Where Can I Buy A Kurio Phone

I'm that 5G guy. I've actually been here for every "G." I've reviewed well over a thousand products during 18 years working full-time at PCMag.com, including every generation of the iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy S. I also write a weekly newsletter, Fully Mobilized, where I obsess about phones and networks.

where can i buy a kurio phone

A protected kids' phone is a great idea. Kids want smartphones; parents want to feel safe. But KD Interactive's unlocked Kurio Phone ($159.99) is cheaply made and loaded down with bloatware, and it doesn't compete with the kid-friendly solutions coming from the major U.S. carriers.

Physical Features and Call QualityThe Kurio Phone is relatively hand-friendly at 4.8 by 2.4 by 0.3 inches (HWD) and 4.8 ounces, and it isn't ugly. It's a combination of matte and glossy plastic, black with red accents; it doesn't scream "kiddy" at all. Turn it on, though, and you'll be immediately disappointed. The 4-inch, 800-by-480 LCD is bright enough, but it looks cheap and slightly fuzzy. The phone isn't waterproof, but it also isn't fragile.

Call quality was fine in my tests. The earpiece is loud and sharp, although rather harsh. The speakerphone was surprisingly quiet, so kids will be mostly using the earpiece. Voice transmissions through the microphone were nice and warm, with surprisingly good noise cancellation. The phone supports Bluetooth 3.0, but if your kid wants a Bluetooth headset, she should probably be getting a fancier phone.

Performance and MultimediaIt's clear that KD couldn't figure out how to make an affordable phone with its extensive parental controls and support, so it cut a lot of corners and ultimately sold its soul to marketing devils.

While the phone supports Google Play, it's weighed down by more bloatware and secondary app stores than I've seen in a long time. Now, if these were special educational content like Vinci preloads, I'd understand. But no, they're just an array of crappy, often poorly programmed games from a distributor called Magma Mobile that KD made a marketing deal with.

Hardware-wise, the Kurio Phone has a dual-core MediaTek MT6572A-W processor running Android 4.2.2 at 1.3GHz. That offers entry-level performance noticeably below the Qualcomm Snapdragon 400s that power competing phones like the Kyocera Hydro Life and LG Unify . Gaming performance suffered the most, with the Kurio offering half the frame rates of its direct competitors.

The phone has a 5-megapixel main camera and a 2-megapixel front camera. The main camera is one of the worst I've ever seen; every photo I took was so soft, it looked like there was Vaseline over the lens. Photos taken with the front camera were typically extremely compressed. Both cameras record only 640-by-480 video, probably because of limitations on the processor; the front camera topped out at a jerky 13 frames per second, while the main camera went up to 30fps.

Parents looking for a no-contract phone with parental controls would do better with the LG Unify or LG Pulse on Virgin Mobile Custom or with an LG L90 or Kyocera Hydro Edge on T-Mobile. T-Mobile offers content blocking and Web guard services, which approximate most of Kurio's parental controls.

I'm deducting an extra point for the poorly thought through Magma Mobile bloatware on this phone. While it's deleteable, it's full of ads, pop-ups, and Google Play hooks that constantly bombard kids with marketing content. If Kurio wants to build the perfect phone for kids, it should put down its bottle of content-marketing dollars and, you know, think of the kids.

The Kurio Phone is a small, relatively generic-looking Android phone with a highly customized interface. It has a 4-inch, 800-by-480 screen, "dual core" processor, Android 4.2, and 4GB of storage. The phone appears to be compatible with AT&T, T-Mobile, and their sub-brands (like Cricket and MetroPCS), but on 3G, not LTE.

I couldn't get many more details because this phone is locked down, which is sort of its point. Enter the settings? Parentally controlled. Web browser? Filtered. You can't even turn on Wi-Fi without a parent's permission. The phone comes with a ton of built-in games, and it has both Google Play and Kurio's own protected, child-friendly app store - although let's note that to enter Google Play, you need a parent's permission.

I like how Kurio gets these permissions, though. You can enter a code or, better, text a parent's phone to get a text back with permission. That's more flexible than other purely password-based parental controls. Kurio also gives parents a complete management console. So the phone itself appears pretty lackluster, but the controls are absolutely top-notch.

Kurio's major selling points here are going to be price - $129 for the tablet - and its heavy Internet filtering and content protection. Both the tablet and phone also have 24/7 customer support, which will help parents. We'll try to review both of them soon.

It's dubbed the "safest smartphone for kids" by its makers, and parents will be able to control apps, time, and what sites and services their children use on the phone all remotely via a website dashboard.

Parents will also be able to see the phone's call log, text message and internet browsing history, although to give the kids some privacy won't be able to see the content of MMS and text messages. A geolocation feature lets parents track their kids every 15, 30, or 60 minutes and alert them if they move out of a specific geo-fenced area.

KD Interactive recently made the headlines with the debut of its latest child-friendly tablet, the Kurio 7x 4G LTE. The company is now taking on the smartphone market with the launch of the Kurio Phone. It's an Android smartphone designed solely for kids that incorporates enough parental controls and special features, the company claims, to allay any concerns parents might have about its use.

The Kurio smartphone is equipped with Ichaper Mobile Chaperone technology, which gives parents the ability to monitor and manage the phone's features and how kids use them. They'll be able to, for instance, specify time slots within which kids can use the phone through password-protected parental controls and even define different time slots for each day of the week. Parents can set up an approved list of contacts and block certain numbers or all other numbers, if they so desire.

There's no need to try to figure out who the child is chatting to, as the phone's text and call logs are made accessible. A parental web app enables even finer control, giving parents the ability to remotely alter settings on the child's smartphone either online or from their own device.

Parents can set up to four separate customizable profiles on the phone, and also use the device without any restrictions once they exit the Kurio interface. The app management system lets them select and approve apps from a master list, which then gets displayed on the child's profile screen. It's possible to control the child's browsing experience on the smartphone through the "Kurio Genius," a customizable web filtering system which filters 450 million sites daily. Parents can block certain categories or sites and relax these restrictions as the child grows older.

Parents can also keep tabs on where their children are at all times, thanks to GPS and geotracking technologies that regularly update the location of the kid's phone. If children leave the designated safety areas (that parents can pre-set), the phone immediately notifies parents of the fact via a geofencing feature.

In emergency situations, children will be able to reach emergency services in three clicks. The phone will also immediately notify parents, through SMS or email, about the phone's last known physical location. If kids happen to be in a dangerous situation where calling is not an option, they can press down on phone's power button repeatedly to send an SOS message to their parents, that also contains their location data. A person can also find information about the child's blood type, allergy information and their primary contact details through the ICE (In Case of Emergency) form, found on the phone.

We have developed the Kurio Phone to operate and look just like an adult smartphone, but with safety features and usage limits to cover all eventualities," explains Tracey Devine, marketing and licensing director, KD UK.

In case the phone is stolen, parents can block it, sound an alarm, or erase the data and pictures on it remotely. The Kurio Phone can also inform parents if the SIM card is swapped, and sends alerts when its battery power is low.

While the price hasn't been fixed yet, a company spokesperson said that they expected the price to fall between US$165 and US$330. The phone is expected to be available at retail outlets as of this summer (Northern Hemisphere).

Kids these days are quite lucky, especially when it comes to the amount of technology available for their benefit. Now even mobile devices are free game for kids. Over at CES 2014, Techno Source and KD Interactive are unveiling two new mobile devices, including probably the world's first smartphone designed especially for young ones. 041b061a72