I pre-ordered two of these for my 5yo and almost 3yo for an upcoming vacation. I debated between these and getting a couple of used iPad 2s or 3s. Ultimately I was drawn to the 2 year warranty and 1 year of FreeTime Unlimited service.
Out of the Box
The tablets come already installed in their protective cases. One of the tablets was installed backwards, making the power button inaccessible, but removing the tablet and putting it back in was not difficult. The tablets come with a charging cable and transformer/AC adapter. I wasn't sure if the transformer would be included since my Kindle Paperwhite did not include one, this was a pleasant surprise. One of the common complaints about other Kindles is that the charge port stops working. In an effort to prevent this I purchased a set of NetDot magnetic charger connectors. These are similar in concept to Apple's Magsafe ports where the cable is held to the device with a magnet that can brake away without doing damage or putting strain on the port. One of the first things I noticed about the tablets is that the protective case is nice and thick, but not heavy. The bumpers will be good for the kids to grip their fingers around. The case material is slippery, but that's what the warranty is for I guess.
Initial Setup
When turned on, both tablets had around 70% charge on them. The first steps are pretty typical, choose a language, connect to WiFi. The update process was surprisingly lengthy for a brand new device that was received the day it released. There were two rounds of updates and all total it was between 15 and 20 minutes of time to install the updates. One very important item of note is that the tablet is pre-assigned for the account on which it was purchased. If it is being received as a gift, make sure that you do not accept the EULA and activate on the purchaser's account because the free year of FreeTime will then be on the purchaser's account. There will be an option to change accounts during the setup. Unfortunately I goofed up because I bought it on my business' account using some racked up rewards points, but meant to activate it on my personal amazon account. A call to customer support had this resolved in a matter of minutes. I did not make the same mistake on the second tablet and everything went smoothly.
You will be prompted to setup Freetime profiles for your children. After setting up the first profile it immediately goes into setting up a second profile, with no obvious way to skip past it. Since I was only doing one profile per device this was a little confusing, but I found that just hitting the back arrow brought it back to the profile list and I could proceed from there. This was a little confusing and a surprising UI blunder on Amazon's part, but nothing major.
Device Performance
Given the price of the tablet and the price of the base HD 8 tablet that uses identical hardware, I wasn't expecting much in terms of processing power, but I was still a little surprised that a brand new device would lag as much as these do just when scrolling through menu items. You would think the software would be designed with the hardware limitations in mind so that the processing demand matched the processing power, but I guess you get what you pay for. I would say it's about on par with an old iPad trying to run the latest version of iOS and showing its age. One of the biggest disappointments about this device is that you can't access videos that have been transferred from a PC to the tablet when in the kids' profiles. I suppose it is a safeguard, but I have a lot of downloaded movies that I wanted to put on for them to watch. Supposedly there is a workaround if you record a video to an SD card, then you can take the SD card out and add your own videos in the folder created by the camera. I haven't tried this yet, but it sounds plausible. That said, with FreeTime there is more than enough content and you can download a decent amount for offline use.
FreeTime
I won't go too in depth with this as it is a service independent of this device and there are plenty of articles about it already. That said, it is really a great service. There are tons of videos, books and games for the kids that would cost a ton to purchase a la carte. Having the ability to put time limits by category is really an interesting feature too. While the white listed internet sounded like a great feature, I'm not sure yet if there is enough sites to be that great of a feature, but it' there.
All in all I'm happy with this purchase so far, we'll see how the performance goes over time. I'm a little concerned that it won't take much in terms of increased software complexity to really strain the ability of the hardware to operate smoothly. In the end these are sort of a throw away device so if they last 3 years I'll be happy considering they were only $200 for the pair.
Pros:
Good price
Great warranty
1 year of FreeTime service worth the extra cost for young kids
Cons:
Weak hardware
Can't play videos copied from PC to device in kids profiles
Slippery case material
Bottom line: Great value for a kids tablet that you don't have to worry too much about getting broken
Got this for my 3 year old daughter, she loves it. I love it because, I have my cell phone back..
Gave this to my grandson on his 5th birthday. He had an older model, so he knew exactly what to do and how to use it! He was VERY happy and excited! He takes his tablet on all car trips, long and short, and plays in the evening just before bedtime, after homework and chores. His older brother will be getting one also for his 7th birthday next month.
