If you have a flourishing young artist in your home or even just a child who’s taking a particular interest in art at the moment, it makes sense to look into buying a drawing tablet for them, especially if they’re already expressed an interest in it.
Fostering your child’s interests can be a great way to connect with them, especially with a healthy hobby–and potential future career–like art and drawing.
I will cover some of the best child-friendly drawing tablets in this article. Price, operating system, technical specifications, support of certain programs, and battery life are all going to be top contenders here.
The best choice is the Apple iPad Mini. Apple usually dominates in these kinds of comparisons as it is, but the iPad Mini is at the perfect price point, along with all of the features it offers, in order to be a great beginner drawing tablet for a 10-year-old-or-older kid.
From battery life to features, to sturdiness and other categories, it edges out the competitors.
Read the full work-up below for alternative choices and see how I made this decision.
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Best Overall: Apple iPad Mini
The hardware in this gives a great performance, whether we’re talking about image editing, watching videos, drawing, or performing a hundred other tasks. The storage is just okay at 64 GB, which is one of its weaker points.
Upgrading the memory to 256 GB increases the cost a lot, but it might be worth it if you plan to store many images on the device. The Apple Pencil is also sold separately, which is another strike against the iPad Mini.
Everything else is a plus, however. From its 9+ hour battery life to its almost weightless mass at 0.66 lbs, Apple’s iPad Mini really dominates as a child’s drawing tablet and will give your kid a ton of different ways to create art and draw on its surface.
The price and the lack of an included Apple Pencil, along with storage, are its biggest flaws: but anything else really isn’t an argument.
It has superior performance, a great brand attached to it, and does pretty much anything in the realm of tablets while also being a great drawing tablet for kids.
Choose the iPad Mini for the best overall choice, but the next two products have their strengths as well.
Best Value-Per-Dollar: Wacom Intuos Graphics Drawing Tablet
Wacom’s Intuos Graphics Drawing Tablet is an amazing budget option for someone who’s not sure whether or not their child is really interested in art or not.
At less than a quarter of the price of the iPad Mini, this is a significantly cheaper option, but it doesn’t feature an active screen itself: it needs to be connected to a device in order to function.
It doesn’t have the most amazing technical specifications–or a screen at all, for that matter–but it makes up for it in function, form, and price. It provides a great deal for cheap, and it works well as a drawing tablet for a kid that’s really interested in art.
If your child really appreciates the ability to create digital art, they’ll love this tablet because it does exactly what it’s supposed to.
It has four customizable express keys and a drawing area of 6.0 x 3.7 inches. It’s on the smaller side for this compared to the Fire HD’S 10” screen size or the iPad Mini’s 7.9 inches, but even then, it’s still far more than enough space to get the job done and works well in that regard.
With 4096 levels of pressure, a weight of 8 ounces but still a sturdy design, and incredible thinness, it’s a great option for a drawing tablet for a child, especially at a budget.
Some downsides? The drawing area is smaller than other tablets. It’s not standalone and requires a connection to a computer to function. And it doesn’t have the absolute best possible pressure levels or certain other drawing tablet specifications.
For its price level and what it does, though, the Wacom Intuos Graphics Drawing Tablet is a fantastic choice and is by far the best value-per-dollar you’re going to find in a drawing tablet for kids.
Best Parental Controls: Fire HD 10 Kids Edition
Our last device is the Fire HD 10” Kids Edition.
While this is similar to the normal Fire HD 10” in almost every way, one way in which it differs is that the Amazon Kids Parental Controls allows you to monitor and control your child’s usage of the device: whether that’s for restricting adult content or simply limiting the number of hours your child uses the device, the choice is yours.
The Fire HD 10” Kids Edition features movies, books, games, streaming services, and more–and of course, it also functions as a drawing tablet.
Another strong advantage of the Fire HD 10” Kids Edition is its protective case and included 2-year warranty: this makes it almost impossible for you to lose this expensive purchase just a few weeks or months after having bought it.
It should last for two years at least, with the warranty, and with how durable the tablet is it probably won’t break anyway.
With a built-in stand and twelve hours of battery life, the Fire HD 10” Kids Edition is a really great choice for kids on the younger side, but it will work for older children as well.
One important thing to note is that a stylus has to be purchased separately.
It’s also middle-of-the-road for price, considering that this tablet is more than double the Wacom and about half the price of the iPad Mini (roughly).
Consider the Fire HD 10” Kids Edition if you want a great overall tablet that can handle drawing, tons of other functions, and has great parental controls and battery life.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. At no cost to you, I may receive a commission if you buy through a link on this page. Read more here.
