Tablet Comparison: Dragon Touch X10 Kids vs LeapFrog Epic Academy Edition

The Dragon Touch X10 Kids is a tablet designed for children and the LeapFrog Epic Academy Edition is a children’s educational tablet, so how do they compare? The tablets are to start with of different sizes; the X10 Kids is a 10.1″ tablet, unusually large for a children’s tablet, whilst the Academy Edition is a more common 7″ tablet. The X10 Kids has a higher screen resolution of 1280×800 pixels compared to the 1024×600 pixels of the Epic. Both tablets come with a protective case in a number of colours; that of the X10 Kids has an integrated stand.

Both tablets are Android tablets, but they differ substantially in this. The X10 Kids runs 7.0 Nougat out of the box, but the Epic runs a variant based on Android 4.4 KitKat, meaning that it is not a pure Android tablet. The X10 Kids comes with Google Play already installed whilst the Academy Edition cannot get this but can install the Amazon Appstore.

Each tablet has 16 gigabytes (GB) of internal memory and each also has a memory card slot. The X10 Kids will take memory cards up to 64 GB in size whilst the Epic will only take ones up to 32 GB. Both come with WiFi, Bluetooth and a micro USB port; the X10 Kids also has a micro HDMI port, allowing it to be connected to such as suitable televisions, and a DC charging port.

Each tablet has a front- and a rear-facing camera. On both tablets, both cameras have a resolution of 2.0 megapixels. Each also has a single speaker, mic and headphone jack.

The battery life of the Academy Edition is listed as being 7+ hours which is noticeably better than the 5 hours listed for the X10 Kids, even though battery life does depend on usage.

The X10 Kids comes with parental controls provided by Kidoz whilst the Academy Edition comes with LeapFrog’s own. Like all of LeapFrog’s parental controls, these are very strict; however, they are more customisable than was seen in older LeapFrog tablets as parents can add additional approved material and sites or configure it to function like a normal browser.

The X10 Kids does come with educational material through Kidoz, and can get educational material elsewhere too, but the Academy Edition is a tablet designed with educational purposes in mind. This includes the LeapFrog Academy, an educational programme designed for children from 3-6 years old. This is a subscription service but the tablet comes with several months included. The Epic also has more included content than the X10 Kids.

Many of the technical capabilities of the tablets are similar. The X10 Kids can take bigger memory cards, but has a poorer battery life. It is also bigger than the Academy Edition, which may or may not be a disadvantage depending on the use the tablet will be put to. The Dragon Touch X10 Kids is a more general purpose tablet whilst the LeapFrog Epic Academy Edition is an educational tablet for younger children, assuming that the LeapFrog Academy subscription is maintained.