Review: Christmas Present Preview: Amazon Fire Kids Edition Tablet
Do you remember as a kid when you wanted to borrow/use/steal your parent’s cool stuff? Play with mum or dad’s gadgets and power tools, but instead of being met with delight in their eyes, they just shouted to put the power-drill down!
There also comes a time when as parents we can be slightly jealous of the cool stuff our kids get to have. That time is now!
This Christmas season I want to briefly share some thoughts on one of their presents, just as an excuse to open them myself and have a play before them 😉
The Amazon Kindle Fire tablet is their ‘big’ present this year, a tablet made its way onto the top of all three letters to Santa, from the 10yr old, down to the 6yr old – they all wanted one!
However…..Having had the kids drop an, encased, iPad I’ve witnessed the pain of them breaking a £400 gadget, and didn’t want to witness that again!
The Kindle Fire Kids Edition isn’t akin to it’s simpler predecessor, coming as it does with a full-colour touch-screen, it excels as a reading device, but it’s much more capable than that!
If we are honest, the kids don’t need all the bells and whistles of a top-line device, simplicity and ‘just working’ is almost certainly enough, and if it can be wrapped in a product that entertains, is robust, and doesn’t break the bank then all the better! At a penny under £100 the Kindle Fire kids-edition ticks a lot of boxes!
My boys have been using it for a few weeks now, and they have got on really well with it, as parents we’ve not been super stressed about them playing together with it either!
The device is a standard Fire-edition Kindle with some additional features to make it more child, and parent, friendly:
- Easy-to-use parental controls: set screen time limits to avoid too much contact, and this also allows us to give the 3 boys their own time on it without arguments and fighting etc
- The included Fire for Kids Unlimited means we have over 5000+ age-appropriate games, educational apps, videos and books available without having to worry about either grotty content or additional bills for to pay….
- Similarly, the Fire for Kids web-browser ensures we have worry-free access to YouTube videos and websites with simple filters available for inappropriate content
- And perhaps what really makes this so flipping good is a 2-year worry-free guarantee. If the boys break it, then Amazon will replace it without any hassles! With a pink or blue case (i’d prefer a neutral colour as well please Amazon!) to help protect the device hopefully you won’t need to take advantage of this too often, but knowing that it’s there is a really useful feature!
Now I won’t pretend that the Fire Kids Edition Tablet is up there with an iPad Pro, it sure as heck isn’t – lacking oomph in nearly all the specs, but what it does do is give the younglings enough tech for their needs! And really, that’s what i am after – enough tech to be usable and fun, without the prohibitive price tag.
Our boys use it for reading books that we don’t have physical copies of, playing their games (Lego StarWars is the favourite), Chess, and audio/video streaming from Spotify.
As much as I want to resist the onslaught of technology into their lives (we have a PS3 they have no idea plays games ;-)), the simple fact is that it will play a significant part of their education and entertainment, the Kindle Fire kids-edition means that they can become comfortable handling the kit, without us, as parents, worrying about expensive cracked screens, dodgy content, and expensive shock bills. It’s a fun platform for them to use, and one which will keep them happy and learning!