Amazon.com: Customer reviews: Fire 7 Kids Edition Tablet, 7" Display, 16 GB, Blue Kid-Proof Case - (Previous Generation

Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2018

My 15 month old loves my iPad. Whether we are on a road trip or lounging in the house he is using it. He loves ABC's and number apps. He shows this love by screaming and banging my very expensive 12 inch iPad pro. That didn't bother me until one day he decided to test out the durability by dropping it. (Luckily no damage).

It was at that point in time we decided to get him a tablet that could handle the "abuse". After researching online I have found the Kindle fire 7 for kids was the best deal. It functions like an android tablet but it uses Amazon's own software, so it took a few minutes to get use to.

HARDWARE
The padding around the tablet is so thick that when it is dropped, it just bounces. (My son decided to test this as soon as we took it out of the box) Amazon is brilliant when it comes to knowing childern; it offers a 2 year warranty on it. If your child brakes it, they replace it no questions asked. It also offers 1 year of all access kids freetime. (This is Amazon's platform so you can download games, movies, books, and more). This tablet only offers 16gb but you can remove the case and add a micro SD card for more memory.

The battery life on the Kindle last 6 hours. That is plenty of time because you dont need you kid be on it all day. The speaker on it is okay. Its not the best sounding speaker but for a $100 and a kids tablet, it does just fine.

The camera is a cheap camera that wont take the best photos. But again, its a $100 tablet for kids so it does a good job.

SOFTWARE

THIS TABLET CONNECTS TO YOUR AMAZON ACCOUNT. IF YOU HAVE PRIME YOU GAIN ACCESS TO MORE FEATURES.

When you first set up the Kindle, you set up your child's account. You are asked when your child's birthday is. After you enter that in, the tablet will only show age appropriate content. If your child is under 10, the theme for the tablet is a bright blue and lots of colors. Over 10 the theme changes to a midght purple.

In the parent account, you can edit whether or not you want you kids to able to surf the web, download apps, make purchases, and much more. If have the "child under 10" selected, you will have to download the app on your account then add it to your childs account. There is a setting to do that. Go to settings, family accounts, chose your child's name, then add content. You can books, apps, videos, and anything else you want. But remember you have to download it first.

IF YOUR KIDS LIKE YOUTUBE-At the time of this review, I havent been able to download the actual Youtube app. I get apps that are very similar and will take you to Youtube videos but not the offical YouTube app.

Once you load you child's account, they cannot get out of it. If your child tries to do anything with settings or tries to switch accounts the are asked for the parents password.

CONCLUSION
Overall this a great tablet for kids. It is meant to take a beating and handle anything your child does to it. Its a $100 tablet that functions and serves its purpose. You can relax knowing that your child is only seeing age appropriate content and not have to worry about handing over your phone or your tablet. I would deffinelty reccomend this tablet for parents who are tired handing over their expensive stuff.

6 people found this helpful

Helpful

Rendezvous

Great for my son

Reviewed in the United States on July 24, 2017

Verified Purchase

Had to get a new tablet for my son because the old one almost caught fire. Luckily this tablet is everything I could have hoped for in a kid's tablet.

The Freetime unlimited is such a grand idea, so many apps that I had to pay for are available for free as long as you subscribe, but it comes free for the first year. My son has already found his favorite apps and videos. He's even gotten into the books.

And the freetime unlimited also keeps kids in the app so I never have to worry about him getting out of the app and into things he has no business getting into. And with the parental controls I can make sure that he doesn't stay up pass his bedtime playing on his tablet. It's really good at stopping all activity at the time you set it for.

Another great thing about this tablet (though not so great for me) is the sound. It can pack a punch sound wise, especially in quiet rooms. Often time I find myself turning it down just for peace of mind. And the screen display is lovely. Not too big and not too small with a crisp picture. And very bright display, had to turn it down so it wouldn't blind us.

Delivery for this product was super humanly fast. It came 4 days before the expected date which was great because my son was getting restless not having a tablet. Then again ordering straight from Amazon has always done me well in speed. And the tablet was unharmed, even the box it came in was pristine.

Also the tablet is super lightweight. When I received it in the mail I almost thought I had an empty box. Because my son's old table had a nice weight to it, this one is super light and he can carry it everywhere with no problem. Haven't had the chance to test out the protective case yet, and hopefully never will.

