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After considering the price to purchase 3 of them and checking out the apps my husband and I were pretty sure we would purchase
on July 13, 2016
I purchased 3 of these Kindle kids edition tablets for my toddlers (ages 4,3,2 years old) And 1 non kids edition one for our older child for Easter. I was quite nervous that they'd break or the cases wouldn't be durable or that they wouldn't be able to use the apps they'd been using on my Samsung Tab S.
After considering the price to purchase 3 of them and checking out the apps my husband and I were pretty sure we would purchase them. Then I came across the warranty. 2 year worry free guarantee! Are you kidding me? I knew there had to be a catch, I couldn't find one and at that point we were convinced it would be a good investment.
I ordered 3 (at the time pink and blue were our only color choices) So we have 1 pink and 2 blue. Which has caused a host of issues on the toddler level (identifying who's tablet is who's as you can imagine)
They were easy to set up and create their own profiles and add apps to each of their tables . I love the unlimited freetime, they've had their tables for a few months now and can completely work them themselves and download the apps/movies/books that they want. I don't have to do it for them (with the exception of my 2 year old of course). I was able to link our Disney movies anywhere account with our Amazon account and now they can access all of our Disney digital movies on their tables! Which was a huge win for us! I do wish that Amazon could figure out a way for us to be able to link our Ultraviolet movies, it's a huge bummer that Amazon doesn't offer any app to make that possible. I also love that I can login to my Amazon account and send apps/movies etc to their tablets as I see fit, I can locate and page their tables when they are misplaced and remote lock them if I need to . The features on these tablets are astounding, I think there are still some kinks to work out, but overall they are great. My once MAJOR complaint is the charging ports. We've always been very careful about not letting the kids plug in or unplug their tablets themselves. So it's always been myself or my husband and about 2 weeks after having them they became very positional. It is difficult to have to position them JUST RIGHT to get them to charge. Aggravating would be an understatement. I don't however want to send them in for the warranty because you get 3 replacements in 2 years and we didn't do anything to them to cause this, and they DO still charge, it's just a pain. So, we are just dealing with it. My 2 year old did recently shatter his screen on his tablet and the replacement process was fantastic! We had our new tablet in 2 days and was able to easily restore the new on with all of the things he had on his broken tablet. Amazon sent us a return packing slip and we boxed up the broken tablet and dropped it off at UPS to be returned. Super easy! We have 6 kids in our family and it is quite unfortunate that Amazon limits kid's profiles to 4. So our older 2 kids (teens) have to be logged in under myself or my husband which allows them access to our credit card information. I contacted Amazon with this issue and we figured out a work around, but it is still quite frustrating. There really should be a way for us to have more than 4 kids profiles and a way for older kids to have their own profiles and still have access to our family content.With the price and considering everything on a whole, we are still very satisfied with these tablets.
After considering the price to purchase 3 of them and checking out the apps my husband and I were pretty sure we would purchase them. Then I came across the warranty. 2 year worry free guarantee! Are you kidding me? I knew there had to be a catch, I couldn't find one and at that point we were convinced it would be a good investment.
I ordered 3 (at the time pink and blue were our only color choices) So we have 1 pink and 2 blue. Which has caused a host of issues on the toddler level (identifying who's tablet is who's as you can imagine)
They were easy to set up and create their own profiles and add apps to each of their tables . I love the unlimited freetime, they've had their tables for a few months now and can completely work them themselves and download the apps/movies/books that they want. I don't have to do it for them (with the exception of my 2 year old of course). I was able to link our Disney movies anywhere account with our Amazon account and now they can access all of our Disney digital movies on their tables! Which was a huge win for us! I do wish that Amazon could figure out a way for us to be able to link our Ultraviolet movies, it's a huge bummer that Amazon doesn't offer any app to make that possible. I also love that I can login to my Amazon account and send apps/movies etc to their tablets as I see fit, I can locate and page their tables when they are misplaced and remote lock them if I need to . The features on these tablets are astounding, I think there are still some kinks to work out, but overall they are great. My once MAJOR complaint is the charging ports. We've always been very careful about not letting the kids plug in or unplug their tablets themselves. So it's always been myself or my husband and about 2 weeks after having them they became very positional. It is difficult to have to position them JUST RIGHT to get them to charge. Aggravating would be an understatement. I don't however want to send them in for the warranty because you get 3 replacements in 2 years and we didn't do anything to them to cause this, and they DO still charge, it's just a pain. So, we are just dealing with it. My 2 year old did recently shatter his screen on his tablet and the replacement process was fantastic! We had our new tablet in 2 days and was able to easily restore the new on with all of the things he had on his broken tablet. Amazon sent us a return packing slip and we boxed up the broken tablet and dropped it off at UPS to be returned. Super easy! We have 6 kids in our family and it is quite unfortunate that Amazon limits kid's profiles to 4. So our older 2 kids (teens) have to be logged in under myself or my husband which allows them access to our credit card information. I contacted Amazon with this issue and we figured out a work around, but it is still quite frustrating. There really should be a way for us to have more than 4 kids profiles and a way for older kids to have their own profiles and still have access to our family content.With the price and considering everything on a whole, we are still very satisfied with these tablets.