*UPDATE*
They have added a new fix to the “oops something went wrong” now they added a circle with an arrow under the message that restarts the FreeTime. That makes it so you no longer need to restart the tablet. I also notice that the message doesn’t come up as frequently as it did when the new software was released
First I’d like to address a few other reviews talking about the glitches saying it’s a piece of crap because it has an error message that says “oops something went wrong”. Amazon recently did a change on FreeTime so the software had a few bugs in the new system and they know that and are currently working to fix that. Most new software, even the new iOS has bugs, so let them resolve that. Secondly, if there is something on the FreeTime that you don’t like and don’t want your child to have access too, simply go into the setting and remove it. The parental controls on this device are amazing. I’ve owned the kids kindle fire 7 for two years and never had an issue. The only issue has been the new software update and Amazon is already in the works on fixing it 😃
My son had the 7 for two years and we loved everything about it. We decided to upgrade him to the 8 for Christmas and I’m glad we did. I went ahead and played with it myself to see the new features from the 7. I like that you have the option to either power down or restart the kindle fire now, the 7 was only power down. Also you can do the blue shade option on the kids profile now too. You can also do a lower power mode on the kids profile now too which is a huge deal for me.
Overall I still think this device is a great choice over an iPad for the price and all you get with it. You can have your own profile on this tablet and use it as your own and switch back and for from child to yours and it’s password locked. The warranty itself is amazing, I had previously used it two times on the kindle fire 7 because my son broke the screen and amazon was great in replacing it with a brand new one. The FreeTime you get for a free for year is the best. I love that you can control what your kid can see, play, and even read. You can even make it so they have to read for so long before they can play any games. My favorite feature is that you can choose whatever you want to add from your apps, movies, books and shows to add to their profile. They’ve also added a new app called parent dashboard that lets you see everything that your child is doing on their kindle fire. In today’s world the internet is full of scary and bad things that you don’t want your kids to have access to and with the FreeTime you don’t have to worry with that. The browser that is on the FreeTime is kid(you can do an age filter) sites only. If you’re looking for something that you can easily monitor and has very simple parental controls then this is the tablet for you and your family. I have owned two iPads and I loved this tablet so much I actually just bought the kindle fire 10 for myself over a new iPad!
I purchased the tablet for my oldest grandson, he loves it, the only problem I have is, the settings were preset with all of my information and credit card information. I thought my daughter set the tablet up, and placed a parental block, but she did not, and my youngest grandson got ahold of the tablet and downloaded app that cost money, I end up having to call my daughter and make her aware, she deleted my information and is setting a block, I spoke with two agents at amazon, I do not remember their names, but were very understanding, walked me though the entire process.
Feature Product
- Up to $144 in savings on Fire HD 8 tablet, 1 year of Amazon FreeTime Unlimited, and a Kid-Proof Case, versus items purchased separately-plus a 2-year worry-free guarantee
- Not a toy, a full-featured Fire HD 8 tablet with a vibrant 8" HD display, 32 GB internal storage, up to 10 hours of battery life, a 1.3 GHz quad-core processor, and 1.5 GB of RAM. Add a microSD card for up to 400 GB of expandable storage.
- The included 1 year of FreeTime Unlimited gives your kids access to over 20,000 popular apps and games, videos, books, Audible books, and educational content from PBS Kids, Nickelodeon, Disney, and more. Your subscription will then automatically renew every month starting at just $2.99 per month plus applicable tax. You may cancel at any time by visiting the Amazon Parent Dashboard or contacting Customer Service.
- 2-year worry-free guarantee: if they break it, return it and we'll replace it for free. No questions asked.
- Introducing Spanish language content in FreeTime Unlimited - kids can now enjoy over 1,000 books, movies, and apps in Spanish that include titles and characters like Sesamo, Dora, Diego, Frozen, and more.
- Kids can listen to thousands of hours of fun, educational and inspirational Audible books like Beauty and the Beast, The Snow Queen, Peter Pan, Rip Van Winkle, and more - professionally narrated by their favorite characters, authors and celebrities.
- Add even more content to your child's profile in FreeTime to give them selected access to apps in your personal library, such as Netflix, YouTube, and Minecraft.
- Easy-to-use parental controls allow parents to personalize screen time limits, set educational goals, filter age-appropriate content, and also manage web browsing and content usage. Parental controls can be set on device or online through Amazon Parent Dashboard. Additionally, access all tablet features in the adult profile by entering your passcode.