My only issue with this tablet, but it doesn't stop me from giving it 5 stars, is battery life. My son can run a battery down like none other, and I find myself having to charge the tablet often. Though I haven't let it outright die yet, I can't afford to let that happen. My son loves his new tablet too much to wait for it to charge. But I remembered there's a low power mode so I'll see how good that works for him.

Overall this tablet is fulfilling every need my son has, for such a great price too, and I see myself maybe getting a fire tablet for myself in the future.

36 people found this helpful

Helpful

Urduja

Parents with young kids - this is worth it

Reviewed in the United States on June 13, 2017

Verified Purchase

We have always used Samsung tablets and so this took a little while adjusting how to navigate.
So, far we have been using this for about a week and it does take some time to set-up. You will need to go through and make sure all the settings are correct for your kid, and this will take some time (I think the effort is worth it)

This review is specifically for the Kids Edition tablet:
The tablet:
The tablet itself, is a good size for my (almost) 3 yr old. It is not heavy and seems to be the right size for him to handle. The protective case has definitely done its job because we have already had a couple of incidents. (update: this has been thrown against a wall and landed on tile, and no cracks or breaks) The viewing quality is decent. Otherwise, it is what you would expect from a tablet. I have not had another Fire before, so I can only compare this to a Samsung Galaxy, and so far, it is what I would expect from a tablet of this class.

The features (the real reason for the purchase):
is it worth it? YES. DEFINITELY
Previously, we had been sharing our tablet and our phones with our little one, but more and more he would get into content he should not be getting into - everything from buying stuff and watching content not appropriate for his age - ie our downloads of Deadpool and Logan because these look like 'superheroes' but they are not the appropriate ones for kids - (side note: I loved how they portrayed Deadpool and Logan - we are big comic fans and they finally got their characters right!).
I have even deleted YouTube from our tablets and hidden the app in our phones in files so that he can't get at them...
But this tablet has been a game changer. It has GREAT parental controls. I love being able to hand him the tablet and not worry about what he is going to come across. (if you have a little one, you will still need to go through and filter content because there are older kid content that may be too much for the younger ones). Personally, I spent about 2 hours going through the content. I wish they had a better way to filter through the content - like have subject sections - ie math science history... Most of the content is great and educational, but some, like learning about adverbs and adjectives is just not where we are at currently. Filtering the content, I was able to let my little one get to the videos games and books that he would be most interested in faster without having to scroll through too much stuff. There is also a feature that allows you to limit how much content, which content, and for how long they can do stuff. You can have unlimited reading time, and limit the videos and apps(games) to only an hour or so. I have set the tablet to lock down 30 mins before bedtime to until mid afternoon (after nap time) which allows for real play time in the morning and then he has the tablet to occupy late afternoon as I am getting dinner ready and cleaning up around the house.

CONS: download speed. much content needs to be downloaded and that takes time. The books apps and videos are not already pre-loaded and if they want to watch read or do something new, it will need to be downloaded. We have a hotspot on our phones for road trips and I do take a lot of plane trips with the little one, so I would suggest pre-downloading favorites for the trip.

update: Does not work with Chromecast - I think this this goes for all Fire tablets. Even though they are an android, it looks like you would need a Fire stick. This is not a deal breaker for us, but it is nice to be able to mirror the content to the tv.

CONCERN: I would say at this moment, my main concern is I love the "FreeTime" feature, but how much is this going to cost me when my free year is up?

I have already been recommending this product to my friends with young kids.
There are some cool content for older kids, but depending on your child's interest, a regular tablet would most likely be more appropriate.

I paid for my product and there has not been any incentive for me to do this review. I don't work with Amazon nor am I affiliated with them.

751 people found this helpful

Helpful

Svillemomof4

Great investment!

