What are the Differences Between the LeapFrog Epic and the LeapPad Ultra?

The LeapFrog Epic and the LeapPad Ultra are both 7″ tablets designed for children from LeapFrog. Both tablets are educational in nature, with the Ultra being an older tablet. Each tablet has a 1024×600 pixel resolution touchscreen display. The Ultra has been specifically designed to be used by children, with its case intended to protect the tablet from damage, whilst the Epic has followed the more common approach of adding a protective bumper to the tablet to help reduce the chances of damage.

The Epic is an Android tablet, running on a variant of Android 4.4 KitKat, whilst the Ultra uses LeapFrog’s own operating system. The Epic can have Amazon Appstore installed on it by a parent, but not Google Play, whilst the Ultra only has access to LeapFrog’s App Centre and the educational apps that have been designed for children. The Epic has access to the App Centre as well. The Ultra has a cartridge slot, which will take suitable LeapFrog cartridges, but the Epic lacks this.

Each tablet has a front and a rear facing camera, both 2.0 megapixels in resolution, a 3.5mm headphone jack, microphone and a single speaker. The Epic comes with 16 gigabytes (GB) of internal memory, double the 8GB of the Ultra, and in addition has a memory card slot which will take microSD cards up to 32GB in size.

Each tablet has WiFi but the Epic also comes with Bluetooth. Each has LeapFrog’s extremely strong parental controls, but on the Epic they are more flexible. The Ultra can only visit sites and content on the internet that LeapFrog has approved. Out of the box, the same is true for the Epic, but parents can also add approved content to the list, or have the web browser work as normal, and in addition can download content from the Amazon Appstore.

Each tablet is an educational tablet, and learning is their primary use. The Ultra only has access to LeapFrog approved content, which is primarily educational in nature, even the games. The Epic, as well as this, can of course download games and other content from Amazon. This content can only be accessed and added to the tablet by the parent.

Of the two tablets, the Epic is not quite as chunky, has a faster processor and much more memory, both actual and effective. The addition of a memory card slot greatly expands the amount of content that can be stored on the tablet. The biggest changes are it being an Android tablet, with access to more, and cheaper, content, and the improved flexibility of the parental controls, which makes the tablet more useful, even by adults. The LeapPad Ultra is definitely an educational tablet, and not much else. The LeapFrog Epic is still an educational tablet, and still definitely a LeapFrog tablet, but it is also more than that and can even be used like a regular tablet, making it a combination of a purely educational tablet, which is LeapFrog’s area of expertise, and a normal children’s tablet.