Working in the IT industry, both my husband and I are used to working with the latest technology and our children are used to seeing us with it or using it themselves. When asked to try out the new Amazon Fire HD 6 Kids Edition I knew I had to see what it was like. I’ve not had an Amazon Fire before, so the operating system was new. As a bit Amazon fan and avid Kindle ebook reader, I have to say I was desperate to try this out.
The Fire HD Kids Edition is perfect for children aged between 3-10 years old, it can grow with them, and be adapted for the child’s age. The tablet is completely locked down and gives peace of mind that they won’t come across any social media links, ads or any adult related material. Linking up to wifi is simple and intuitive to get you started and with a quad-core processor it’s a nippy little tablet. What makes this stand out from other tablets out there is the kid proof case, which really does work, and the 2 year guarantee. For young children, you really can’t go wrong.
I was surprised by the quality of the rear camera which is 2MP, it’s excellent and produces some great little photos. And 1080p HD video. The front-facing camera is perfect for when you want to set up video calls between children and grandparents or I’ve had mine call me at work which is cute. The kids camera and photo software lets kids explore their creative side with fun editing tools such as adding stickers and drawings on their pictures. All the photos can be printed or saved to the Cloud Drive. You get free unlimited Cloud storage for photos taken with Fire HD. As always with the Fire for Kids, kids are blocked from posting photos to social media.
The screen is stunning, it’s crisp, clear and looks great. It’s a perfect size for reading for us adults and for little hands as it’s intended. The Fire is setup for the parent’s Amazon account and they can access all their Amazon content. The picture above is it set in my account and you can see my books. You then setup a child’s account with their name and details, their age is important so they are only given access to age appropriate items. I have set this one up for Aria initially, but have setup both the boys with their account too. A s a parent I can choose how long I want my child to spend on the Fire HD playing games and can allow unlimited reading. I can set how long they can watch videos and also set educational goals, which have to be completed before they are allowed ‘free time’. The child’s personalised profile means they cannot access the internet, or download anything unless it is of age appropriate content which is part of Fire for Kids Unlimited. Another great setting is shutting it down between certain times, so not more early rises to play it. They cannot play until you want them too.
The tablet comes with 1 year of Fire for Kids unlimited, which is all of your child’s favourite characters in books, games, educational apps and videos in the form of TV shows to films. The characters range from Angelina Ballerina to Power Rangers, Baby Jake to Kung Fu Panda and everything in between. It suits a vast range of ages. There are also some videos which flash back to my childhood days of Round the Twist and The Shoe People, showing my age here. There are thousands to chose from. After the first year it costs £1.99 per month for prime customers, £3.99 if you are not a prime customer. There are also options for families- £4.99 for prime customers and £7.99 per month if you are not. Quite expensive if you are not a Prime Customer I felt.
The kid proof case really does live up to it’s name. The Fire has been accidentally dropped about a dozen times and no matter how it’s landed, it comes back up perfectly. I’m sure it even bounces. I don’t recommend you drop it to find out, but if you have children, it’s bound to happen one time or another. With the Gorilla Glass, it’s certainly lives up to its name. It also comes with a guarantee, if your child breaks it, return it and it will be replaced for free. A must in my eyes if being used by young children. We’ve been using it for a few months and it’s been perfect.
I was concerned initially that the battery life wouldn’t be great with running so many apps, video’s, etc in such great quality, I was wrong. The battery life is actually really good, it lasts days before needing charged. The parent and child are not limited to the content on the tablet itself, albeit vast, you can download other items from the Amazon store in the parent profile and they can then be added to the child’s profile. There are loads of free apps as well as pay for ones. We have downloaded one or two, but the ones that are already available on the tablet are enough for now. An older child may be looking for something a little more than the pre-available ones.
I was very impressed with the Fire HD 6 Kids Edition Tablet, the screen looks great, once I got used to navigating it was simple, the range of books, videos and apps with the Kids Unlimited built in is impressive as is the battery capacity. The one item I would change would be the memory, we only have the 8GB tablet and it’s ran out of space twice now. Little ones double click to download apps and books, and it quickly gets filled up. For not a lot extra money I would recommend going for the 16GB size. Films are streamed so they aren’t an issue. For peace of mind this is definitely the best tablet I have used with parental controls, but still has enough scope for children to feel like they have their own apps, etc. There is no in app spending and no adverts asking them to download. The perfect kids tablet in my eyes. It is tied to the Amazon store for purchases or downloads, but there really is a huge range on there. It’s not for everyone, but it ticked all the boxes for a safe to use kids tablet. All the kids loved it, found it easy to use, loved the content and have each taken turns to use, proving it covers a wide age range. My children are 2 1/2, 6 1/2 and 8 1/2. All found books, apps and videos they enjoyed. I would recommend this to anyone who is looking for a child friendly, safe and simple to setup tablet.
Fire HD 6 Kids Edition has an RRP of £119 with 8GB memory or £139 with 16GB of memory and is available from Amazon.
Disclaimer:- I was sent this for the purpose of this review, but all words and opinions are my own.