Reviewed in the United States on December 6, 2018

Verified Purchase

We bought two of these for a discount a week before Thanksgiving, one for our house and one for our daughter's house, for our granddaughter's 2nd birthday. We ended up giving it to her a week early on Thanksgiving. She is absolutely obsessed! She watches Netflix and she plays abcmouse on it, downloads kid friendly educational apps on her own (they come preloaded with access to a ton of kids apps), and she loves the coloring book apps. She has to have it for car rides now and she doesn't even mind the headphones we got her (this child hates anything over her ears or on her head). One huge selling point on these is the warranty. 2 years no questions asked and they will fix or replace it? Who does that? Nobody but Amazon, that's who! The rubber case is so great for little hands. She has no problems picking it up and carrying her tablet around. The parental controls make it so that you must download the extra apps (that aren't already set up as accessible kid friendly apps on the tablet) under your parent profile and then give permission to share them with the child profile. This keeps them from downloading apps they shouldn't. You can set time limits for your child as well. You can have more than one child profile on each tablet which is great if you have multiple children but only one tablet. This has been well worth the money!

Now, the downsides. We have only been using it a short time and already the screen has frozen a few times. No biggie really, just hold the power button for 40 seconds and then power it back up. I do restart the tablet a few times a week but I may need to start doing it daily. The battery life is horrible. Because it is always connected to wifi the battery drains very quickly. She only gets about 3 hours of play time on it in a single charge. That might be ideal for those parents that limit time because their child sits on the tablet non stop but for my grand she will be playing with her kitchen or coloring on her desk while having a movie or music playing on her tablet. And it takes FOREVER to charge! No fast charging on any of the ones I've seen.

All in all I give it 4 stars. If the charging was faster or the battery life longer it would get more stars. But I wouldn't let that stop me from purchasing this thing, in the end you really can't beat it.

Helpful

S Ashby

it's light weight and setting up the children with separate accounts was easy. The Anytime is great

Reviewed in the United States on August 3, 2018

Verified Purchase

I waited a few months to review the 2 Kids Fire 7's purchased. I wanted to find out for myself, if the problems others have encountered were user error or actual device problems. I am not the tech wizard in my house, I leave that heavy lifting to my husband. I talked him into buying the Kids Fire 7s for a long trip we were taking, I was done with constantly giving my children (2 & 9) my iPhone or iPad. I really wanted something for them.
Pros:
Out of the box we were both impressed, it's light weight and setting up the children with separate accounts was easy. The Anytime is great, they can download what they want and use it off wifi; also I enjoy the use of age appropriate content. My 2 year old has a bit of a temper, as most do, they have thrown it and spilt milk on it, not broken. My children find the Anytime interface easy to use and the battery life has not disappointed us yet. Love that I can keep them in Anytime with passwords and the use of Dashboard.
Pro or Con:
In the Anytime interface children can click on an app to play but apps "conveniently" download to the tablet, which can cause a space issue. This really comes down to a parental preference. The Kids Fire 7 does have a port for extra storage but like I said it is a preference to extend the storage space. We chose not to expand the storage space, not because we wanted to limit their content but every time they touch an app it downloads. It is much easier allow our 9 year old to decide what to keep or decide for our 2 year old what is best.
Cons:
Our 9 year old is allowed to charge their own electronic devices. They have an iPhone and the Kids Fire7. The micro usb charging cord has broken prongs which keep the charger in place when inside the tablet. Without careful connection from the charging cord into the Kids Fire 7, the charging cable will fail and require a new charging cable. In other words don't allow your children to charge their own devices.

Hope this helps.

Helpful

R. Young

Kinda sorta okish, maybe?

Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2017

Verified Purchase

Ok, when you are buying this tablet for a child, you are kind of buying two aspects of it. The physical tablet, and the Freetime Unlimited access.

The physical tablet:
5 stars
This is an entry level tablet, very inexpensive as far as tablets go and a good value for the price. It runs a bit slow, but it's what I expected and is perfectly appropriate for a young child. I bought it for a 3 year old who is thrilled to get it and wants to spend every waking moment on it and has already cried when I said it was time to put it away. So, that's fun. The case is soft and squishy and it feels like it protects the tablet well. My particular 3 year old is generally well behaved and treats the tablet very well, but I feel like she could get away with being much rougher with it and it could handle it.