on February 4, 2016
As the Kids Edition is nothing more than a basic $50 7" Kindle Fire with some extras, this review is primarily concerned with the $50-worth of extras bundled with the Kids Edition. Primarily, the year of included Freetime.
As for the guts of the tablet itself, it's fine. Not great, but certainly fine. It's not the fastest tablet. It isn't the most feature-rich tablet. It doesn't have the sharpest display. But it's only $50, so it deserves to be graded on a curve. For a $50 tablet, it's great.
Now, grab a coffee, get comfortable, because I have some thoughts on Amazon's Freetime service for kids/parents:
Price plus the year of Freetime were the selling points for me (the case and added warranty were nice bonuses). The problem is, Freetime, though fantastic in theory, isn't even half-baked. It's a lump of dough left on the counter to rise. And then whoever was supposed to put it in the oven got distracted and forgot about it. It's getting moldy, and it smells kind of funny.
Freetime: great in theory, terrible in practice.
Normally, when you buy a new tablet, it might have a little bloatware pre-installed, but you generally don't start with the offerings of the entire app store on your homescreen. You find and add the apps you want.
The way you install/remove apps in Freetime is sort of backwards. It's subtractive. Every single title is served up on the home screen (and in the apps, books, videos screens). These aren't technically pre-installed, but to a young kid looking at a sea of icons, it looks like he has all of these wonderful titles at his disposal. Well, he does. But only sort of. He clicks Elmo's face, and the wheel starts spinning over the icon while it downloads. To an impatient kid ("impatient" is redundant, I suppose), it looks like it doesn't work. So, forget Elmo. He clicks the next colorful icon—a dump truck maybe. Same thing. So onto the next and the next and the next. You immediately have a logjam of dozens of apps and videos attempting to download and install at once.
Also, there is only 8GB available (a microSD card is a must). And there exactly 8 bajillion GBs of content represented by all the icons on the homescreen. A kid can't contemplate this. He's going to tap and tap and tap on those icons. A bunch of crap he doesn't really want is going to eat up that 8GB faster than the snot on his fingers can congeal on the screen. And then he won't be able to access anything else (because it's full, not the snot).
Alright, so maybe it's best if mom or dad gets things up and running. The biggest virtue of Freetime is the parent's ability to limit access to specific content (and at specific times and/or after certain goals have been met). You don't want to listen Caillou's shrill nonsense? Back to French Canadia, Caillou.
Because you start with EVERYTHING, you must remove almost everything. You can't start from scratch and give your kid a handful titles to play with. No, you have to select the titles, one by one, that you want to remove until there's a more manageable selection available. This is the most frustrating oversight on the developer's' part. It's just nuts. There are a LOT of titles to remove. It'll take a good hour just to go through and deselect everything so you can go back and add what you actually want for your child.
There's no way around this. And if you have a young child, the tablet will be basically useless until you do this.
The irony is, you got this for Junior to buy yourself the occasional 10 minutes of peace and quiet while you shirk your parental responsibilities—not to add a long, tedious to-do to your list. Also your child will cry, because you're a jerk who just gave him a brand new toy and took it away, apparently so you could play with it.
Did I mention the design of Freetime is nuts? Did I say that already? There should be an expletive before "nuts," but I don't think my review would get approved if there was.
If someone knows someone who worked on Freetime, could you please tell them I said so? Definitely tell them the nuts part, and be sure to include the bad word (you choose). You can quote me. Give them my name. I don't care.
Alright, I should be nice and list some pros:
* Price. If it breaks in a year, oh well.
* Case is decent. I wouldn't buy it on its own for the price, but since it came bundled, it's great. Perfect for kids. Protective. Easy for little hands to grip.
* No-questions warranty is a nice perk.