Description
Up to $144 in savings on Fire HD 8 tablet, 1 year of Amazon FreeTime Unlimited, and a Kid-Proof Case, versus items purchased separately plus a 2-year worry-free guarantee Not a toy, a full-featured Fire HD 8 tablet with a vibrant 8 HD display, 32 GB internal storage, up to 10 hours of battery life, a 1.3 GHz quad-core processor, and 1.5 GB of RAM. Add a microSD card for up to 400 GB of expandable storage. The included 1 year of FreeTime Unlimited gives your kids access to over 20,000 popular apps and games, videos, books, Audible books (coming soon), and educational content from PBS Kids, Nickelodeon, Disney, and more. Your subscription will then automatically renew every month starting at just $2.99 per month plus applicable tax. You may cancel at any time by visiting the Amazon Parent Dashboard or contacting Customer Service. 2-year worry-free guarantee: if they break it, return it and we'll replace it for free. No questions asked. Introducing Spanish language content in FreeTime Unlimited kids can now enjoy over 1,000 books, movies, and apps in Spanish that include titles and characters like Sesamo, Dora, Diego, Frozen, and more. The included 1 year of FreeTime Unlimited gives your kids access to over 1,000 Audible children s books (coming soon), like Beauty & the Beast , Peter Pan, and Rip Van Winkle . Add even more content to your child's profile in FreeTime to give them selected access to apps in your personal library, such as Netflix, YouTube, and Minecraft. Easy-to-use parental controls allow parents to personalize screen time limits, set educational goals, filter age-appropriate content, and also manage web browsing and content usage. Parental controls can be set on device or online through Amazon Parent Dashboard. Additionally, access all tablet features in the adult profile by entering your passcode.
All in all this is a great product, definitely bang for your buck. For $100 this is an amazing kids tablet. I love the free Amazon FreeTime that comes with the fire kids tablet, tons of educational games and shows. The product case is yellow and made of foam and very durable, which is great for my 3 year old. Bonus is you can also you this as a return tablet and just switch to an adult profile. Tablet came 70% charged, with a charging cord and port. Very easy set up, took may 10 minutes. Was able to set up age appropriate content very easily and you can easily look on the app to monitor your child's history and set time limits. And you can't beat the free 2 year warranty!
First off, the kids mode constantly resets itself. Meaning after each session every application is removed and must be redownloaded, even with an SD card installed. Pair that with it's horrible performance and you have a 3 minutes wait for an app to download and install on a 100meg connection and then about 90 seconds for it to open. After owning several fire tvs I expected the same quality from this device and I am sorely disappointed.
EDIT
After this review Amazon customer support contacted me. After about an hour of troubleshooting including a factory reset everything began working properly. I also had ti reformat the SD card afterwards. Now it functions more like I would expect, though it would have been great if it just worked right out of the box Amazon did a great job resolving my issues.
I just bought two of these last week for my 6 and almost 4 year olds, as we take a lot of very long car trips. They previously had LeapPad 3's, but with the cost to keep buying new content for those and having to always juggle it around to fit things, I decided to just bite the bullet and buy the Kid's Fires.
We have a TON of Disney digital movies on our Amazon account, and I was able to very easily share and download that content on their Fires. For 32 gb I was really surprised with how much these could hold, I easily downloaded 4 or 5 movies and a bunch of apps with room to spare.
The Freetime interface IS super overwhelming, so my tip would be to just download a bunch of apps and books you think your kid would like in advance, and then turn it to Airplane Mode / Wifi Off, so they only see that smaller set of content. When they tire of what is currently downloaded I'll probably sit with them individually to choose a few new apps, but I don't think they need to be scrolling through 1,000's of apps and books every time they use the tablet, as they then can't decide what to play!
I was impressed even my almost 4 year old very quickly picked up on how to use it, in terms of swiping to get to the home button and changing the volume.
Overall I'm glad I finally upgraded them as we just had a very peaceful 6 hours in the car!
Tablet works great, I don't have any of these slow Internet issues they described, could be a provider problem for them? I got a year free of the subscription right off, and it's awesome. My son has access to educational videos, books, and games. We bought him the tablet for his birthday, because like most kids today, he wouldn't leave me alone about wanting to watch lighting mcqueen videos on YouTube from my phone. Great decision, he not only does bug me for my phone which I have to constantly check to make sure he hasn't clicked on video that are bad (he's 4) but the tablet is geared toward child development. He has already learned to say new words and say his abcs, which he has a learning disability so before you judge, thinking he's 4, he should know that, not all kids are the same. 5 stars is an understatement for my family.
I love it, picture very clear
I love the size of the screen.
Easy for my three year old to use