My sister, in her infinite wisdom, has bought a cheap Android tablet for her 7-year old daughter and asked me to set it up for her for Christmas.

I've never used Android before, but I got to grips with most of it fairly quickly. Certainly not as slick or polished as iOS but it was a fraction of the price so you get what you pay for.

Anyway, just a couple of things I'd like to ask...

1. Can you set up Parental Controls on Android tablets, like you can restrict certain apps on iOS? Looked in Settings but can't see anything obvious. If it helps, it's running Android 4.2.2. I've voiced my concerns about a 7-year old being given free access to the web, but my sister wants to give her the tablet to free up their iPad which is being hogged by me niece. I'd prefer to lock it down so she can't use the web browser or email until she's older.

2. I've put an 8gb SD card in the tablet, but trying to download apps it says there isn't sufficient space available- it's trying to install to the internal memory which is nearly full. I discovered how you can move individual apps to the external SD card afterwards, but wondered if there's a way to make the SD card the default location to download new apps from the Google Store?

Plus, any suggestions for suitable Android apps for a 7-year old girl. Thanks!

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/googl ... n-android/

its not iOS is it

Indeed it's not! I was initially struck by how crude it is compared to iOS, although you do get used to it. The home screen is a good example, different sized icons with text that's truncated so you can only see the first few characters of the app. All looks a bit amateur.

Thanks for that link. It appears that setting restrictions is only available of Android 4.3 or later - this tablet's currently running 4.2.2. I'm assuming it's not easy, or even possible, to upgrade the system?

Any modern / new Android tablet, running 4.4 or later has parental controls.

The problem is, a lot of the cheaper alternatives are older, not so easy to use and miss out on modern features.

Also, the SD card is for data, not apps. I have never run out on my phones and I've never used an SD card (my phones had 8GB or 16GB built in). I know in older versions you could move apps to the SD card after they had been downloaded, but not all apps are compatible with this. Google doesn't officially support it.

I don't have my tablet here, and it's far from ideal, but IIRC Amazon's app store app (Christ...) gives you the installation choice of internal storage or card where possible. It should help with some apps at least, but obviously look to see if the tablet's supported when getting apps etc.

It might be worth seeing if you can upgrade the tablet. The XDA forums might be of help.