Fire HD Kids Edition Tablet

As a family who owns multiple Fires in different iterations, I was thrilled when the kids’ version was announced. All three of my children received one. From their perspective, they were thrilled and loved it. I gave them far more time than usual to break them in over a 1.5 day period just to make sure everything was fine. Sadly, it wasn’t.

First, let’s call this thing what it really is. This isn’t a Fire designed from the ground up with children in mind. It is a basic Fire 7 HD with an altered OS that is tightly integrated into the Free Time Unlimited app, something that can be added to ANY Fire currently on the market. That’s it. Yes, it comes with a snazzy case and a longer warranty, but it’s still just a slightly altered Fire 7 underneath it all.

The issues began within the first hour of use and echo what most of the negative reviews highlight.

1 – Terrible battery life and slow recharge rate
My three-year-old first generation Fires last far longer and charge faster.

2 – Case Isn’t Impressive
When I first saw the case introduced, I imagined something rubberized with a protective cover over the screen, possibly even water resistant. No. It’s simply a piece of molded foam that you press the Fire into. There is absolutely nothing to protect the screen, reminiscent of the cheap EVA foam cases you pick up on eBay. I would not have felt comfortable simply putting them in a bag without something to cover the front. Plus, they are very easy to remove.

3 – Frequent lock-ups
We were averaging at least one lock-up per hour of use. And keep in mind that I had three of these, so it couldn’t have simply been a bad device. I was hard-resetting them like crazy. And this doesn’t count the times they randomly ran slow.

4 – Freetime Unlimited is a Mess
While lots of content is great, it becomes overwhelming where there is no organization. The apps, videos, and books pages are a random collection of stuff. My kids didn’t understand that everything has to be downloaded and at a snail’s pace at that. And, being kids, they naturally want to try opening every app they saw listed. I don’t blame them for that. But that led to the next problem.

5 – Low Storage with no way to delete data
The storage on this device is abysmal. I don’t understand what they did to bloat the OS to such a degree that it takes up nearly half of the 8G available storage (only 4.5 available to the user). With 100 apps to click on in Free Time Unlimited, one child was able to fill hers inside an hour of use. The others took a little longer, but I was furiously trying to keep up with deleting things on all three before long. And this lead to one of the most disappointing oversights I discovered. You can only delete data in the profile that is currently open. But here’s the real kicker. Wifi is designed to shut off when the device is full. In almost all cases, that ended up booting my kids out of their profile. Without wifi, I couldn’t log into their profile and could only access the adult profile. Since I had nothing installed on the adult profile, there was no way to free up enough space to reenable wifi, log back into the child’s profile, and delete items. This left a factory reset as the ONLY resolution, which is completely unacceptable.

6 – Missing Features
One of the biggest features I was excited about during the pre-release was the ability to use the camera. As it turns out, this one is now marked as “coming soon”. While I’m glad to hear it is being worked on, I think missing this at launch is a major fail. Yes, you can still use the camera but only on the adult profile, which defeats the purpose. And I’ve been around the block enough times with product launches to know “coming soon” is a promise I won’t hang my hat on.

But if you want to know what the #1 deal breaker was for me. Here it is:

7 – FreeTime Unlimited Doesn’t Always Work offline
I read that the downloaded apps and books in FreeTime Unlimited are accessible when offline. After testing this theory multiple times, I found it to be false. If the kids were already in their profile when Wifi access was removed, they could stay for a while, but eventually, the constant messages about no Internet connection would boot them out sooner or later. And once out, it brought up a message about no Internet connection every time you tried to select a FreeTime profile from the list. Yes, you can still access the adult profile, which takes you to the basic Kindle. But what’s the point of that? The content is in the FreeTime app.

The majority of the places where I would like to utilize the Kindles for the kids are places that don’t have Wifi – car trips, long waiting room visits, or sitting in the lobby while someone else is at an activity. If I can’t access the majority of the content my kid’s want without Wifi then it’s worthless to me.

