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Used for: 6–12 months
Bought as the cheap one for the kitchen and it has ended up doing far more than that. Recipes, the shopping list, the radio, and the odd film propped against the tiles. The only thing it is not good at is being wiped down with wet hands, which is entirely my fault rather than Apple's.
Used for: Less than a month
Quick and bright for the money
128GB is a trap and there is no card slot
Three stars because the storage decision is made for you and it is the wrong one. Out of the box a chunk of it has already gone, and once a couple of games and a few offline episodes are on there is very little room to move. There is no card slot, so the only fix is buying the bigger one you did not want to buy. Everything else is as good as everyone says. It is quick, the screen is bright enough by the window, and it set itself up from my phone in about a quarter of an hour while I did nothing. If you only browse and read, this is plenty. If anybody in the house downloads anything, go up a size and save yourself the arguing.
Used for: 3–6 months
It has replaced the telly in the bedroom
Sound goes thin without headphones at low volume
Propped on the chest of drawers it has quietly replaced the little television that used to sit there, and nobody has missed it!
Used for: Less than a month
The best cheap tablet for a child by a distance
Parental controls take an evening to set up properly
Got this for a seven-year-old and it has been worth the money, but set aside an evening before you hand it over. Screen time limits, app approvals, the lot, and the settings are scattered across three different menus rather than one sensible page. Once that was done it has been faultless. It survives being dropped in its case, it charges overnight on the landing, and every game she wants runs without a stutter. Split screen even gets used for homework, a worksheet on one side and the notes on the other, which I did not expect from a child.
Used for: 1–3 months
The one to buy unless you know why you need the Pro
Spent a while comparing this against the Air and the Pro and could not find a reason to spend more for what I do with it. Reading, browsing, video, the odd bit of note taking with a pencil, and this handles all of it without ever making me wait. The screen is the only place you would see a difference side by side, and I have never put them side by side. Two months of using it every evening and it has not once felt slow or short of anything. Buy this one and put the difference towards a decent case and a pencil!
Used for: Less than a month
Does everything I wanted a tablet for and cost far less than I expected
Base storage, again
Came to this having not owned a tablet since a very old Android one, and the gap between them is enormous. It wakes instantly, nothing stutters, and the screen is good enough that I have started reading on it rather than on my phone. What sold me was the split screen. A recipe and a timer, or notes and a browser, sit side by side properly rather than in the half-hearted way the Android did it. I use it every single day now and it took no learning at all. Storage is the only place they have been mean. 128GB sounds like plenty until the photo library syncs and a few films go on for a train journey, and then you are choosing what to lose. Everything else about it is five stars and I would recommend it to anybody who is not sure they want a tablet at all!
Used for: Less than a month
Astonishing amount of tablet for the money
The Pencil that works with it is not the good one
First impressions are that Apple have quietly made the cheap one very hard to argue with. It is quick at everything, the screen is bright and even, and it set itself up from my phone while I made the tea. For browsing, reading and video there is nothing here that a dearer tablet would do better. The pencil is where the corners have been cut. The one that pairs with this is the older sort, without the squeeze or the hover that the newer one has. For handwriting notes it is completely fine and the lag is not something I can see. For drawing you will feel the difference. The other note is the storage, and everybody says it because everybody runs into it. The base size is workable if your photos live in the cloud and you do not download much. If a child is going to fill it with games, buy the bigger one now rather than in three months. Four stars for the pencil situation, five for the rest.
Used for: 1–3 months
No headphone socket, which matters with children in a car
Very good tablet, and the only thing that has caused any bother is the missing headphone socket. In a car with two children you want wired headphones, because the bluetooth ones need charging and get lost, and now there is a dongle in the mix that also gets lost. Other than that, though, it does everything asked of it. The battery goes a whole weekend away without a charger, the screen is bright enough in the back seat with the sun out, and split screen lets one of them watch while the other does something else on the same device without a row.
Used for: Less than a month
Bright, quick and light
It is not a laptop replacement whatever the marketing says
Bought hoping to leave the laptop behind and that has simply not happened. File handling is still awkward, two of the sites I need do not work properly in the tablet browser, and typing on glass for anything longer than a message is miserable. As a tablet it is excellent. As a laptop it is not one
Used for: More than a year
Just as quick as the day it arrived
The battery has started wanting the cable more often
Owned for a year and used every single day, and what stands out is how little has changed. No slowdown, no apps falling over, no sense of it being left behind. It still opens everything the instant you touch it. The battery is the one place the age shows. It used to do two evenings between charges and now it is asking for the cable at about 20 per cent every night, which is hardly a disaster but it is a difference I can feel. Whether that is the battery or simply me using it more I could not honestly say. Storage settled down once I moved the photos off it. Four stars rather than five for the battery alone, and I would buy another tomorrow.