Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids Edition overview

The Fire HD eight Kids Edition is the larger of Amazon’s capsules focused on children. At coronary heart, it’s a popular Fire HD eight, but with a drop-evidence rubber case and a 12 months’ free subscription to the Fire For Kids service, which affords access to a wealth of kiddy-friendly content material.

So the core of this package deal is the Amazon Fire HD eight – if the nuts and bolts of that subject you, feel free to click away and come back hereafter. In a nutshell, it’s a cheap and cheerful eight-inch tablet. It truly is high-quality so long as you do not mind being locked into the Amazon environment.

Squeezed into the provided Kids Edition case – available in blue, purple, or yellow – bodily, it turns into a very extraordinary beast indeed. It’s tons fatter and heavier, however very grippable, and it feels like it could live to tell the tale of being hurled throughout a room in a slushie-fuelled tantrum.

Like the instances of preceding Kids Edition capsules, it jogs my memory of a car steerage wheel. It has a bit of supply and a mild texturing to forestall it slipping from chocolate-smeared arms. The HD eight definitely squeezes into it with a pleasing, tight shape.

There are holes reduce out of the case for the rear digicam, the stereo speakers along with the bottom, the quantity rocker, the 3.5mm headphone socket, and the power button and Micro USB charging port.

It still bothers me that Amazon would not deliver a screen protector, specifically thinking about the massive top rate charged for the Kids Edition over the same old HD 8. The case protrudes far sufficient from the display screen that it will likely be a savior most of the time, but I’d fear it being dropped on a sharp wood toy or something, with the glass display taking an instantaneous hit. Thankfully, Amazon gives a two-year no-quibble warranty with the HD eight Kids Edition.

Another issue I’d nevertheless like to see is a few shapes of the kickstand, permitting the pill to be stood on a desk or ground. The EE Robin controlled it through a neat folding bring handle, and I’d wish Amazon will try something comparable inside the destiny.

The HD eight Kids Edition comes with the top-tier 32GB of storage that is on hand for downloading all those apps your youngsters will likely eat via. A microSD slot means you may even ramp up the gap to 256GB.

The final extra you pay a top rate for is the Fire For Kids app and a twelve-month loose subscription to the service. This gives a child-friendly overlay with a load of useful parental controls and access to a ton of respectable films, video games, and ebooks.

AMAZON FIRE HD eight KIDS EDITION – PERFORMANCE

As we said in our overview of the standard HD eight, there is a lot to love about Amazon’s tablet; however, it also loads it can do higher.

The 8-inch IPS show, as an instance, is pretty reflective and lacks contrast. It does go pretty brilliant, although, so at least you may try to fight the one’s reflections if it is used outdoors.

Performance from the MediaTek processor and 2GB of RAM isn’t always scintillating. Still, it is top sufficient for the simple apps and video streams to maintain your children glued to the display.

The cameras – a 2-megapixel unit at the rear and VGA on the front – are fairly awful by contemporary telephone standards. However, they may be respectable enough to let your kids mess around. It isn’t like they may be Instagramming their Alphabetti Spaghetti.

The 12-hour battery existence is pretty awesome, however.

Amazon’s operating machine, Fire OS, is Android-based; however, now not Android as you understand it. That means you may get most of the major Android apps for Fire OS, which includes Netflix and the CBeebies apps, but you can not get Sky Q or Sky Kids, as an instance. You’ve been warned.

And now to the real meat: that one-year subscription to the Fire For Kids service. It’s basically a simplified UI that overlays Fire OS and provides admission to masses of age-appropriate content material.

You open Fire For Kids much like some other app, and it gives you a choice to add profiles for each of the children who may be using the pill. Just deliver them a call, age, gender, and profile p.C. You can also decide whether to assign them a widespread Fire For Kids account or give them a Teen Profile for youngsters aged eleven and older. I’ll admit I could not spot a great deal distinction among the 2.

With your infant signed in, they have a preference of content material kind: Books, Videos, Apps, Characters, and (in case you’ve enabled permission) Web. They also can seek using the title or use the camera. All of the kinds are filled with content material, and you will even recognize most of it – these are typically well-known brands instead of cheap filler.

Browsing with the aid of a famous person, plenty of familiar faces: Harry Potter, Thomas the Tank Engine, Fireman Sam, Postman Pat, Gruffalo and a load greater, and sub-classes along with Dinosaurs, Trains, Princesses, Sports, and Superheroes, to name only some.

However, there does not seem to be any real shape to the category lists, so something like Videos may be a bit overwhelming. Or, instead, you may locate your kids by no means even spot that there may be something in there they could have cherished.

Some of the apps can take a long term to download, and the progress bar is not outstanding-obvious, so that you may get your little darlings complaining about things taking too lengthy. Books are a great deal faster, even though and films stream almost instantly – however, you do need regular Wi-Fi for the latter, so no movies for the ones lengthy journeys within the car.

Handily, you can additionally download outdoor apps – which include CBeebies Playtime Island – thru your adult account and genuinely upload them for your infant’s permitted apps list. This is virtually useful for older kids, especially as a lot of the Fire For Kids content material is centered on more youthful children.

One factor Amazon has brought a special internet browser, which may be set to reveal a curated set of Amazon-authorised bookmarks. Any different websites must be manually put on the approved list – although, in the case of YouTube, you may simplest approve particular motion pictures rather than the complete website.

The HD 8 Kids Edition is a clearly tremendous tablet for kids, combining a respectable display screen size and drop-evidence layout with a slick UI and heaps of actually awesome content material.

The most effective downsides are a loss of offline video viewing and the reality that the massive charge top rate over the same old HD 8 best gets you a one-yr subscription to the Fire For Kids carrier.