The FreeTime app:
1 star.
When I ordered the tablet, I figured I would probably keep subscribing to this service after my free year expired. I no longer think that. The biggest complaint I have is that it's not easy enough to block content. There should be a way to block ALL content except what you choose to unblock. Instead, I'm going through having to block everything manually, and let me tell you, it's a LOT to block. Why block so much? Because 99 percent of the content is pure crap. If you have any standards whatsoever, you're not going to like most of what's available for free on the app. I just looked through the video section. Nothing that I wanted my kid to watch. There are good kid movies and shows out there, but none of them are on the app. And I have it limited to 2-4 year olds, but Star Trek is on there?? There are amazing children's literature out there, but we have a bunch of Dora and Barney books. Seriously?? And not all educational apps are created equal. Some are very lame, or confusing, or actually give your child the wrong information. I'm of the opinion that children are smart people whose time is valuable and they deserve quality entertainment and educational materials. And I don't think FreeTime has enough quality materials on there to be worth $3 a month. Heck, I'm not sure it's worth the nothing that I've paid so far with how annoying it is to deal with. And I don't want a 3 year old to have to dig through thousands and thousands of apps, books, videos, to get to it. WHY is there not a way to block everything except what parents unblock? This is a no brainer.

So why talk about FreeTime when it's just one app on this tablet? Because you are buying this for a child right? (Or because you like a squishy bright yellow case, not judging.) You are wanting to hand the tablet to the child and drink your coffee in peace for ten minutes without having to look over the child's shoulder to make sure they aren't purchasing 400 digital lives in their favorite app. So your options are FreeTime Unlimited, with all it's limitations, or the built in parental controls which are a bit lacking. Not enough options, not enough control. But that's what I'm going to end up having to do I think till FreeTime becomes less of a nightmare. You can set up a child profile (it has to be a "teen" one, apparently) and block the FreeTime app, and then you can ADD the content that you pay for. It's unclear and confusing and inadequate, but it's better that tapping on 8000 Calliou books/apps/videos.

UPDATE 10/8/17
Knocking this from three to one star. My ability to block content from the Freetime app has gone away. A couple hours with tech support hasn't resolved this issue. I wish I could return this thing at this point. I've spent entirely too many hours trying to get it to work and being baffled that basic functionality either isn't available or isn't working. This is too frustrating to be worth it.

9 people found this helpful

Helpful

Sierra

Our child's favorite tablet, unfortunately there is one major flaw. After 4 kindles, it has not changed.

Reviewed in the United States on August 7, 2017

Verified Purchase

I am really sad to give this review anything less than 5 stars, but I would appreciate the understanding as to why. We have owned, now, 4 different Kids Edition Tablets. They have their pros and cons for sure, but we have started to notice a trend with each one. Before I get into why I am no longer a fan of these, I want to express my love for the content and set up.

Pros: They have amazing options for kids, of all ages -- and an option to even set up a Kindle based on the age range. There is a huge variety of movies, shows, books, games, characters, etc. and that is great! There is no shortage of entertainment that these can't provide to children, as young at 24 months. We have found that our girls openly express the things they are learning, and we've watched their progress - which, as a parent, you wouldn't ask for much more! The battery life is also great so that helps keep kids entertained for hours, especially on a long car drive. Having the ability to expand the storage is great, and somewhat of a necessity as kids have a tendency to just click everything they see, downloading many gigs of data almost immediately. The case is also an added bonus. It does a great job of protecting the screen and for smaller kids, that's extremely important in extending the usage and life of your device. Kids can easily navigate the menus, parents can monitor the usage and set limits, and of course, the kids portion of the tablet is an add on so adults can use this tablet with ease whenever they choose to: with the ability to access the internet, social media, email, books, video apps, and everything else.

Cons: There is only one major downside to these devices, but unfortunately we have seen the same thing happen with all 4 of the kids kindles we have had. The charger ports fail so quickly. The chargers are never secure, they wiggle after days of use and after about a month, the only way to successfully charge your device is through a stabilizer and tape. This method only seems to work out for so long before charging becomes an impossibility and you are back to returning your kindle. Thankfully they now have a 2 year return ability, but previously it was only 1 and we ended up with two non-charging kindles by the end of it. It has been the most disappointing part of having these and you can imagine our kids upset when they find out they no longer can play with their favorite tablet until we can get them, yet again, another one. Over time, the battery life also begins to suffer so I wish the batteries that were used for these items could hold a charge for a longer period of time. There comes a point, right around a year of having the device where a full battery may only last through a movie - we have given our daughter's their devices fully charged at 9am and they are dead, or close to dying, by no later than 11 or noon.

