Our Review of the Sprout Channel Cubby

The Ematic Sprout Channel Cubby is a 7″ tablet designed for children and it is tied into the children’s television channel, the Sprout Channel. The tablet comes with a protective silicone bumper intended to reduce the chance of damage if the tablet is dropped, and the bumper currently comes in only one colour, green. The tablet is an Android tablet, running 4.4 KitKat.

The Cubby comes with 16GB of internal memory, and there is a micro SD card slot which can be used to increase the available memory which will take memory cards up to 32GB in size, making the total potential memory 48GB. It has a 7″ touchscreen display with a resolution of 1024×600 pixels. The Cubby has two cameras, one front facing and one rear facing, and each camera has a 2.0 megapixel resolution.

The Cubby has WiFi for connecting to the internet and it also comes with Bluetooth, allowing it to be connected to other Bluetooth-capable devices, including such items as speakers. There is a micro USB port, sued for charging and for connecting to other devices such as laptop and desktop computers, and an HDMI port, which can be used to connect the table to suitable televisions and send the screen’s output to them. The tablet has two speakers, a 3.5mm headphone jack, should a parent wish their child to use their tablet in such a way that everyone doesn’t have to hear, as well as a built-in microphone. The Cubby comes with 1 gigabyte (GB) of RAM and has a quad core processor.

The tablet comes with a number of pre-installed apps, including some educational ones and some linked to the Sprout Channel using their characters, and also comes with Google Play. Having Google Play with the tablet means that a wide range of content of different types is available to install, rather than a more limited selection. Some of this content will, of course, have to be purchased, but much is available for free.

The built-in memory is on the high end for a child’s tablet, with many coming with less, and this may naturally be increased with the addition of a memory card. Something that can be quite important as photos and videos tend to use up a lot of storage space. The resolution of the rear camera is fairly typical, but that of the front facing one is at the upper end for a tablet; many have a lower resolution. These are more than adequate for most children’s uses. The WiFi is standard, and indeed essential, in all tablets, but Bluetooth is rather less common, which does add a few options.

A micro USB port, or something that fulfils the same role, can be found on all tablets. However, the HDMI port is rather more unusual. This allows content to be mirrored from the tablet’s screen onto a television. The screen resolution is on the low end of the more common resolutions, but not at the very bottom. Many tablets have a similar screen resolution. The silicone bumper covers rather less of the tablet than is common in most protective bumpers, which is a bit of a concern. Only having a single colour available for the bumper is not hugely important, but it does mean that the tablet has less customisation options for its appearance.

Can You Play Games on the Sprout Channel Cubby?

Being able to play games, despite what the intentions are when a tablet is purchased, can be an important factor. The Cubby comes with some Sprout Channel games preinstalled, which often have educational uses. With Google Play being available, more games can be installed on the Cubby if desired. These games can also be educational in nature, or simply fun, or a combination of both. Parents are advised to check out games before allowing their children access to them, however.

Can You Use Skype with the Sprout Channel Cubby?

Skype is such a cheap way of speaking to such as family members who may be some distance away, that whether or not a tablet can use this can be an important consideration. The Skype app can be downloaded from Google Play from the Parental Dashboard, and then added to Cubby Mode if desired, or alternatively used from the Parental Dashboard with the child supervised. So, children can then use Skype to video message with others, using the front facing camera, speakers and built-in microphone.

Can You Watch Streaming Video or Television on the Sprout Channel Cubby?

Much streaming content, such as Netflix, is available through apps that can be downloaded from Google Play, and therefore a parent can choose to allow their child to watch it. Sites such as YouTube can also be added to the approved list. Whether a parent wants to allow their child access to these is a personal decision though.

Does the Sprout Channel Cubby have any Parental Controls?

Parental controls are an important factor for many parents, and what type a tablet has available are something to be considered. Children use the tablet in Cubby Mode, and the parents can control their activities through the Parental Dashboard.

Apps are installed from Google Play in the Parental Dashboard, so children can’t control what is installed on the device themselves. Parents can download an app, see if they approve of it, then add it to the content that their child has access to.

Parents can also control which sites their child is allowed to visit, adding or removing sites from the list. They can also determine how much time a child is allowed to spend on the Cubby (and multiple accounts are possible), either setting total time limits or defining set times during the day when the tablet will work.

Outside of Cubby Mode, the tablet functions like a normal Android tablet.

Does the Sprout Channel Cubby have any Educational Uses?

The Cubby comes with a number of educational games featuring Sprout Channel characters. These games teach things such as spelling and mathematics, and include puzzles and other content. As well as this, it comes with 10 free books from MeeGenius, which is a library of hundreds of children’s read-along books. There are also educational games from IntelliJoy, covering reading, maths, letters and numbers.

The Cubby also has access to Google Play. There are educational apps, books and content available from the Google Play store. Whilst many of these require purchase, some are available for free.

Summing Up the Sprout Channel Cubby

The Sprout Channel Cubby has been reported to have a pair of related, and serious, problems by some purchasers. These are poor durability (a major problem in a child’s tablet) – according to many customers, the tablet has a tendency to break very quickly – and poor customer service meaning that, once it breaks, it is very difficult to get it fixed. Customers have stated that the warranty time is quite poor and, even if it does break during the warranty period, the manufacturer tends to offer to simply repair the product for a fee, rather than repairing or replacing it for free. However, experiences have varied drastically; some customers have found the customer service to be great, and have had any problems fixed, and others have had no problems at all with the tablet’s durability.

The tablet is integrated with the Sprout Channel, with many included apps and games featuring characters from programmes on that channel. This makes the tablet more unsuitable for older children, as the Sprout Channel is aimed at the younger end of the market, specifically preschoolers. As such, the tie-in to the Sprout Channel’s content is probably going to be of less interest to older children (it is aimed at children from ages 2 to 6 years), which could well include those of school age. The Cubby is probably more suited as a starter tablet due to this, although it can get additional content. However, as it can be used as a regular Android tablet outside of Cubby Mode, it could perhaps be used as such by older children, or even adults.

Most of the features of the tablet are middle of the range, with some being slightly better than the average, such as the front camera and the memory, and others being slightly worse. The quad core processor should be adequate for most children’s need, and will cope with most content. The Sprout Channel Cubby could be considered to be slightly above average, and the price of it tends to be that as well.

Find out more details on the Sprout Channel Cubby.