Show full PR text

Toys"R"Us® Announces tabeo™ e2 - The Next Generation Of Its Hit Tablet Just For Kids

Design is Bigger, Better and Faster, Featuring 30 Preloaded Apps, Enhanced Parental Controls and More

tabeo™ e2, Plus Ecosystem of Branded Accessories, Available in Toys"R"Us Stores and Online at tabeo.com in October

WAYNE, N.J., Sept. 10, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Toys"R"Us® today announced that next month it will debut tabeo™ e2, the next generation of its popular Wi-Fi Android™ tablet for kids that launched during the 2012 holiday season. Designed by the kids authority, the upgraded, 8-inch, multi-touch screen tablet is bigger, better and faster than the original tabeo and still provides content kids love and safety features parents desire. tabeo e2 offers access to thousands of free apps in the tabeo App store and comes preloaded with dozens of premium apps carefully selected to entertain and educate children ages 6 to 11. Featuring enhanced technology, such as the Android Jelly Bean 4.2 operating system, Bluetooth™ and a dual-core 1.0 GHz processor for faster performance, tabeo e2 also includes improved parental controls and high-impact screen protection. tabeo e2 will be available in three colors exclusively at Toys"R"Us stores nationwide and online at tabeo.com beginning in October for $149.99.

"From the day tabeo arrived in Toys"R"Us stores nearly one year ago, we were incredibly pleased by the response from our customers who were excited to bring home a sophisticated, yet affordable, kid-safe tablet for the whole family to enjoy," said Richard Barry, Executive Vice President, Chief Merchandising Officer, Toys"R"Us, Inc. "We are committed to continually evolving our products, and over the past year have spent considerable time talking to parents and children to help us enhance their tabeo experience. The result is tabeo e2, which features a bigger screen, better resolution and faster performance, plus quality, kid-friendly content and flexible controls to keep kids safe online. We are delighted to deliver this new and improved tablet to our valued customers just in time for the upcoming holiday season."

A Bigger, Better and Faster Tablet Experience for Kids

Designed to provide users with an even more compelling tablet experience, tabeo e2 has been engineered specifically for kids of the digital generation. The larger 8-inch multi-touch screen displays more than 16 million colors with an advanced 1024 x 768 pixel screen resolution. That, combined with a faster dual-core 1.0 GHz processor and quad-core graphics processing unit (GPU), lets users switch between browsing the Internet, watching movies and playing games with ease, speed and clarity. tabeo e2 is also Bluetooth enabled, allowing it to work with all Bluetooth wireless speakers and accessories.

tabeo e2 will be available in a blue, pink or clear protective case that has been custom-made to shield the tablet when dropped from low heights or when bumped into other objects. While maintaining the device's sleek profile, this removable hard case with rubberized siding frames the front and back of the tablet, guarding the four corners surrounding the display. Every tabeo e2 also comes complete with one micro USB cable and one specially designed charging pin to ensure easy connection to a computer or wall outlet for charging.

Additionally, storage space has doubled to 8GB on tabeo e2, providing families with ample space to store the thousands of free apps available through the tabeo App Store. Also available through the app store, parents can easily load must-have programs, including the Toys"R"Us Movies app where thousands of family-friendly movies and TV shows are available for streaming and download directly on tabeo e2. For users looking to store even more content, including photos, videos, movies and more, the tablet's memory is expandable up to 64GB through a micro SDHC slot. Families can also enjoy content that's been downloaded on their device right on their home TVs by using the mini HDMI™ output on tabeo e2.

Advanced Safety Features

To help keep kids safe online, Toys"R"Us has developed an upgraded suite of customizable parental controls especially for tabeo e2. New application management tools allow adults to see when new apps are installed, block unwanted apps from running until approved and set time and date limits for specific app use.

Additionally, parents can limit children's time online and take advantage of the unique filtering system to block up to 27 content categories and specific sites deemed inappropriate by the device administrator.

Kid-Friendly, Premium Content

Designed to engage, entertain, educate and excite kids, tabeo e2 offers an entire suite of content right out of the box. With an assortment of 30 pre-installed apps, kids can immediately begin to use the device for gaming, entertaining, learning and more. Each premium app included on tabeo e2 provides users with high-end content and was carefully selected by the tabeo team to ensure that it is kid-friendly, safe and fun, including:

Games: More than 10 games, including Need for Speed™ Most Wanted, Bejeweled® 2, The Game of Life™, Temple Run 2 and Fruit Ninja, tabeo e2 provides users guaranteed fun with these and more of today's most popular titles.

Education and Creativity: From language learning with Little Pim® and interactive books from IStoryBooks, to learning basic math through a global adventure with Operation Math™ and expressing creativity through Crayola DigiTools™ Effects, parents will find several apps to educate children in the areas of math, science and more.

Entertainment: Families looking for fun content that will allow kids to enjoy immersive experiences with their favorite brands and characters on tabeo e2 can find an app for just that, including, Cartoon Network™, WWE, Paper Camera, My Little Pony® and Kidobi®, among others.

Special Needs: Parents looking for popular, kid-favorite apps that can help children with special needs learn and develop specific skills need look no further than the Toys"R"Us App Guide for Differently-Abled Kids. Using the skills criteria featured in the company's annual Toys"R"Us Toy Guide for Differently-Abled Kids, 25 free apps have been selected with the help of Wynsum Arts, a social enterprise dedicated to making app discovery and mobile technology accessible to children of all abilities. This quick reference tool includes apps such as Swapsies – Occupations, PicSay – Photo Editor, Learning Letters for Kids and Cookie Dunk Jump, among many others, that are available for download in the tabeo App Store.

Customer Service: To ensure that tabeo e2 owners receive dedicated, 24-hour tabeo customer service for any questions they might have, Toys"R"Us has included a preloaded customer service chat app on the device, which allows parents to quickly and easily chat with representatives directly on the tablet itself when connected to WiFi. A tabeo-specific customer service line is also available at 1-888-477-0888 to provide further assistance.

An Ecosystem of tabeo e2 Accessories

A suite of more than 15 tabeo-branded accessories will launch this fall to coincide with the debut of tabeo e2. Stylish cases, high-quality speakers, colorful headphones, cables, bumpers and more, will be available at Toys"R"Us stores nationwide and online at Toysrus.com. Following is a sampling of the accessories, which range in price from $9.99 to $69.99:

DJ Headphones

iHome Docking Station

Tablet Cases

Car Adapter

Adjustable Headset

In addition, kids can transform tabeo e2 into a full karaoke experience with tabeoke from The Singing Machine®. To get the party started, little singers can dock their tabeo e2 to the device to access preloaded and parent-approved songs and lyrics via the preloaded tabeoke app. Each tabeoke includes a wired microphone with two microphone jacks and speakers, echo and balance control as well as Bluetooth streaming.