If you usually like to limit the devices in your home…but find you have a temporary need now that school is online in many places—this affordable tablet may be the solution. It’s $35!

Although it’s great for kids to be able to continue their learning while home via online sessions, what’s a family to do if they have limited devices (i.e. just mom’s laptop/tablet or phone) and lots of kids who need to tune into classes?

We found this laptop at an amazing price!  It’s only $35 at Walmart and slightly more on Amazon.  It operates on the Android system (so any apps available on Google Play are available) and can be used to go online. And since it’s Android-based, we’re hoping we can apply the same parental controls to filter or restrict internet access (i.e. only allow the website that your child needs or that provide appropriate educational content).

And when this Coronavirus blows over, if you don’t want an extra device in the home, at this price, you won’t feel bad getting rid of it.

Usually, we like to test an item before recommending, but due to the current situation, there hasn’t yet been time. We hope this is helpful and will update this post when we do get a chance to test both the parental controls and the quality of this item. 

We expect supplies of this item to run out quickly as students around the country need to access online classes. 

UPDATE. We received the item and found that it’s not too complicated to install parental controls and remove internet from the device. A parent will first need to install the app “Google Family Link for Parents” on their own iPhone/iPad/Android device. The app is easy to use and takes you through all the necessary steps. At first it might seem like you’re adding things to the device before you’re taking things away, but don’t worry. At the end, you’ll be shown a list of apps and you can choose which to allow and which to disable, such as Chrome, Google search, etc. There are also other settings you can adjust. You can choose to disable Google Play (i.e. no new apps) or allow it and get a notification if your child wants to download something new, then approve or deny their request. Family Link has a lot of other settings and options to give you total control so the device doesn’t get abused.