“Toys R Us Inc is launching its own tablet designed for children, to be sold exclusively at its stores, as the world’s largest specialty toy retailer gears up to battle online and big box retailers in the holiday season,” Nivedita Bhattacharjee and Chris Peters report for Reuters.
“The company said on Monday the tablet, dubbed Tabeo, will sell for $149.99 and will be loaded with child-friendly apps and integrated controls that allow parents to customize levels of Internet access for each family member. It will be available starting October 21,” Bhattacharjee and Peters report. “Toys R Us, which was taken private in 2005 by KKR & Co, Bain Capital and Vornado Realty Trust in a $6.6 billion deal, is facing tough competition from rivals including Amazon.com, Target Corp and Wal-Mart Stores Inc, which often sell toys at lower prices.”
Bhattacharjee and Peters report, “The company said the 7-inch, multi-touch table will have wi-fi capability, a 4GB flash memory, and will come with 50 free, preinstalled apps aimed at children.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: LeapFrog’s hating life today.
They PLANNED on selling them. When the iPad mini comes out they will be re-stocking their warehouse with returns and unsold units
I’d rather wait to see whether the rumored iPad mini really comes out.
My family’s various Apple devices are configured to use the same AppleID so I can download educational games and review them below releasing them to my kids; I pay just once for an app. I would not be able to do this with a device that’s on another ecosystem.
As a parent, customized use controls based on profiles is interesting, but that sounds more applicable to unmonitored use, which I am not in favor of for my kids.
I want a big blue one.
Hey, Bain Capital. Isn’t that the private equity firm that that Communist-Fascist Obama created to manufacture death squads and give everyone tax breaks on money they stole from the widows and orphans?
No, that’s the one run by the guy who gave some woman terminal cancer, remember?
Android based. Have fun! Ad free? Who’s the gatekeeper?
Separate parental controls based on log on user.
I say bring on the competition, it will only be better for us consumers.
Why are they bothering? They are an Apple re-seller for iPods. They could have sold iPad minis on layaway, for those who can’t front the difference between $150 and say $250. 4 GB of memory wont go far.
Fifty “free” preinstalled apps. Umm, and how many “free” preinstalled ads?
i just *love* that catchy name – “Tabeo.” Hello Kitty anyone? With custom apps like “Chester the Molester” cartoons from Larry Flynt, and “Hoosier Daddy.” Lots of ads that encourage children to nag their parents to get the latest and greatest from Toys R Us (You have to be old enough to remember the scandal caused by Howdy Doody doing his own commercials, telling young watchers to be sure to tell Mom to buy Wonder Bread with the bright red, yellow and blue balloons on the wrapper).
Uh, that is pretty old…I suppose you remember Soupy Sales, too?
Yep. The neighbors down the block got the first TV on our street around spring ’52. All we youngsters huddled in front of that tiny screen on Saturday mornings watching all the greats. Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels as the Lone Ranger and Tonto were our favorites. I can recall a bunch of adults crowding around watching Eisenhower get nominated at the GOP convention.
Actually, I remember the Soupy Sales brouhaha, but Howdy Doody was at least 10 years before that, and before my time.
So yeah, if Jesse remembers Howdy Doody, s/he should certainly remember Soupy.
Soupy rocked, a super funny guy who started it all and became the model for many who followed. I loved the sneer in 2ndmate’s post not realizing kid shows in the 50’s & 60’s were way more fun because the adults putting them on were quite subversive and doing stuff the adults would get while entertaining the kiddies. Completely hilarious and I loved watching adults doing this stuff and the double entendre’s, etc.. So popular and clever adults would watch the shows. J.P. Patches in Seattle same thing. Don’t think soothing has to be new to be great. Most of the great classic symphony composers have been dead a long time too and their music is no less relevant. Unfortunately for Soupy the people who were supposed to hold the tapes of his shows recorded over many of them. They were very stupid about holding on to this stuff back then only seeing its value for a one time showing. All I can say is you missed out. And probably missed out on the Beatles too.
Jesse is indeed a he last time I looked! 🙂
I actually think this will hurt amazon
Considering that Amazon loses money on its Android OtherPads, there obviously is nothing going on at their shop but buying market share, whatever that’s supposed to be worth.
The end result is going to be lots of diversity dilution of sub-par OtherPads in the 7″ market with minimal profit to anyone. Yeah, that sounds sustainable. *snark*
It all serves to reinforce the fact that real Apple iPads rule the REAL market.
Whenever anyone talks about Android market share, remember that a large part of it will be craptablets like this one and the ones in Walgreens 😉
It has a book app called istorybooks, you think Apple my have an issue with that?
Nah, they were just sloppy…they dropped the first letter “H”
I like MDN’s take – “LeapFrog’s hating life today.”
You’re destine to end up with sore nards when you play leap frog with a giraffe!
+1!
kida are not stupid! they know how the real thing looks like and how it work.
The name Tabeo ist also stupid and the hardware and software interface is just soooo kiddy!
Kids are smart, don’t treat them like idiots!!!
Toy companies have been trying to make Just for Kids computers for years. It has never worked and never will. The reasons it is a a failed idea from the start.
1. Toy companies are run by committees and focus groups, they have no idea how to make a good computer and even less about what kids want in one.
2. Most kids know more about computers than their parents.
3. No kids wants a “Toy Computer.”
I would say that “Toy companies aren’t going to just walk in . . .” but that would kind of defeat my argument. 😉
the 7-inch, multi-touch table…
So it’s not an Android Etch-A-Sketch? It’s a ‘table’, as in ‘Fat Ass Table’, for kids? Oh, this should be good. This should be REAL good!