These are my only two complaints, unfortunately they are pretty serious complaints and they affect the ability to use the items for as long as I believe you should be able to. If these issues were to be fixed, these would be the perfect kids electronic. Until then, I am definitely wary of purchasing any more of these devices.

2,485 people found this helpful

Helpful

PaulaKoala

GREAT VALUE AND IDEAL TABLET FOR LITTLE ONES

Reviewed in the United States on December 31, 2017

Verified Purchase

We bought this for our 4 year old daughter for Christmas and are thrilled with this tablet! It couldn’t be simpler to use. The tabs are easy for her to navigate. All of the apps are there ready to be loaded with one click and once they are she can play them offline. It also has a video link with lots of popular kids shows for her to chose from. I’ve owned inexpensive tablets before that were such a pain to try and set up and let her use and then the loading time would drive us crazy and ultimately she’d get bored after a short while of trying to use it and ask to play games on my phone instead. She loves her Fire so much that thought has never crossed her mind since she’s had it. The size is also great and the fact that it comes in the rubber case (those can cost a pretty penny on their own) makes this tablet an excellent value. The only downside to the tablet, as I read in other reviews, is that it is a little on the slow side to charge. But once it’s charged she gets plenty of play time on it. Overall, we are very satisfied with this purchase. It does have a regular mode that can be signed into with all of the features a tablet for us adults have, but I haven’t had a chance to pry it out of her little hands to try that out. Overall, we are very satisfied with this product.

Helpful

R. Whitcher

Tablet is great. The OS is not.

Reviewed in the United States on October 23, 2018

Verified Purchase

The one praise about this product is that the hardware is good and the bumper protection on it is excellent. After that, starts all the parent challenges with this product.

Freetime
You get a free 1-year subscription to Freetime. Sounds like a great offer, right? The con here is that you can't easily deselect what you don't want your child to have access to. You can narrow down the content to age appropriate apps and videos. But there isn't a whitelist option to only specify the apps and videos that you want them to have access to. You can blacklist items, one-by-one. It'll take you about an hour to blacklist everything (if you wanted to go that route) and then turn back on the items that you do want them to access. Ah, but there's a catch! Amazon adds new content all the time without your knowing it, so all your efforts to blacklist everything go out the window.

Post the 1-year Subscription
Once your free year is up, you start paying for Freetime monthly. Or you don't have to and then it's just a child profile that only has access to the apps and videos that the parent account gives them access to. Sounds simple enough, right? Nope. That's when you learn that in-app purchases or in-app subscriptions become a problem. You can't purchase an expansion pack on the adult profile and expect that in-app purchase to transfer to the child's profile. Doesn't work that way! So you try to be clever and purchase it inside the child profile. You might get away with that if you turn on the in-app purchases option. But then you hit a wall with in-app subscriptions (ie ABC Mouse, Hungry Caterpillar Playschool); child profiles are never allowed to purchase in-app subscriptions. So how on earth do you allow your child to use a child-geared app on a child's profile??
You also discover that the hard drive on this device doesn't go far. So you buy the largest SD card that the device allows for and install it. That's when you learn that the adult profiles and child profiles handle content a little different. Not everything can automatically go to the SD card from the child profiles (pictures, in-app downloaded videos from Netflix and Hulu). So your device is constantly running out of HD space even though there are 32 GBs of free space sitting on your SD card.

Ditch Freetime
You get rid of the child profile! Ditch all the Freetime limitations and set your child up with an adult profile. Now there is a limitation here too. You can only have 2 adult profiles and 2 child profiles on the Kindle Fire. So if you're going to ditch the child profiles, that means you're limited to just 2 adult profiles. Now the concern might be your child purchasing apps, getting on the internet, and getting into additional mischief. Thankfully, there are parental controls that you can turn on to limit a lot of content and purchasing power. What I did was create a folder and stuffed it with all the Amazon apps (that you can't uninstall). Then put it at the bottom of the apps displayed. So all of her kid apps are listed first. And even if she does get into one of the Amazon apps, the parental controls prevent her from doing most things with them. There is even a curfew option that you can enable inside of parental controls. By using the adult profile, you can handle all the in-app purchases and subscriptions without Freetime getting in your way.