* Expandable memory (I don't really mind that it starts with only 8GB)
CONS:
* You have to manually remove every God-forsaken titles yourself before your kid can really use the tablet. This one con outweighs 100, nay, 1000 pros.
* Only PURCHASED Amazon Prime video content is available for offline viewing. Note the emphasis on "purchased." Free titles included in your Prime membership are not available for offline viewing. Amazon heavily advertises offline viewing (awesome!) but omits this detail. Good to know before you pull out of the driveway to go to grandma's.
• We've barely used it in 2 months of ownerships, because—did I mention?—Freetime is stupid and I hate it.
As for the guts of the tablet itself, it's fine. Not great, but certainly fine. It's not the fastest tablet. It isn't the most feature-rich tablet. It doesn't have the sharpest display. But it's only $50, so it deserves to be graded on a curve. For a $50 tablet, it's great.
Now, grab a coffee, get comfortable, because I have some thoughts on Amazon's Freetime service for kids/parents:
Price plus the year of Freetime were the selling points for me (the case and added warranty were nice bonuses). The problem is, Freetime, though fantastic in theory, isn't even half-baked. It's a lump of dough left on the counter to rise. And then whoever was supposed to put it in the oven got distracted and forgot about it. It's getting moldy, and it smells kind of funny.
Freetime: great in theory, terrible in practice.
Normally, when you buy a new tablet, it might have a little bloatware pre-installed, but you generally don't start with the offerings of the entire app store on your homescreen. You find and add the apps you want.
The way you install/remove apps in Freetime is sort of backwards. It's subtractive. Every single title is served up on the home screen (and in the apps, books, videos screens). These aren't technically pre-installed, but to a young kid looking at a sea of icons, it looks like he has all of these wonderful titles at his disposal. Well, he does. But only sort of. He clicks Elmo's face, and the wheel starts spinning over the icon while it downloads. To an impatient kid ("impatient" is redundant, I suppose), it looks like it doesn't work. So, forget Elmo. He clicks the next colorful icon—a dump truck maybe. Same thing. So onto the next and the next and the next. You immediately have a logjam of dozens of apps and videos attempting to download and install at once.
Also, there is only 8GB available (a microSD card is a must). And there exactly 8 bajillion GBs of content represented by all the icons on the homescreen. A kid can't contemplate this. He's going to tap and tap and tap on those icons. A bunch of crap he doesn't really want is going to eat up that 8GB faster than the snot on his fingers can congeal on the screen. And then he won't be able to access anything else (because it's full, not the snot).
Alright, so maybe it's best if mom or dad gets things up and running. The biggest virtue of Freetime is the parent's ability to limit access to specific content (and at specific times and/or after certain goals have been met). You don't want to listen Caillou's shrill nonsense? Back to French Canadia, Caillou.
Because you start with EVERYTHING, you must remove almost everything. You can't start from scratch and give your kid a handful titles to play with. No, you have to select the titles, one by one, that you want to remove until there's a more manageable selection available. This is the most frustrating oversight on the developer's' part. It's just nuts. There are a LOT of titles to remove. It'll take a good hour just to go through and deselect everything so you can go back and add what you actually want for your child.
There's no way around this. And if you have a young child, the tablet will be basically useless until you do this.
The irony is, you got this for Junior to buy yourself the occasional 10 minutes of peace and quiet while you shirk your parental responsibilities—not to add a long, tedious to-do to your list. Also your child will cry, because you're a jerk who just gave him a brand new toy and took it away, apparently so you could play with it.
Did I mention the design of Freetime is nuts? Did I say that already? There should be an expletive before "nuts," but I don't think my review would get approved if there was.
If someone knows someone who worked on Freetime, could you please tell them I said so? Definitely tell them the nuts part, and be sure to include the bad word (you choose). You can quote me. Give them my name. I don't care.
Alright, I should be nice and list some pros:
* Price. If it breaks in a year, oh well.
* Case is decent. I wouldn't buy it on its own for the price, but since it came bundled, it's great. Perfect for kids. Protective. Easy for little hands to grip.
* No-questions warranty is a nice perk.
* Expandable memory (I don't really mind that it starts with only 8GB)
CONS:
* You have to manually remove every God-forsaken titles yourself before your kid can really use the tablet. This one con outweighs 100, nay, 1000 pros.
* Only PURCHASED Amazon Prime video content is available for offline viewing. Note the emphasis on "purchased." Free titles included in your Prime membership are not available for offline viewing. Amazon heavily advertises offline viewing (awesome!) but omits this detail. Good to know before you pull out of the driveway to go to grandma's.
