the Pebble Gear really comes into its own (and I think it’s fair to say that this is the niche they are aiming for) is the specifically selected apps and games that take out any of the distractions on other tablets. From my point of view, this is the main reason to choose a Pebble Gear, the Disney theming is just an added bonus.

My rating 9/10– Ideal for kids, no distractions. Games don’t cost money and no in-app purchases, great for education rather than just entertainment.

Ella’s rating 10/10– Loves the cover and the graphics on the home screens, can’t get enough of the games.

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