At the end of the day, I had all three packed up for a return within 36 hours. I had high hopes for this product but was deeply disappointed with the end result. There is no way this product was adequately tested on the target market. I’ve come to expect so much more from Amazon. Perhaps they’ll be able to salvage it through OS and FreeTime updates in the future. I’m not waiting around to see if that happens.

In the meantime, I have decided to purchase standard Kindles for the kids and will not be adding FreeTime Unlimited. The parental controls that come with the standard OS are actually quite good. I’ll simply add those and throw on a few apps and books that we already own. Read more ›

The problem is not the tablet; it's Kindle FreeTime Unlimited. The tablet is sturdy and the case, although bulky, is perfect for kids. The tablet just arrived yesterday so I can not comment on how well it performs over the long term, but this will be our family's 6th (7th? 8th?) Kindle and I expect it to be as durable as the other Kindles we've had.

So on to Kindle FreeTime Unlimited... the idea behind this service is great (it's pretty much a library of age-appropriate apps and books), but the execution of it is terrible.

So what's wrong with it?

1) In a regular Kindle, only the books that I've downloaded appear on my device. With Kindle FreeTime Unlimited, ALL of the books and apps available with Kindle FreeTime appear on the child's Kindle. So what's the problem with this? For one, it's just plain difficult to navigate because there's way too much content on the screen and there's no way to sort it. Two, there are certain books and apps that Amazon might deem as age appropriate but I do not want my child playing with and there is no way to filter them out. So if I want him to read Curious George but skip the SpongeBob books, I'm out of luck.

2) My child is able to read books I've downloaded from our local library using the Overdrive and Blio apps. The problem is that if I set parental controls to allow unlimited reading and to not allow apps during weekdays, he can not access his library books. The alternative would be to allow unlimited app access, but that means that he also has unlimited access to countless other apps available via FreeTime that I do not want him to access at the moment. (Edit: books that require Blio can not be accessed at all from within FreeTime, as Blio has to be sideloaded and sideloaded apps are not available in FreeTime. However, if your library gives you the option of downloading books in Kindle format from the Amazon site, then those books WILL appear in FreeTime.)

3)Documents are not available with Kindle FreeTime. That means that all of the books that I've downloaded via gutenberg.org, for example, are not available. He can read them if I exit his FreeTime profile but then I lose control over what he can access. There might be some app that allows a work around and permit him to access docs, but I don't want to waste time trying to figure out a solution to a problem that shouldn't exist in the first place.

4) Apps and content that I've bought can be added to my child's profile, but the process is very burdensome and time consuming. Ideally, I would be able to purchase online (or on my own Kindle) and deliver the content to my child's Kindle (which is the way it works when you're not using a profile), but the content is not available in my child's FreeTime profile until I specifically add it to his account. In order to do this, I need to enter my password, enter the section that allows me to manage his content, and manually add the title. Unfortunately, Amazon organizes titles alphabetically only, so if I buy, for example, a book titled "Zebras" I would have to scroll past literally hundreds of titles that are in my account in order to add that one book to my child's account. If you haven't purchased a lot of content via Amazon, the process would be more bearable, but for those of us who've been buying Kindle books for many years already, the process is tedious.

Conclusion: the tablet is great, but Kindle FreeTime Unlimited needs plenty of work. If you're not satisfied with FreeTime Unlimited's (lack of) parental controls, you might be better off with the regular, $99 Kindle Fire, a sturdy case and a 2 year protection plan.

Edit: At the moment (as of 11/30/14), it makes no sense to buy this tablet given the discounts on the Kindle Fire 7. It's currently priced at $109, and if you have an Amazon card and apply code HDL30ARC, you get an additional $30 off. The grand total before taxes is $84.21- that's less than half the price of the 7in kid tablet. Get the tablet, a sturdy case and a 2 year protection plan. Suscribe to Kindle FreeTime Unlimited when it's ready for prime time.