• We've barely used it in 2 months of ownerships, because—did I mention?—Freetime is stupid and I hate it.
on October 13, 2015
*Edit 12/23/15*
It appears that the linked SD card below and the one made for Fire tablets are the same price now, although the Fire one still does not come with an adapter. Should have been that way from day one.
*end edit
Let's get the cost/benefit of buying this versus the $50 model out of the way. For $100, you get:
7" Kindle Fire without sponsored lockscreens = $65
Kid-proof case = $20
2-year accident protection = $16
1-year of Free Time Unlimited = $36 minimum
That's a nice value! I've seen a few reviews where people are upset that it doesn't work without Wi-Fi, but I'm not sure what their expectations are. If you have previously download an app/game/video and it doesn't require internet access (some do, some don't), it works fine. As for performance, it's OK. Not great. It freezes every now and then and needs to be rebooted more often than I'd like to get it working again. This is frustrating to a 3-year-old, as you can imagine. Hard to complain too much given the price, but I was expecting it to be more stable.
You will want to buy a micro SD card because the Fire OS takes up 5 of the 8 GB of on-board storage. This is where Amazon is doing something that is, shall we say, a little sketchy. When you customize your purchase, it allows you to select the "SanDisk 32 GB SD Memory Card for All-New Fire Tablets" for $19.99 (or more or less depending on the storage size), but gives you no other options. This SD card is by the looks of it the exact same as this one SanDisk Ultra 32GB Ultra Micro SDHC UHS-I/Class 10 Card with Adapter (SDSQUNC-032G-GN6MA) [Newest Version], except that it has a different paint job, doesn't come with an adapter, and costs $6 more. So if you're going to buy a SD card, add a different one to the cart separately.
It appears that the linked SD card below and the one made for Fire tablets are the same price now, although the Fire one still does not come with an adapter. Should have been that way from day one.
*end edit
Let's get the cost/benefit of buying this versus the $50 model out of the way. For $100, you get:
7" Kindle Fire without sponsored lockscreens = $65
Kid-proof case = $20
2-year accident protection = $16
1-year of Free Time Unlimited = $36 minimum
That's a nice value! I've seen a few reviews where people are upset that it doesn't work without Wi-Fi, but I'm not sure what their expectations are. If you have previously download an app/game/video and it doesn't require internet access (some do, some don't), it works fine. As for performance, it's OK. Not great. It freezes every now and then and needs to be rebooted more often than I'd like to get it working again. This is frustrating to a 3-year-old, as you can imagine. Hard to complain too much given the price, but I was expecting it to be more stable.
You will want to buy a micro SD card because the Fire OS takes up 5 of the 8 GB of on-board storage. This is where Amazon is doing something that is, shall we say, a little sketchy. When you customize your purchase, it allows you to select the "SanDisk 32 GB SD Memory Card for All-New Fire Tablets" for $19.99 (or more or less depending on the storage size), but gives you no other options. This SD card is by the looks of it the exact same as this one SanDisk Ultra 32GB Ultra Micro SDHC UHS-I/Class 10 Card with Adapter (SDSQUNC-032G-GN6MA) [Newest Version], except that it has a different paint job, doesn't come with an adapter, and costs $6 more. So if you're going to buy a SD card, add a different one to the cart separately.
on December 9, 2015
I bought two of these for my toddlers (age 2 and 3.5) for Christmas, but due to excitement we decided to give them to them a couple weeks before. I will more then likely come back to edit this as I find new things but this is what I've got so far:
I like how durable these things are and that they come with such a great 2 year warranty. My two year old throws it A LOT once she got so bad she dropped it from the top of our stairs off the balcony, thankfully not an issue from that. The cases seemed like cheap quality at first but now that I've seen them in use they are great. It slid on really easy and they haven't came off once, which I really thought they would because of how easy they went on.
I have a love/hate relationship with how protective it for kids. I love it because it's great to keep tabs on the kids, they can't get into anything they shouldn't without a password, they have a setting that turns it off after so long. I hate it because for me I don't need all of that. I would rather give my kids the pad and let them go to town on netflix, games, ect. The home button is not very visible which again is a plus and negative: good for when you don't want your kids to be able to close out all the time then cry because they did it, bad because sometimes you want them to be able to do it themselves and they have a hard time.
