Toys R Us has joined the trend of retail companies creating their own tablet hardware.The leading children’s retailer has introduced the Tabeo, a $150 tablet specifically targeted at kids but with enough power and features to even pique the interest of adults.
It’s a 7-inch tablet with 50 apps pre-installed. The apps include both games and other Internet-connected content, all designed to be as accessible and user-friendly as possible.
The Tabeo, which is spelled as “tabeo” in the marketing literature, has 4 GB of flash memory, a microSD card slot, and 1 GB of RAM. It is powered by a 1 GHz processor and Android version 4.0, also known as Ice Cream Sandwich.
“Over the past year, we’ve spent considerable time talking to parents and children to determine what features and functions they really want in a kids’ tablet, resulting in tabeo. We are proud that tabeo offers robust and flexible parental controls that can help protect children as they surf the Internet,” said Toys R Us VP Troy Peterson.
This trend of retailers also becoming manufacturers of course really began with Amazon’s Kindle and has expanded to other companies like Barnes & Noble. There have also been rumors about Best Buy launching its own tablet for years.
The difference with Toys R Us is that it doesn’t really offer much in the way of its own content, so it will no doubt now be getting into that market as well.
The Tabeo is now available for pre-orders. It will officially go on sale on October 21.
