# Kindle Fire for KIDS



## Someone Nameless (Jul 12, 2009)

I saw the notice of a new release of the Kids tablet.  The current model doesn't get rave reviews because of the lack of space but I see this one has a slot for adding a card.

I was thinking of getting one for my grandkids to have here.  They currently play with my iPad.

Does anyone here have any experience with the kids tablet or plans to get the new model?

Thanks in advance.


----------



## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

I think the kids device is the same as the stock 7" device . . . it just comes with some extras.

If you buy the kids bundle, the nice thing is it comes with a sturdy case to protect against drops as well as a 2 year, no questions asked, replacement policy.



The case can be either blue or pink (would be nice if they had other color options) and, while the on board memory is limited (only 8GB), the new one lets you add an SD card. It looks like it works with ones up to 128GB and, of course, you can have several. Kindle Free Time is included as well for a year, and the whole shebang is only $99!


----------



## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

Our daughter is five, she was three when we bought her a fire. This was before the kids model, but what we put together was exactly the same thing. Fire HD7, the exact same case, and we bought the warranty which was more limited but we've never needed it. The case is built like a tank. The rim sticks up a half inch or so to protect the face which also gives little littles a good grip. I can't imagine how you could damage it unless it fell face first onto something sticking up--you'd have to work at it. Or immerse it in water. I guess that'd kill it. I think the only downside is that the case doesn't have a stand and at our house, it's mostly used for video, so we're always propping it up. 

One thing I don't know about the new Fire is how good the speaker is. The old HD7 had two excellent and very loud speakers that really set it apart from the tinny speakers in ipads or other tablets I've used. I don't care about stereo, but I hope it's as full range and loud because it let kids use it without having to wear earbuds.

FreeTime unlimited has a load of stuff on it. You can also authorize anything you buy at Amazon to appear on the tablet, so when we got a streaming code with our Frozen DVD, we applied it and she can stream it to her tablet. I'd say she's probably 80% video and 20% games. We read a few books on it, but 7" and picture books, you're losing a lot of the experience.

One issue with FreeTime Unlimited is there's no ability to download video or audio, it all streams, which means it won't work outside of wifi range. (Games and books download.) We had a big "oh ****" moment the first time we were taking a long car ride and planned to use it to entertain her in the car. I found a video player and sideloaded a few movies I ripped from DVD and downloaded from the tivo, but they don't show on the main screen (other than the video player app icon) and not everyone is going to be comfortable ripping DVDs, converting to MP4, and sideloading.


----------



## Someone Nameless (Jul 12, 2009)

Thanks so much for your review.  What video player did you use?


----------



## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

I think it was this one: http://www.amazon.com/SBL-Media-Video-Player/dp/B00YJEIIHA/ref=sr_1_47?ie=UTF8&qid=1442831327&sr=8-47&keywords=video+player

This was a couple of years ago though, so there might be something better. I wasn't really happy with anything I found. Mostly I wanted it to be simple enough that I didn't have to set all the videos running.


----------



## Someone Nameless (Jul 12, 2009)

I have an older iPad that I've been letting my granddaughter use but I'm wondering if there is an advantage to this and the FreeTime Unlimited over the iPad.


----------



## Andra (Nov 19, 2008)

We got my niece a Kid's Fire when they first came out because she is rather hard on her electronics   
I didn't do any of the setup on it, so I don't know how complicated that got with the FreeTime stuff, but she uses it a lot (and surprisingly hasn't had to get a replacement for a broken one).
Having the SD card for additional storage is a good thing as far as I'm concerned.  I have a tablet with 16GB and I still have to juggle content because I run out of space.


----------



## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

> I have an older iPad that I've been letting my granddaughter use but I'm wondering if there is an advantage to this and the FreeTime Unlimited over the iPad


I think the big advantage is you can subscribe to FTU and hand a 5 year old the tablet and never have to worry about what they're playing or watching or how much it costs or whether it's appropriate. It gives them a lot of autonomy and lets them explore. Last night our daughter comes in and wants to show us some drawing thing she's doing and I have no idea what it is, but she found it and downloaded it.

The iPad arguably has better apps and you could set up a netflix kids profile on it, but you'd have to buy the apps and I've seen a lot of things my daughter was way excited about that turned out to be of absolutely no interest to her once she tried them out. FTU gets around that. If they don't like an app, there's more, and you don't have that "is she really going to get $4.99 worth of entertainment out of this?" thing going on before you buy.

There are some issues with FTU as well. Side loading video, as I said above, is one. Our daughter loves the old reading rainbow videos, but while Reading Rainbow's current app version is on the Kindle store, it's not compatible with FTU. You have to use a non-FreeTime Unlimited profile. I'm pretty sure the same is true for ABC Mouse, but we never got into that.


----------



## Someone Nameless (Jul 12, 2009)

Thank you.  This sounds like what I'm trying to avoid now.  The iPad has the free apps but there is always a in-app purchase.  I have to make sure wifi is not on at all or either I have to sit with her constantly.  The other day she saw something and said "I'm going to download that!!!" and I don't even know where she got that because I've never let her download.  

FTU sounds like the ticket.  I'm going to order and give it a try anyway.


----------