I absolutely can not stand the fact that the internet turns off when they are full of storage. That drives me crazy and I seriously do not understand why they would do that. On the topic of storage I just don't understand it. We have had many products and never ONCE filled one, these were BOTH filled within 24 hours of having them. Sure, they allow you to purchase an SD card but with the amount of crap on there we won't use it is just a pain we have to pay extra for storage when we have all those GBS filled with nonsense.
I do not like free time, at all. I think it's nice we get a year free but I really can't stand it. I am strongly considering figuring out how to take it off? Why, you may ask? Because there isn't a store you go into so it's just all in the way, for lack of a better word. A huge majority of the things it has my children can't use so they download this stuff (all the they have to do is click it and then it downloads it) and then get really mad when they don't know how to us it. I would just much rather download whatever I want and not have all the other things in their sight. It comes with a lot of shows that take up storage that we wouldn't use otherwise.
If you want to use the internet, netflix, youtube, ect you can put an adult profile which I can see being good for older kids so they only have access to things you want them to, but for me I want my kids to be able to get on netflix and youtube so that's kind of a hassle. I also downloaded a couple apps for myself but had to delete them so fast due to storage issues. On our old iPad I would hand it to my daughter and she would do whatever she wanted, so she's kind of having issues trying to figure this one one. I hope soon it won't be as big of an issue.
If you're wondering if you can use this for your 2 year old, sure, but be prepared to deal with a lot of meltdowns while they figure it out. My daughter just turned two last month so I know she's well under the age limit but I just wanted to get them each one for no sharing issues.
The battery life is 4 hours and we haven't had an issues with that. The charger is pretty short which I actually like because then my kids can't try to tell me they will use it while on the charger.
The camera is okay, but I wouldn't use it for great pictures. It's good for kids to play around on though, just remember to delete the photos so they don't hold storage.
Over all: I do not like this near as much as the iPad but for the price it's good. The warranty itself makes it well worth it. That being said I also bought a kindle fire for us and I really wonder if I would have been better off just getting one of those for each girl and buying a case, the only reason I didn't is because the price wasn't much different on black friday and I would have had to purchase cases. I think maybe if I would have not gotten the kids the freetime wouldn't have been there and I could have picked my own games and removed them completely if they didn't work out like we always do on the iPad.
This product was a personal purchase for myself at the normal retail price. I am reviewing it solely because I want to share my experience with other potential customers. I have received no compensation for my review nor do I have a personal relationship with the seller of this product.
I like how durable these things are and that they come with such a great 2 year warranty. My two year old throws it A LOT once she got so bad she dropped it from the top of our stairs off the balcony, thankfully not an issue from that. The cases seemed like cheap quality at first but now that I've seen them in use they are great. It slid on really easy and they haven't came off once, which I really thought they would because of how easy they went on.
I have a love/hate relationship with how protective it for kids. I love it because it's great to keep tabs on the kids, they can't get into anything they shouldn't without a password, they have a setting that turns it off after so long. I hate it because for me I don't need all of that. I would rather give my kids the pad and let them go to town on netflix, games, ect. The home button is not very visible which again is a plus and negative: good for when you don't want your kids to be able to close out all the time then cry because they did it, bad because sometimes you want them to be able to do it themselves and they have a hard time.
I absolutely can not stand the fact that the internet turns off when they are full of storage. That drives me crazy and I seriously do not understand why they would do that. On the topic of storage I just don't understand it. We have had many products and never ONCE filled one, these were BOTH filled within 24 hours of having them. Sure, they allow you to purchase an SD card but with the amount of crap on there we won't use it is just a pain we have to pay extra for storage when we have all those GBS filled with nonsense.
I do not like free time, at all. I think it's nice we get a year free but I really can't stand it. I am strongly considering figuring out how to take it off? Why, you may ask? Because there isn't a store you go into so it's just all in the way, for lack of a better word. A huge majority of the things it has my children can't use so they download this stuff (all the they have to do is click it and then it downloads it) and then get really mad when they don't know how to us it. I would just much rather download whatever I want and not have all the other things in their sight. It comes with a lot of shows that take up storage that we wouldn't use otherwise.
If you want to use the internet, netflix, youtube, ect you can put an adult profile which I can see being good for older kids so they only have access to things you want them to, but for me I want my kids to be able to get on netflix and youtube so that's kind of a hassle. I also downloaded a couple apps for myself but had to delete them so fast due to storage issues. On our old iPad I would hand it to my daughter and she would do whatever she wanted, so she's kind of having issues trying to figure this one one. I hope soon it won't be as big of an issue.
