AARP RealPad Review

The American Association of Retired Persons is now selling a tablet aimed at people over the age of 50 who might not be comfortable just buying any old tablet. The AARP RealPad is a $189 tablet which is about the size of an iPad mini, but which runs Google Android 4.4 with a custom app launcher featuring large icons.

It also comes preloaded with an AARP app, games, tools, and a few other features.

But overall it’s just a normal Android tablet with a custom skin. And you can find plenty of tablets for well under $189.

The AARP RealPad is available for pre-order from Walmart, but I’m not sure you should buy it.

The RealPad’s specs are pretty mediocre. The tablet has a 7.85 inch, 1024 x 768 pixel display, a 1.2 GHz Intel Atom Z2520 dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, a 5MP rear camera, 2MP front camera, and GPS.

It measures 0.31″ thick and weighs about 14 ounces.

While AARP is positioning the tablet as an easy-to-use option for folks that might be uncomfortable with technology, the truth is a normal iPad or Android tablet is pretty easy to use… and the RealPad’s only real contribution seems to be slightly larger buttons and a toolbar at the bottom of the home screen that takes you to AARP apps.

You can buy pretty much any Android tablet and install the free AARP apps from the Google Play Store.

If there’s one good reason to consider buying the RealPad over a different tablet, it’s that AARP offers 24/7 live customer support.

Of course you could also buy an Amazon Kindle Fire HDX and get 24/7 video support from Amazon’s MayDay service as well as a faster processor, higher-resolution display, and more RAM. But the Kindle Fire HDX is a slightly higher priced tablet.