Amazon App Store
Now this may be the make or break of you getting an Amazon tablet. The reality is that you don't have access to every Android app on the planet. You only have access to the Android apps that Amazon allows you to download from the Amazon store. For those who just don't take no for an answer, you can get around this by Googling instructions on how to install the Google Playstore on the adult profile. This will extensively open you up to more apps. But ditch Freetime first! Don't go down the path of getting a Google Playstore app into a child's profile. Talk about a nightmare and a laundry list of regrets. It's not worth all the effort.

Summary
If I had known all the Googling that would have been involved with this product, then I probably wouldn't have bought it. But now that I *think* I've overcomed most of the challenges, it's not a bad product for a child. It's affordable. Durable. She has access to plenty of mainstream educational and entertainment apps. Will I replace this device with another Amazon Kindle? Eh, it is highly unlikely unless Amazon improves their OS and App Store options.

7 people found this helpful

Helpful

Jaqui R.

6 months of use, and I say it’s a fail.... F+

Reviewed in the United States on November 27, 2018

Verified Purchase

6 months with the tablet, and we are VERY disappointed...

The concept behind this is good... but it simply fails to give enough control to the PARENTS! And in my opinion, that’s the most important aspect.

Let me explain that to anyone that hasn’t owned a FreeTime tablet before. Basically this device gives your child unlimited downloading power!! And they designed the user interface to be so dumbed down, that it doesn’t even show a difference between already owned apps, and unowned apps. It only shows a thumbnail image to represent the entire app. No name, no type description, no label of whether you own it or not....literally just a picture! So if your child is young, they see a cool picture, and click on it, assuming they can play it! Right? Except 99% of the time, it’s not an app you already own, so it begins downloading that new app. The child can’t play it because it’s currently downloading. Child doesn’t understand. Gets mad. Now the entire reason you got the tablet is moot! Because the child is constantly upset and in confusion when trying to play on the tablet!

Now let’s just assume that aspect doesn’t bother you much.... will it bother you when you let your child play on the tablet for 20 mins, while you cook, or shower, or clean. And when you check on them, you find that there is literally 100+ new apps currently downloading!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No exaggeration people! I have spent countless hours, and nights, going into my sons profile and deleting new apps. And there is zero way to combat this issue as a parent. No way to disable it! Not even turning off all internet connection will stop it! It’s crazy. And absolutely reckless to give children unbridled and unlimited access to an App Store! I wanted my child to have a few games and apps to play when I NEED just a little time. But I did NOT want to forfiet all parenting rights for his content. And neither should you!

And a cherry on top here....there’s not even an easy or simple way to monitor the newly downloaded content, and delete the unwanted!!!!! Seriously shocking! Amazon requires that you search the entire App Store for apps you want to remove or block. Which is insanely inconvenient. But the big hang up with that, is that FreeTime mode doesn’t say the name of the apps!!!!!!! So there’s literally nothing you can do! Even if you are willing to put in the massive amount of time it would take to write down the name of 100+ apps every night. Switch profiles to your adult account. Go into settings. Then search for the exact title of each app. Then remove or block it.

But let’s just say you’re a Super Mom, with freak abilities, and you can do this just fine every night. After you get done deleting tons and tons of apps, then switch back over to the child’s FreeTime profile to check out the results. You’ll be very rudely surprised to find ALL the apps are back!!!! But this time in a new tab, THAT NEVER GOES AWAY, called “recent”. That’s right folks! The recent tab is here forever!! To haunt you! And be right up front and center on your child’s profile. Showcasing all the apps you worked so hard to delete! Begging your child to click on them again, launching them to redownload AGAIN!!! And then your hellish night from the day before, of deleting 100+ apps, gets to repeat again tonight! Sounds fun right???? If you answered yes, then by golly miss molly this is the right tablet for you!! But if you answered no, and you wanted a tablet to assist you in parenting, not take away all control you have to discern for your child, and what they shouldn’t have access to....then this is not a good product for you. And you should tell amazon what you think of their “limitless” tablet for kids, as young as 2 years old.

Dear Amazon; please please please, I beg of you!!! Create a FreeTime mode with ZERO access to downloading new apps. So for the discerning parents like myself, we can chose what to download for our child. Then hand it to them confidently, knowing they are safe, and secure, and we can breath a sigh of relief for perhaps just 5 minutes that day. Where nothing went wrong, and we could just rest, while our children play. It’s so simple. Please do that for us moms, because no one is. Thank you.