If you're wondering if you can use this for your 2 year old, sure, but be prepared to deal with a lot of meltdowns while they figure it out. My daughter just turned two last month so I know she's well under the age limit but I just wanted to get them each one for no sharing issues.
The battery life is 4 hours and we haven't had an issues with that. The charger is pretty short which I actually like because then my kids can't try to tell me they will use it while on the charger.
The camera is okay, but I wouldn't use it for great pictures. It's good for kids to play around on though, just remember to delete the photos so they don't hold storage.
Over all: I do not like this near as much as the iPad but for the price it's good. The warranty itself makes it well worth it. That being said I also bought a kindle fire for us and I really wonder if I would have been better off just getting one of those for each girl and buying a case, the only reason I didn't is because the price wasn't much different on black friday and I would have had to purchase cases. I think maybe if I would have not gotten the kids the freetime wouldn't have been there and I could have picked my own games and removed them completely if they didn't work out like we always do on the iPad.
This product was a personal purchase for myself at the normal retail price. I am reviewing it solely because I want to share my experience with other potential customers. I have received no compensation for my review nor do I have a personal relationship with the seller of this product.
on May 31, 2016
SAVE YOUR MONEY!!! We have had nothing but trouble from this tablet. The problem seems to be the FreeTime software. Apps that are downloaded to the tablet do not show up. Kids get annoyed and grab my iPhone. No questions asked really means two hours on phone with tech after getting transferred 2o times. They have yet to offer to replace these new tablets. A search of reviews shows this is a common problem.
PLEASE READ UPDATE: Had so much trouble with 8GB units that Amazon graciously allowed me to return and purchase 16GB. Please do not get 8gb. FreeTime takes up so much space that you will end up frustrated. I have a 64 gb SD card for each tablet. Some apps don't download to the SD card and must run from tablet. This is fine but you are wasting your money if you don't get the 16gb and an SD card. The tablet itself is fine but the Freetime app can be a pain. The kids are given thousands of stuff to chose from but you have to wait to download stuff. Kids get frustrated and try to download something different. This just leads to apps being added and not used and taking up space (slowing down the tablet).
Freetime should put all the apps that are currently downloaded at the top the the screen (same for the book screen etc).
Just okay. Let me say that I am not a techy person so take my review with a grain of salt. My kids are 3 and 5 and I purchased these tablets to replace broken iPads. If you have never used an iPad, then Fire tablets will seem okay. These tablets are so slow and the battery life is miserable. It takes forever to download content. I would suggest you download some stuff for your kids to look at because they will get very frustrated. I am still trying to figure out how to download videos I own for them to view when there is no wi-fi. This device relies heavily on the availablity of wi-fi. Almost all of the content on FreeTime requires wi-fi. Downloads take forever! It comes with a very short powercord, so be aware of that as well. I guess you get what you pay for. These were cheap replacements because I didn't want to pay for iPad repair. I am excited about the replacement guarantee. Make sure you get an SD card, you will need it!
UPDATE: After having it for a month now. I do like it better. It still does not compare to the i-pad. It is a good tablet for the price. Some of the freetime apps will not download and that can get annoying (Nick Jr. Draw and Play has never worked on either tablet. It is a great app we have on ipad and it works without problems). My kids will use them but if they have a choice between mommy's iPhone and their Fire tablets...mom's iphone wins. (SIGH).
PLEASE READ UPDATE: Had so much trouble with 8GB units that Amazon graciously allowed me to return and purchase 16GB. Please do not get 8gb. FreeTime takes up so much space that you will end up frustrated. I have a 64 gb SD card for each tablet. Some apps don't download to the SD card and must run from tablet. This is fine but you are wasting your money if you don't get the 16gb and an SD card. The tablet itself is fine but the Freetime app can be a pain. The kids are given thousands of stuff to chose from but you have to wait to download stuff. Kids get frustrated and try to download something different. This just leads to apps being added and not used and taking up space (slowing down the tablet).
Freetime should put all the apps that are currently downloaded at the top the the screen (same for the book screen etc).
Just okay. Let me say that I am not a techy person so take my review with a grain of salt. My kids are 3 and 5 and I purchased these tablets to replace broken iPads. If you have never used an iPad, then Fire tablets will seem okay. These tablets are so slow and the battery life is miserable. It takes forever to download content. I would suggest you download some stuff for your kids to look at because they will get very frustrated. I am still trying to figure out how to download videos I own for them to view when there is no wi-fi. This device relies heavily on the availablity of wi-fi. Almost all of the content on FreeTime requires wi-fi. Downloads take forever! It comes with a very short powercord, so be aware of that as well. I guess you get what you pay for. These were cheap replacements because I didn't want to pay for iPad repair. I am excited about the replacement guarantee. Make sure you get an SD card, you will need it!
