Negotiating the world of media can be a daunting task as an adult, especially when it comes to letting your kids use it. How much time should you let them have? What if they break it? And most importantly, how can I keep them safe? These are just some of my many worries.
We’ve been a fan of the Amazon Fire For Kids tablets for a while now and have recently been sent the new Amazon Fire HD 10 Kids Edition Tablet to try. It comes with a 10.1″ 1080p Full HD screen, which is much larger than the 7″ or 8″ versions, making watching programmes on it a different experience. It comes with a powerful processor, 32 GB of storage – great for saving their favourite games, apps and videos and it has up to 10 hours of battery life. Not to mention the 2 year worry free guarantee. The main thing for me though is that it addresses many of the concerns around safety that we have as parents.
Ever had an upset child with a broken tablet? And in turn an upset you? We’ve been there, but now we don’t need to worry as the Amazon Fire for Kids comes with a 2 year worry free guarantee. They will replace the tablet, no questions asked! I mean that’s just the perfect reason to get one isn’t it.
The parental controls are the best I have seen! I can set it so that no apps can be downloaded without me agreeing to them first and having to enter my password. I’ve turned off all in app purchasing so they can’t run up a huge bill. But it also comes with things like, I can look at Kyle’s browsing history and activity, so although he has a kids safe filtered version (10-12) I can still double check if I need to.
Fire For Kids free for a year – Usually £3.99 a month, this also gives kids access to tens of thousands of curated kid-friendly YouTube videos and websites. It allows you to choose content you have purchased to create a personalised experience for each of your children, giving you the parent complete control over what content each child can access.
You can add and change time limits and also the times they can access the tablet. I have it set so that they can’t be used between 7pm and 7am but this can be easily adjusted by the parent. I can set unlimited reading but restrict access to other apps after 7pm.
I can set it so that only educational apps and reading can be accessed during the week. Or by selecting ‘learn first’ it blocks access to entertainment content until they’ve read a book or played an educational game first.
The memory is fab with 32gb we downloaded numerous programmes and apps for a long car journey and didn’t run out of space.
There are different age appropriate profiles. Blue sky theme is for 9 and under and then Midnight black is for 9-12 and looks more like to adult version of the fire. Amazons smart filters select age appropriate material for the web if you allow them access to it, apps, video, tv programmes and books. But it also gives you the power to add and remove selections. And if you don’t like the things selected for a 10 year old you can move the age range back. Ava loves recognising her favourite characters, Finlay has been enjoying the coding apps and Kyle feels grown up being able to listen to music and watching his favourite you tubers.
You can use household profiles so the device can be shared I’ve even been using the new one in the evenings. Up to 2 adults and 4 children can be saved, with every person having their own carousel (home page) and apps etc. You can use any profile on any device but to make it easier for younger kids to find theirs you can hide the other family members profiles and only have theirs visible.
It’s quick to download tv programmes, within seconds they are on the home screen ready to use without wifi.
It’s easy to navigate for kids and even toddlers. With a home screen showing pictures of their downloaded content it makes finding their favourites easy. For toddlers they can head to the characters page to find what they like.
The battery lasts for ages! Once charged these go and go meaning they don’t run out halfway down the M5 in a traffic jam. The batteries really are amazing, I just wish my phone one was as good.
*We were sent a Kindle Fire HD Kids Edition Tablet for the purpose of this blog post.