Need cheap Android device for autistic child

[Guest kerpob]

The autistic child is my 6 year old son, who loves playing Angry birds and kid's paint games on my Android devices (phone and tablet).

He presently has a Nintendo DS, but being autistic, these devices have a pretty brief shelf life in my house before a hinge is snapped or worse. Also the games are too easy to take out and eat/lose. A second hand NDS is about £40.

I think an Android device for gaming would be better as it has no hinge to break, and the games are internal and free.

What device should I get for him?

To recap, criteria are:

1. No hinge/breakable bits.

2. Will play "Angry birds".

3. Cannot make calls (otherwise the emergency services will blacklist us).

4. Cheap, because he will break it eventually.

I don't care if it is second hand, and I am pretty familiar with Linux and Android so have no fear about modding or installing or whatever might need done.

Thanks in advance!

[Guest Jekle]

The autistic child is my 6 year old son, who loves playing Angry birds and kid's paint games on my Android devices (phone and tablet).

He presently has a Nintendo DS, but being autistic, these devices have a pretty brief shelf life in my house before a hinge is snapped or worse. Also the games are too easy to take out and eat/lose. A second hand NDS is about £40.

I think an Android device for gaming would be better as it has no hinge to break, and the games are internal and free.

What device should I get for him?

To recap, criteria are:

1. No hinge/breakable bits.

2. Will play "Angry birds".

3. Cannot make calls (otherwise the emergency services will blacklist us).

4. Cheap, because he will break it eventually.

I don't care if it is second hand, and I am pretty familiar with Linux and Android so have no fear about modding or installing or whatever might need done.

Thanks in advance!

You could try the ZTE Racer from the three UK website it's ideal, I should reccomend putting 2.3 on it (on the ZTE Racer Section) If you don't want it to make any phonecalls what so ever including emergency you could remove libcm.so and libril-qc-1.so from the lib directory in the 2.3 ROM. It has access to android market and has the same processor as the ZTE Blade (got one) If your worried if he's gunna break it or not get a case for it

[Guest kerpob]

Thanks! Got a zte racer for £45 on ebay. Will update when it arrives and we've tried it out.

[Guest b1ackb1rd]

If you can afford an Advent Vega from PCWorld you will find a really decent tablet, it's easy to use and on other Modaco pages is being updated to the latest version of Android 3.0 Honeycomb

[Guest kerpob]

If you can afford an Advent Vega from PCWorld you will find a really decent tablet, it's easy to use and on other Modaco pages is being updated to the latest version of Android 3.0 Honeycomb

You'll see from my profile that I have a Vega, and I have put honeycomb on it. However, it is too expensive to give to a 6-year old prone to destructive tendancies!

The ZTE racer I got is a nice little device. Couple of questions for anyone who knows:

1. It has no SIM - does that mean it cannot make emergency calls?

2. Most apps can be installed from market, but angry birds will not. Is this because of no SIM, or no SD card (it has neither)?

Thanks!

[Guest nvkid909]

Although I'm currently sticking up for Android, & that Apple products can be a little overpriced, I would suggest an ipod touch 8gb (smallest / cheapest model).

I say this because of it's one piece nature (no removeable battery / cover / cards), has wifi (good for gaming), plays music (you could probably install msuic to it for him) & a child would get to grips with the iOS (apple OS) much easier than Android OS, imo.

Oh & it doesn't make calls. You can even set parental controls on it.

(Edit - oops! - just seen you bought the racer.)

Edited May 22, 2011 by nvkid909

[Guest Pondlife]

1. It has no SIM - does that mean it cannot make emergency calls?

2. Most apps can be installed from market, but angry birds will not. Is this because of no SIM, or no SD card (it has neither)?

1. I think it may still be able to unfortunately

2. It's probably down to the size of angry birds with no sd card, the angry bird games are pretty large file sizes.

[Guest kerpob]

1. I think it may still be able to unfortunately

2. It's probably down to the size of angry birds with no sd card, the angry bird games are pretty large file sizes.

1. Good news is that it can't (I took a risk and tried it).

2. Probably is actual phone storage size at the moment - I'll have to look at it & will need to root it to get Angry birds on SD.

Seems a good little phone so far & is doing the job well. Quite happy.