UPDATE: After having it for a month now. I do like it better. It still does not compare to the i-pad. It is a good tablet for the price. Some of the freetime apps will not download and that can get annoying (Nick Jr. Draw and Play has never worked on either tablet. It is a great app we have on ipad and it works without problems). My kids will use them but if they have a choice between mommy's iPhone and their Fire tablets...mom's iphone wins. (SIGH).
on June 20, 2016
I got the kids version because this is mainly for my toddler. I know, I know, yes I did get this for my toddler. He is always interested in the learning apps we get on our phone for him so we figured this would be perfect.
Now it's cameras are not anything to rejoice over but they do work and that's perfect for a kid or someone who just wants to use Skype or something. Not for taking family photos lol.
It sturdy! The case that comes with it is light and hold its own which is great for accident prone kids.
The free year of freetime is a big plus for us also! Plenty of book,games,videos and apps for him.
Also cool if you want to use it for your own tablet because you can switch profiles back and forth with a lock on each 😀
Now it's cameras are not anything to rejoice over but they do work and that's perfect for a kid or someone who just wants to use Skype or something. Not for taking family photos lol.
It sturdy! The case that comes with it is light and hold its own which is great for accident prone kids.
The free year of freetime is a big plus for us also! Plenty of book,games,videos and apps for him.
Also cool if you want to use it for your own tablet because you can switch profiles back and forth with a lock on each 😀
on October 11, 2015
Like the options for parental controls. Like the kids can get apps & videos themselves for free. HATE that the kids can't play music; they wanted these to replace old ipod touches, but since you can only add music to adult profiles, the kids can't use these for music (it does not allow adults to share music they've added either).
Updating my review. The kids both ran out of room quickly, so I purchased the micro sd card Amazon says were made of these devices. Everything that is downloaded to the sd card disappears & has to be downloaded again, every time the device restarts. Absolutely no support from Amazon on this issue. I've searched the problem & seems to be a known problem that has been happening for some time but Amazon has done nothing. Both the Fires I bought were for my nieces that do not live with me, so by the time I found out about the problem, was too late to return the items.
Between this issue & the fact you can't add music for the child profiles, just a waste of money. They never use them anymore because it takes so long to re-download all the apps every time.
Updating my review. The kids both ran out of room quickly, so I purchased the micro sd card Amazon says were made of these devices. Everything that is downloaded to the sd card disappears & has to be downloaded again, every time the device restarts. Absolutely no support from Amazon on this issue. I've searched the problem & seems to be a known problem that has been happening for some time but Amazon has done nothing. Both the Fires I bought were for my nieces that do not live with me, so by the time I found out about the problem, was too late to return the items.
Between this issue & the fact you can't add music for the child profiles, just a waste of money. They never use them anymore because it takes so long to re-download all the apps every time.
on January 15, 2016
Junk. Pure and simple. We received two of these as Christmas presents; one for our 4 year old son, and one for our 5 year old daughter. They don't work. There's no other way to say it. I've been so frustrated with these dang things that I'm not even sure where to begin. They have to be restarted multiple times a day. They forget they have games installed on Freetime (which we received a year subscription to for each child). They randomly begin downloading and installing every Freetime game that IS installed. The paltry amount of built in storage ran out within minutes of my children even turning them on. I'll attempt to organize this review so that its not an entire wall of text:
1) The chargers for these units are pitiful. Both chargers literally fall out of the charging port if you so much as look at them intensely.
2) They take FOREVER to charge. Now, I can't say for sure if it's because of item #1 or not, but these things take way too long to charge.
3) The built in amount of storage is useless. Get an SD card. Better yet, don't. Don't get a Fire HD Kids either.
4) BOTH units lose the SD card. Multiple times a day, my kids bring these paperweights to me with a message saying to "Insert the SD card". It is inserted. Not only that, you can go to storage and SEE THAT IT IS INSERTED. However, Freetime cannot see it or access it.
