Jimmy Kimmel gives prodigy Sony tablet; kid prefers iPad

Arden Hayes may be 5 years old, but he has a sanguine presence that Congress could use.

He's an expert on presidents of the United States, as well as just generally being a lot more astute than most 5-year-olds.

In a return appearance on "Jimmy Kimmel Live," Hayes casually mentioned he'd been hanging out with Al Gore.

He also noticed that Kimmel's map of the world didn't include South Sudan.

What proceeded was a test, during which it became obvious that Hayes is smarter than Jimmy Kimmel.

Indeed, Arden Hayes may be the only child (or even person) in the world who can look at a map and name all the Stans. Yes, even Tajikistan.

Once Hayes was done, Kimmel asked Guillermo to bring out some gifts for Hayes.

A globe puzzle seemed to vaguely please. But then little Arden saw he'd been given a tablet: the Sony Xperia Z.

Would Hayes be equally grateful?

"Well, you could just give it away because we're planning to get an iPad for Christmas," he said.

The overly committed will see this as an example that the iPad has captured young hearts and minds before they're even fully formed. They will say that, even though the iPad has far more competition, it still represents the category.

For me, there are two lovely things about this response. Neither involves the idea that a child prodigy might prefer the iPad to its distant contender.

The first is that it's strangely heartening to see a piece of product placement not going quite to plan.

The second? The joy of seeing that there's a 5-year-old in America who isn't just plain greedy.