Tablet Comparison: LeapPad Ultimate vs Dragon Touch K8 Kids

The LeapPad Ultimate is an educational tablet for children from LeapFrog and the Dragon Touch K8 Kids is a general-purpose children’s tablet, so how do they compare? The first is that there is a small difference in the size; the Ultimate is a 7″ tablet whilst the K8 Kids is a larger tablet at 8″. The K8 Kids has a higher resolution screen, at 1280×800 pixels compared to the 1024×600 pixels of the Ultimate. Both come with a protective case; that of the Ultimate comes in several colours and has a stylus with a holder built into the case whilst the case of the K8 Kids comes only in a two-colour version, but one with an integral stand.

The K8 Kids is an Android tablet running 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box and has Google Play pre-installed. The Ultimate is not an Android tablet, running a custom OS instead, Brio OS. The Ultimate cannot install Google Play or any other Android app store, only being able to get content through the LeapFrog App Center or LeapFrog cartridges as it comes with a cartridge slot.

The Ultimate has 8 gigabytes (GB) of internal memory and lacks a memory card slot. The K8 Kids has 16 GB of internal memory and a memory card slot that will take cards up to 32 GB in size. Both tablets have WiFi and a micro USB port; the K8 Kids also comes with Bluetooth.

Both tablets come with front and rear facing cameras. The Ultimate’s cameras are both 2.0 megapixel (MP) in resolution; the K8 Kids’ cameras have a front resolution of 2.0 MP and a rear resolution of 5.0 MP.

The battery life of the Ultimate is listed at being 5+ hours whilst that of the K8 Kids is only listed at 3 hours. Battery life does vary depending on usage.

The K8 Kids has parental controls provided by Kidoz, which have some built-in educational content and the K8 Kids also has some Disney ebooks and audio books included. The Ultimate comes with LeapFrog’s own extremely strong, and inflexible, parental controls; children can only visit the about 1,000 pieces of content hand-picked by LeapFrog and parents cannot add new. The Ultimate’s primary use is as an educational tablet and also comes with some included content.

The initial difference between the two tablets is the size, with the K8 Kids being slightly larger. In technical terms, the abilities of the K8 Kids are superior to those of the Ultimate in every way except for battery life; more memory, a memory card slot, Bluetooth and better cameras. The LeapPad Ultimate is first and foremost an educational tablet and has very little use outside that area whilst the Dragon Touch K8 Kids is a technically superior general-purpose tablet.