5) BOTH units begin randomly forgetting that ANYTHING AT ALL is installed, and begin downloading EVERY SINGLE GAME that my children have installed in Freetime. The solution? SIMPLE. Stop EACH download. Exit Freetime. Go to 'Manage All Apps'. Stop the Appstore. Restart the Appstore. Restart the unit. Now it works. You have to do that MULTIPLE TIMES A DAY. Remember my kids are 4 and 5? Yeah.
6) Amazon is aware of these issue, and have been for quite some time. Google these issues.
Long story short, these things are junk. They don't work, plain and simple. Stay away. Stay far away. If you can see the glow of the Fire, keep running.
1) The chargers for these units are pitiful. Both chargers literally fall out of the charging port if you so much as look at them intensely.
2) They take FOREVER to charge. Now, I can't say for sure if it's because of item #1 or not, but these things take way too long to charge.
3) The built in amount of storage is useless. Get an SD card. Better yet, don't. Don't get a Fire HD Kids either.
4) BOTH units lose the SD card. Multiple times a day, my kids bring these paperweights to me with a message saying to "Insert the SD card". It is inserted. Not only that, you can go to storage and SEE THAT IT IS INSERTED. However, Freetime cannot see it or access it.
5) BOTH units begin randomly forgetting that ANYTHING AT ALL is installed, and begin downloading EVERY SINGLE GAME that my children have installed in Freetime. The solution? SIMPLE. Stop EACH download. Exit Freetime. Go to 'Manage All Apps'. Stop the Appstore. Restart the Appstore. Restart the unit. Now it works. You have to do that MULTIPLE TIMES A DAY. Remember my kids are 4 and 5? Yeah.
6) Amazon is aware of these issue, and have been for quite some time. Google these issues.
Long story short, these things are junk. They don't work, plain and simple. Stay away. Stay far away. If you can see the glow of the Fire, keep running.
on June 21, 2016
FreeTime is absolutely infuriating!! It seems like a great idea in theory, hundreds of games my kids can access that are all kid friendly. Yeah great, except that there is absolutely no rhyme or reason to which games STAY LOADED onto the kindle. I can't count the number of crying fits my kids have had because a half hour ago at home their favorite game worked, but now that we're in the car, it doesn't work anymore, even though we definitely loaded it onto the kindle yesterday. This happens ALL THE TIME! You load a game and for apparently no reason, it unloads itself and you must be connected to wifi for it to load again (which inevitably we are not when this happens).
Setting it up a huge pain as I have three kids who share this kindle so they all have different profiles and I have to load each game onto their separate profiles. It takes forever and the loading indicator is completely arbitrary and offers no actual information for how much of the game is loaded. In the picture below, the two middle games that are loading have been at this "almost loaded" position for HOURS.
Yesterday this kindle even decided on its own to de-register itself from my Amazon account for no reason at all. So I had the pleasure of having re-load every single game onto it again (as if I don't do this for individual apps pretty much incessantly).
I love the idea of FreeTime if it actually worked. If games actually stayed loaded when you loaded them the first time, this product would get a 5 star review from me. But constantly having to check and make sure something I did yesterday still exists is ridiculous.
The tablet itself is fine although it does run battery down quickly (maybe because I'm constantly LOADING THINGS). The case is fantastic. But this FreeTime thing...
Setting it up a huge pain as I have three kids who share this kindle so they all have different profiles and I have to load each game onto their separate profiles. It takes forever and the loading indicator is completely arbitrary and offers no actual information for how much of the game is loaded. In the picture below, the two middle games that are loading have been at this "almost loaded" position for HOURS.
Yesterday this kindle even decided on its own to de-register itself from my Amazon account for no reason at all. So I had the pleasure of having re-load every single game onto it again (as if I don't do this for individual apps pretty much incessantly).
I love the idea of FreeTime if it actually worked. If games actually stayed loaded when you loaded them the first time, this product would get a 5 star review from me. But constantly having to check and make sure something I did yesterday still exists is ridiculous.
The tablet itself is fine although it does run battery down quickly (maybe because I'm constantly LOADING THINGS). The case is fantastic. But this FreeTime thing...
on October 10, 2016
I love this tablet! I bought it for my daughter to use while traveling. The freetime that comes installed is easy to use and full of age appropriate games and cartoons for her to watch. I also downloaded several movies to the SD card to watch when we were not connected to internet, so I would strongly suggest also purchasing one.
This tablet is tough. My daughter has dropped it and stepped on it. No damage. The case is easy for her to grip and protects the tablet very well.
This tablet is tough. My daughter has dropped it and stepped on it. No damage. The case is easy for her to grip and protects the tablet very well.
