Oregon Scientific Launches Meep Tablet for Kids; Parents Sigh in Relief

If you cringe a little every time your young child reaches for your tablet, you might be interested in Oregon Scientific’s latest product.

Today, the company released a tablet called Meep, built specifically for children 6 years old and up. It features a rugged design that includes an orange silicone bumper and a reinforced seven-inch touchscreen that won’t easily break if dropped — in other words, it’s kidproof.

Though it’s running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, the Wi-Fi-enabled Meep presents a simplified interface where kids can scroll through the various apps, games, multimedia content and more. Oregon Scientific preloads the tablet with a handful of art and learning apps, as well as Angry Birds and Uno.

Meep offers four gigabytes of internal storage and a microSD expansion slot. More content, including books and videos, is also available from the Meep Store, but you don’t have to worry about your child going on a shopping spree without your knowledge.

Parents can set up controls through the Meep Web site, where they can give their child a “virtual allowance” for buying apps, manage which Web sites their kids visit, monitor usage and limit how much time they spend on the device. In addition, the parental portal provides access to the Google Play store, which offers mom-and-dad-approved apps and content to download to the tablet.

Meep is available now for $150 from major retailers such as Target, Best Buy, Kmart, Amazon and Walmart.