I was very hesitant to order another Kindle Fire. A few years ago, me and the hubby bought the Kindle Fire HD (1st gen). We were SOOO disappointed with it. The carousel was so annoying. The layout was not convenient, the app store was WAY under par, was glitchy, lagged, and so many issues. We gave them to our children and they even got frustrated with them. Well, for Christmas my daughter received money from her grandparents. She wanted a new tablet and I knew how frustrated she got with the old Kindle Fire HD (1st gen). I researched and researched and kept coming back to the Kids Fire tablet. For kids, the Kindle Fire Kids edition seemed to always be on the list for top kids tablets. I noticed the horrible carousel was gone and looked more like a regular tablet. The 2 year no questions asked protection, Freetime for 1 year, bumper, expandable SD, and improved app store made me decide to give it a shot. I almost ordered the Kindle Fire ($50) since it was the same tablet but I wanted all the extra stuff that came with the Kids edition. I really didn't think I would say this, but I am impressed!! I am so impressed me and the hubby are seriously thinking about buying the Kindle Fires for ourself.
Kindle Free Time
I love all the options in the Free Time. I can set profiles for both my girls that display content based on their age. I also can set time limits, set goals, enable/disable web browser, and really control how, when, and what they use. I love that all content except educational content can be blocked until their goal has been met. For example, I can set my oldest daughter's profile to spend 30 minutes with books, 15 mins with educational videos, and 30 minutes with educational apps. As a homeschool mom, education is very important to us. Until her daily goal is met, she can not play noneducational content until she completes the goals I set. I can also set time limits on how long she can spend playing apps, reading books, and watching videos. For example, she can read unlimited books, and spend 1 hour playing apps. And each type of content can be customized to your liking. I also can set diff limits for weekdays/ weekends. I also have the option for bed time. I can tell it when to allow them to use their kindle. There is more settings for the Kids Freetime and it really puts me in control on their usage.
Profiles
These are so nice. I have my profile which looks like a regular tablet. My girls profile is the freetime interface. The freetime profiles are kid friendly. Each profile can be set with its own individual passcode. You can easily switch profiles in the up right hand corner pn the lock screen or in the profiles.
Bumper
The bumper is really comfortable to hold. I wish the Kids edition package was available in all colors. It seems like it will do well if and probably when it is dropped. The colors are very attractive as well. Me and the hubby both want the bumper if we get a Kindle Fire. It says Amazon Freetime on the back but we both really like it for our kids and ourself.
2 year worry free warranty
Like I said before, our kids have been using our old Kindle Fire HD (1st gen) and have taken really good care of them. And maybe they won't ever break them but the no questions asked warranty gives us a peace of mind.
Fire OS
The Fire OS is SOOOO much better than the first generation. We hated the carousel! When in an adult profile, the layout looks like a normal Android tablet. It is a tiny bit diff but for the most part, it operates very similar to Android OS. And of course it should since Fire OS is Android based with slight differences. It runs smooth and the layout is definately plus. If the OS would have been like the old Kindle Fires, I wouldn't have even considered this tablet.
Performance
If you buy the tablet without the options, your paying for a $50 tablet. The price made me wonder how great this tablet was. For a $50 tablet, it is impressive. It runs smooth, fast, and works well. Your getting more for your buck than what your paying for. Me and the hubby just traded in our iPad mini (2nd gen) for $150 each and this Kindle Fire 5th gen runs better. I know our iPad minis are older now but I recieved $150 for each. I could buy 6 Kindle Fires for what I traded the iPad minis for. I think that proves my point.
Amazon vs Google vs Apple
Ok, so this is the one set back. Google play and Apple App store have a bigger better selection than Amazon App Store. If there is any apps you just can't part with, then you might want to check Amazon's App store first. I had an Apple App called Anylist that I love. I had already made the switch from iPhone to Moto X (Android) but still had my iPad so I could use Anylist. But, I just traded in the iPad mini so I no longer will be able to get the AnyList App. I will find another alternative or use my OLD iPhone but it would be so much nicer if I could get the app on Amazon or Amazon would allow me to download Google Play without rooting. Luckily, I can access Anylist of the web. The app is more user friendly but going to the site will work as well. There is a place called 1MobileMarket that has apps that Amazon App store doesn't have. It will expand your marketplace a little but just frustrating that you have to do all these work around just for apps. To basically sum it up, Amazon loses in the app store selection. But they do have what they call Underground which really gives you apps for FREE that other apps stores would typically charge for. And it is the full app not some trial and some of them have special options. For example, the Inside Out app on Undergound gives you unlimited lives. Pretty cool!
I wish I could download Chrome. I'm not crazy about Amazon's Silk browser. I have Chrome on my phone and PCs. It would just make it easier to browse using the same browser. Not to mention, silk isn't the best browser.
Kindles for Reading
Blue shade is one option I am excited about. Being exposed to blue light at night suppresses melantonin which effects your ability to fall asleep at night. Blue shades applies a filter that reduces the blue light. Simple explanation, blue shade= easier to drift to sleep. I have a hard time drifting to sleep and I am hoping the Blue shade will help this.
The Kindles are one of the best options when reading ebooks. The Kindles are the best option but the Kindle fires are the next best. I have read ebooks on my iPad, iPhone, and Android based devices. The Kindles and Kindle Fires are so much easier on your eyes.
The Kindle Lending Library is a plus. If your a prime member, you will get access to the Kindle Lending Library. We are already Amazon Prime members but when you buy the tablet, you get a 30 day free trial to Prime. Which, by the way, Prime is worth every penny.
Summing it all up
The display is gorgeous. It's not HD but it could have fooled me. The performance is great.While I haven't compared it to other newer models of tablets, I doubt its as good as something like the newest Surface Pro but your also paying alot more so I would hope it would be better. I do believe your getting more than what you would for other $50 tablets. It only has 8GB of onboard storage but you can expand it with a microSD up to 128 GB. The price is great. The Kindle Fire is $50. The bumper is $24. 2 year protection is $17.99. Kindle Freetime is $36. Your getting more than your paying for.
One thing I can't decide is if I like is the size. It is only a 7' tablet. It's a little small but perfect for little hands. If your looking at it in portrait mode, it is very easy to type with your thumbs. Our iPad minis were 8' and it was awkward to type while holding with both hands. You can turn it to landscape mode and easier to view things like web sites. When comparing it to other tablets proportions, they designed the tablet a little slimmer on the width and longer in the length. My husband did say the text is a little small but that can be changed in the settings. The main con would be the app store. Come on Amazon, let us use Google Play or expand your app store!
Anyways, I know long. But hope that helps someone.
Videos
Page 1 of 1Start OverPage 1 of 1
Videos for this product
1:47
Click to play video
Fire Kids Edition
Merchant Video
Reviews with images
After considering the price to purchase 3 of them and checking out the apps my husband and I were pretty sure we would purchase
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.
