Tablet Comparison: Dragon Touch K8 Kids vs LeapFrog Epic Academy Edition

The Dragon Touch K8 Kids is a tablet designed for children and the LeapFrog Epic Academy Edition is a children’s educational tablet, an updated version of the LeapFrog Epic, so how do they compare? The K8 Kids is an 8″ tablet with a resolution of 1280×800 pixels. The Academy Edition is a more common 7″ tablet with a lower resolution, as smaller tablets tend to have lower resolutions, of 1024×600 pixels. The K8 Kids comes with a protective two-tone case with an integral stand and attached stylus; the Academy Edition comes with a removable silicone bumper in a choice of colours.

Both tablets are Android tablets, with the K8 Kids running 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box and the Academy Edition running an operating system that is based on Android 4.4 KitKat. This means that the Academy Edition is not a pure Android tablet but one that runs on an Android base. The K8 Kids comes with Google Play pre-installed but the Academy Edition cannot get Google Play but the Amazon Appstore can be installed.

Both tablets come with 16 gigabytes (GB) of internal memory and both have memory card slots that will take memory cards up to 32 GB in size. Both tablets come with WiFi and Bluetooth and have a micro USB port.

Both tablets come with front and rear-facing cameras. On the K8 Kids, the front-facing camera has a 2.0 megapixel (MP) resolution and the rear-facing one 5.0 MP resolution. Both cameras on the Academy Edition have a 2.0 MP resolution. Each tablet has a headphone jack, mic and single speaker.

The battery life of the Academy Edition is listed at being 7+ hours, substantially better than the rather poor 3 hours listed for the K8 Kids. Battery life does depend on what use the tablet is being put to, but the K8 Kids’s battery life is still rather low.

Both tablets with parental controls, with those on the K8 Kids provided by KIDOZ. Those on the Academy Edition are LeapFrog’s own and, like all of LeapFrog’s tablets, they are very strict. Out of the box, children can only visit sites and content that have been approved by LeapFrog; parents can add additional material to the approved list as desired or set it up so that it functions like a normal browser.

There is educational material built into KIDOZ as well other included content, but the Academy Edition is, like all LeapFrog tablets, designed specifically as an educational tablet. In particular, the LeapFrog Academy is an interactive educational programme designed for children from 3 to 6 years old. LeapFrog Academy is a subscription service though although the tablet comes with several months free. The Academy Edition also has more included content than the K8 Kids.

The technical abilities of both tablets are similar in many ways, with the K8 Kids edging ahead on screen and camera resolution. It is rather poorer when it comes to battery life though. Even though the Academy Edition is much more of a general purpose tablet than any of LeapFrog’s prior tablets, excluding the basic Epic, it has much more of an educational and child-safety focus. The K8 Kids is perhaps a better general purpose tablet. The Dragon Touch K8 Kids is probably better for those after a more general children’s tablet but the LeapFrog Epic Academy Edition, assuming the LeapFrog Academy subscription is maintained, is a better tablet for parents wanting to educate younger children.