Toddler vs. Apple iPad Air 2: Stress Test — with Video

CNN Money ^ | December 10, 2014: 9:23 AM ET | By Erica Fink

[Swordmaker]

Classic battles: Ali vs. Frazier. Yankees vs. Red Sox. Toddler vs. iPad?

Well, not exactly.

CNNMoney gave two nursery school classmates a brand new iPad Air 2 and let them loose in our studios for a (very) non-scientific stress test. Good news for iPad owners: You can literally throw the device from the top of a 12-foot staircase and see it survive. (A note: CNN's newsrooms have a thin layer of carpeting, but the iPad endured nearly a dozen such plunges.)

We mistakenly thought that when the toddlers grew tired, we'd see how well the tablet withstood a full-blown tantrum. Many parents use Apple (AAPL, Tech30) iPads for educational games and general preschooler entertainment, so this seemed like a potential real-world scenario.

[Swordmaker]

The truth is revealed. . . the iPad Air 2 will survive two toddlers tossing it, stomping it, playing with it, dropping it up to ten feet (multiple times), after being shown that it is OK to do so by Liberal News Journalists, contrary to their parent's teaching, undoing lots of civilizing!), but it survived almost unscathed — PING!

Apple iPod Air 2 Toddler Torture Test
With Video Ping!

If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.

[roadcat]

My several toddler grandkids have been playing with iPads the past couple years. No damage... yet. But if I see one dropping one from a balcony then no treats for her! The highest I’ve dropped mine is five feet, no damage, but that’s the limit for me.

[Drew68]

My several toddler grandkids have been playing with iPads the past couple years. No damage... yet. But if I see one dropping one from a balcony then no treats for her! The highest I’ve dropped mine is five feet, no damage, but that’s the limit for me.

When I got my first iPad, my then 3-year old son dropped it about a foot onto concrete and shattered it. Fortunately I had the protection plan and Best Buy gave me a new one. I immediately purchased one of those $80 Defender cases.

Now I have two iPads, two cases and two sons, 5 and 3 y/o who play with them a lot. Those Defender cases have made them pretty much indestructible. I've seen them get thrown across the room like a frisbee and at worst, I've only had to do a hard re-boot (once).

[22202NOVA]

The question I have is, what’s going to happen when those kids get back home and try that with Mom or Das’s iPad? I think the results won’t be pretty....

[rlmorel]

Mom or Dad’s iPad would deserve it for letting them be used for this video.

It is some poor, unsuspecting third party’s tablet that I pity. You couldn’t blame the kids...they had to be encouraged.

[Gaffer]

I think the main problem is when something hard hits the glass on the screen. I agree that normal “drops” are usually no-damage affairs.

However, the physical damage that can be done by a two-to-ten year old to an iPad pales in comparison to what internet-related damage can be caused....:0)

[Fresh Wind]

At that age, or a bit older, I would have never destroyed an iPad (or equivalent) by violent means, I would have destroyed it by trying to take it apart to see what was inside.

I drove my parents nuts that way!

[Flick Lives]

I would have destroyed it by trying to take it apart to see what was inside.

Ha! Sounds like my own childhood. With just about any mechanical toy I got, I would proceed to take it apart to see how it worked. Sometimes I was even able to put it back together. Sometimes not!

[Fresh Wind]

My problem was that I didn’t limit myself to the toys. Heh, heh.

[ReignOfError]

I think the main problem is when something hard hits the glass on the screen. I agree that normal “drops” are usually no-damage affairs.

It's also bad news if it lands squarely on the corner -- that focuses all the impact on a very small area. A lot of broken screens, probably most of them, have the telltale cracking radiating out from the corner.

[Gaffer]

Agree....

[SWAMPSNIPER]

Great way to teach kids to be destructive.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

My daddy always told my mother not to worry, sooner or later he will figure out how to put it together.

[roadcat]

I drove my parents nuts that way!

That's the difference between young boys and girls. Supposedly boys are harder to raise because they're more destructive. When I was a kid, I took apart doorknobs and devices for the heck of it. I had one of those 3-speed bicycles with gears and brakes in the rear wheel hub. Put it back together, took a ride down a hill and discovered I had no brakes (where you pedal backwards to engage the brake). Lucky I didn't die when I crashed! Then there was the time I was a young teen of 14 and took apart my dad's carburetor in his Chevy. It had to be towed to a shop and my dad wouldn't talk to me for weeks. One of my granddaughters seems to take after me. Two and a half years old and she plays with my socket wrenches taking apart bolts and nuts and putting them back together. She'd rather do that than play with dolls. She took apart her Etch-a-Sketch with a screwdriver, and put it back together. Good thing an iPad has no external screws.