Refurbished 1st gen ipad?

The sister-in-law wants to know what the best tablet for $100 would be to get for her young son. She'll mostly use it to sit him down and burn time playing angry birds, mincraft, etc.

Since she has an iPhone, I am leaning towards suggesting refurb ipad, but I don't know a lot about the changes that have occurred over the life of the ipad lineup. Is there anything that a first gen ipad can no longer do? Specifically, are there any relevant OS features or capabilities that later revs of IOS has "moved on" from w/ regards to the first gen ipad?

Again, this will be primarily tasked with playing simple kid games, light browsing, etc.

A lot of apps won't run on a 1st gen iPad because I believe that the last iOS update it got was 5.1.1 and a lot of apps have a minimum iOS version higher than that.

May want to steer her to a iPad mini- looking at $200 tho


Sent from my iPad Mini using Tapatalk

Yes I would agree with phreddyl, a first gen iPad Mini is your best bet I think.

Yes, I know a newer tablet would be more advantageous, but you guys are twice the requested price range. Really not practical.

Thanks Karen, for the info on how gimped it would be. I did not realize that apps themselves wouldn't be compatible with the older devices. It sounds like she would be better off with an android option.

Again, thanks.

Originally Posted by Suntan

Yes, I know a newer tablet would be more advantageous, but you guys are twice the requested price range. Really not practical.

Thanks Karen, for the info on how gimped it would be. I did not realize that apps themselves wouldn't be compatible with the older devices. It sounds like she would be better off with an android option.

Again, thanks.

Some apps would be, some not. It's up to the app devs how far back they support the iOS version. With the graphical switch that happened with iOS 7, a lot of devs decided not to support anything further back.
But if you know the apps you are interested in and have access to a PC with iTunes on it, you can go to the app section of the iTunes Store and search for the apps you may be interested in and near the bottom it will show the supported iOS versions.

Truth of the matter is, a hundred bucks is not gonna get you much. I wouldn't get a 1st gen iPad. It can't even run iOS7.
What about an iPod touch? They're really nice, and perfect for a kid to play games on. They have refirbs on the Apple Store for around a hundred bucks. $150 for the 5th gen models, which are excellent. Just get a nice grippy case so the kid doesn't drop it.

Spending $$ on an 1st gen ipad IMO is throwing money away. It's outdated before you start.

I'd go with the 1st gen iPad Mini. It is a smaller but slightly higher spec'd version of the iPad 2, runs iOS 7(I have and use one). You can also look at the child version tablets. They are Android but I don't know how current they will be and for how long.