Edit: Disregard the above as it no longer applies. I won't delete it for the sake of transparency. Read more ›

I bought this for my five year old son so that he would stop playing on my phone. This device has tons of books, apps and videos. I have spent time looking at the settings and how things works. This device is great! There are a lot of reviews about how it is hard to use and does not have enough books, apps, etc. That is just not true. Take some time to go through and learn how it works. There are settings that limit whether you can download content. It is important to test these features before saying things are not available. Each thing must be downloaded. You will see a pick with an "X", touch it, then be patient while it downloads. Once it does it will show a check mark. You can touch and hold your finger on it to either remove it from the device, this does not remove the icon, just the loaded info...and it can be downloaded again later. The sound and the picture are wonderful . I am so pleased with this purchase and encourage others to calm down, be patient and learn how to use the device. It is not designed to be a ipad...if you want it to work like one...go buy one of those. It is designed to be a kid friendly place to play and learn. It should be judged as such. Good luck and happy playing.

I have purchased two of these units for my kids for Christmas. After reading the reviews I was a little hesitant about the purchase, but being a Director of Technology Education and wanting a device that I could give my kids, yet easily maintain controls over content and time, I figured it was worth the risk.

I think that it is INSANE the number of bad reviews this product has received because everyone wants it to be something it is not designed to be. I have played with the units a bit, just trying to get them setup and will admit that there are a couple of software things that could be nicer, but overall it seems to work well.

People are complaining about space...The apps are easily downloaded (speed will vary depending on your network speeds) and are easily removed. My kids don't need a storehouse of apps on the device anyway. Just their favorites will work fine. If you buy an 8 GB device, then please plan to get 8 GB of storage! Thinking that you are going to get more than 8 GB of space from an 8 GB device is INSANE. Do your homework and know how much 8 GB will hold. Know how much room the operating system on the devices uses and how much will be left for apps. If it isn't enough, go buy something that will meet your need. This device only has about 4 GB left when you boot it up. Not a lot by today's standards, but it is enough to do the job as a child's tablet.

People are complaining about it needing WiFi to work right...there are certain things that you do need WiFi for, but it is a WiFi device. No on is saying otherwise. My other tablets are WiFi devices as well. I don't believe that I can stream video without a WiFi connection. To believe it can would be...INSANE. Realize that wifi is a necessity for it to work well. If you don't have WiFi, don't buy a WiFi device.

People complain about battery life...if you get a device that is rated at 8 hrs of battery life under normal use and you only get 1 hour, then something is wrong with the unit you received! It happens. Don't curse the product because of a lemon, that is INSANE. Just pick up the phone, explain the problem to Amazon support and they will send you another one. It has a 2 YEAR WORRY FREE warranty for goodness sake. Where do you get that kind of warranty on anything! I watched two movies (4 hours of video) on a device that started at 98% battery life. When I was done I still had %59 of the battery left.

I read a couple of reviews saying that they packed up their units and sent them back only to purchase "regular" Kindle Fires for their kids....nice job. You just paid almost the same amount of money and you don't get the warranty...INSANE.

People complain about the case "not being impressive"....please. The purpose of a case is to protective the unit. If Amazon sent out a case that doesn't do the job, then that is on them because, once again, they are giving you a two year, no questions asked warranty!!! I don't care if the case is pink with purple dots....INSANE.

Ultimately, I think people just like to complain. Look, if you want an iPad, then buy an iPad. If you want an Android tablet, then buy an Android tablet. If you want a good option for your kids that gives you a lot of control, a good bit of kid friendly content, an incredible warranty, and all at a good price....then this is the device for you.

I applaud Amazon for making a tablet that I can give to my kids and I don't have to worry about them finding the settings menu, doing a factory reset on the device, browsing apps and videos that they aren't ready for, or spilling their apple juice on it! Thank you Amazon for having the vision to see this need and meeting it. Read more ›