Which Tablet is Better, the LeapPad Ultimate or the nabi DreamTab?

The LeapPad Ultimate is a children’s educational tablet and the nabi DreamTab is a more general-purpose tablet. The first difference is the size, as the Ultimate is a 7″ tablet whilst the DreamTab is a 10.1″ tablet. The DreamTab’s screen also has a higher resolution, not uncommon in larger tablets, with 1920×1200 pixels compared to 1024×600 pixels for the Ultimate. Both tablets come with a protective case to reduce the chance of damage if the tablet is dropped; the case on the Ultimate comes in several colours and has a place for the tablet’s stylus whilst the DreamTab’s case comes in nabi’s signature red.

The DreamTab is an Android tablet, running 4.4. KitKat, which has been extensively modified with nabi’s Blue Morpho OS overlay which is a suite of child-friendly and parent approved features, and has access to Google Play. The Ultimate is not an Android tablet, running Brio OS, and only has access to the LeapFrog App Center and LeapFrog cartridges.

The Ultimate comes with 8 gigabytes (GB) of internal memory and lacks a memory card slot. The DreamTab’s memory is double that, at 16 GB, and the tablet also has a memory card slot that will take cards up to 32 GB. Both tablets have WiFi, but the DreamTab also comes with Bluetooth and Near Field Communication, the latter being a short-range wireless connection method rarely seen in children’s tablets. The Ultimate has a micro USB port whilst the DreamTab has a nabi Connector, a custom connector that functions as a USB port and as an HDMI port but requires a custom cable.

Both tablets come with front and rear facing cameras. The cameras on the Ultimate are both 2.0-megapixel (MP) resolution; on the DreamTab the front facing camera has a 2.0 MP resolution and the rear facing one 5.0 MP resolution.

Both tablets come with parental controls provided by the manufacturer. The Ultimate’s parental controls are very strong and inflexible, with users only allowed to view about 1,000 bits of hand-selected appropriate web content. Those on the DreamTab are part of the Blue Morpho OS overlay. The content on the Ultimate is all educational in nature, even the games, and the DreamTab also has educational content integrated with the OS overlay through the Wings Learning System. It also comes with Dream Pro Studio creative suite and the nabi Dream Pen that is used with it.

The DreamTab is a larger tablet, which may or may not be a benefit, and also comes with a custom port rather than a standard micro USB port. Other than that, it is superior to the Ultimate in perhaps every way. The software on the DreamTab is more tightly integrated with the tablet than is usual for an Android tablet, the parental controls are far more flexible, it has more memory, a memory card slot, more wireless methods and a better rear facing camera. It even comes with a decent amount of educational content built in. The LeapPad Ultimate is a generally inferior single-purpose tablet whilst the nabi DreamTab is a more fully featured tablet with a range of abilities.