Hi! I'm Lindsay Ferrier. You might remember me from a blog called Suburban Turmoil. Well, a lot has changed since I started that blog in 2005. My kids grew up, I got a divorce, and I finally left the suburbs for the heart of Nashville, where I feel like I truly belong. I have no idea what the future will hold and you know what? I'm okay with that. Thrilled, actually. It was time for something totally different.
December 5, 2015
Like pretty much every other kid in America, my kids have been begging for their own tablets FOR. YEARS. I’ve had two major reservations about their request- One, I worried about them accessing things on the Internet that they didn’t need to be seeing/hearing. Two, good tablets are EXPENSIVE and my kids aren’t always easy on their electronics. This reality played out when we were gifted a tablet designed for kids last year– While the parental controls were adequate, it was a only a few months before our tablet was stomped on during a spend the night party.
Goodbye, tablet.
The new Amazon Fire HD Kids Edition claims to address both of my concerns. At just $99.99 for the 7″ version (a substantial price drop for the holidays), the price is right– Better yet, it comes with a two-year worry free guarantee so that if anything at all happens to the device, you can return it and Amazon will replace it for free, no questions asked.
YAAAASSSSSS.
This on its own was enough to make me agree to let my daughter try it out as her first tablet. She’s eleven now and I felt she was ready for the responsibility- For one thing, she’s an avid reader and I knew she’d love being able to check out books from the library or buy them from Amazon’s Kindle store online. For another, she’s been using apps and websites more and more for school research– Having her own tablet would really help her get her homework done. She has also begun working out with me at the gym on the elliptical– I rely on my own Kindle Fire for video while I’m working out and I knew she’d enjoy watching her shows there as well.
Punky has had her new Fire HD Kids Edition for a few weeks now and we are both very pleased. It comes with a kid-proof case (you choose the color when you order) that makes a shattered or scratched screen far less likely. It also comes with a year of FreeTime Unlimited, which THRILLED my daughter. Free Time Unlimited gives kids access to more than 5,000 books, movies, TV shows, educational games, and apps, and my daughter has really enjoyed exploring all that FreeTimeUnlimited has to offer, especially the books. I was happy to see that the books include plenty of high-quality options, like Island of the Blue Dolphins and Mr. Popper’s Penguins (just to name a very few) and the apps contain the kinds of games and activities we WANT our children to be playing– many educational games, as well as cool read-along apps that let your child read the text of an actual book like The Wizard of Oz along with a narrator– and the pictures are actually animated! I wish this kind of thing had been around when I was a kid.
Although you can’t control exactly which books, videos and apps your child can access from FreeTimeUnlimited (simply because there are just too many of them), you can make the selection age-appropriate. But FreeTime Unlimited is just one element of the Fire HD Kids Edition that we love.
Not only was I was able to quickly set up an account just for my daughter on her Kindle, but I was also easily able to access my own Amazon account, thus transferring everything on my own personal Kindle to this one as well. Here’s one of the coolest features about the Fire HD Kids Edition– When it’s turned on, if my daughter enters her password on the lock screen, she only has access to what I’ve approved. If I enter my password after turning on the device, MY account comes up, just like it would on any normal Fire HD. You can add accounts for everyone in your family to the device, so that each member sees their own picks when they log in– This means that if you want to share a tablet with your child, the Fire HD Kids Edition is definitely the device for you.
I also love that I can easily add any app to my daughter’s account that I deem appropriate, simply by logging into my account and approving the app under Family Controls. I can also set limits on the amount of time she’s allowed to use the device each day. My daughter is happy because her Fire has all her favorite apps on it, as well as apps she can use for school like a Dictionary and Thesaurus, and I’m happy because there’s absolutely no way she can access anything that she shouldn’t have access to– yet I can log in and access everything. With my iPad Mini, I just don’t have this kind of control.
So far, we’ve only had one minor issue– On my daughter’s Fire account, she is not able to purchase items within an app. While I can access her apps through my account and make purchases, the app registers me as a separate person with a separate game, so my purchases would not show up in her game. This is not a deal breaker for me by any means and it makes sense that a child would not be able to make purchases on their Amazon Fire account- but it’s something to keep in mind if your child plays an app game that sometimes requires a purchase to enhance play.
All in all, I can’t recommend the Amazon Fire HD Kids Edition enough. I use my Fire HD every day (my version is only $49.99 on Amazon right now!) and my daughter uses hers every day- The fact that my daughter’s edition includes a shatterproof case (available in pink or blue) and a year of FreeTimeUnlimited makes it well worth the $99.99 price tag.
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