Our boys like to play Minecraft together and currently do so on our Apple TV and either my phone or my wife’s tablet. We’re thinking of getting them a (cheap) tablet to do this and the Amazon Fire seems like a bargain at £35 on Amazon right now. They also use Netflix, YouTube and of course the internet.

Seems like a bargain. Is it too good to be true?

We got our 2 one each for Christmas. Made the mistake of getting them with adverts as we thought they might not be too annoying, cost £10 to get them removed as they were very annoying 😈
Was still only £40 as they were on sale.

How do you get one *without* adverts?

We’ve just bought two for the kids to play minecraft. All good, easy to set access levels and wotnot. I have one too and the only downsides for me were being restricted to amazon stuff and it seems a few apps I wanted are not on the amazon app store. But for movies and spotify and browsing its very good. Plenty to keep the kids occupied though.

How do you get one *without* adverts?

Go for the one ‘without special offers’. The adverts are not special offers..
We got one of these each too and they offer great protection and double as a stand/carry handle: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sztook-Convertible-Handle-Protective-Display/dp/B01AVWQR08/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1486640866&sr=8-3&keywords=fire%2Bkids%2Bcase&th=1

FWIW I don’t mind the advert, its only on the log on screen on mine.

They are the best tablets you can get imho for the parental control features. Having said that, once the parental controls are “on”, the tablet is a nightmare to manage. If you can live with that then yes they are a steal at the price, well made and good performance/features.

+1

I have one too and the only downsides for me were being restricted to amazon stuff and it seems a few apps I wanted are not on the amazon app store

I’ve sideloaded the google play store onto mine so I can now install off google play and off amazon underground. http://www.howtogeek.com/232726/how-to-install-the-google-play-store-on-your-amazon-fire-tablet/ has instructions, I’m pretty sure I used the adb way.

Seems like a bargain. Is it too good to be true?

Nope. They are decent and solid budget tablets, but at £35 it’s insanely good value.

Only slight gripe with the parental controls is that you don’t seem to be able to set time limits by content. So you can’t say games finish at 7pm but you can still read.

The ‘special offers’ seem to be just ads on the lock screen that are very easy to ignore. And ironically, if you get kids unlimited (£2/mo on top of Prime) then you get a huge stack of decent kids games without any of the shit ads and in-game purchases that ruin the normal play store free content.

So even though it has ads, it actually has far fewer ads overall.

We went with Amazon’s own flip covers as they are great.

Can you get minecraft on the kids one? My 8yo is gagging for it but i cant see how you add it.

Yes, we have it. You have to pay for it, it’s not in kids unlimited.

To buy apps and any content outside of kids unlimited, you have to buy it yourself then share it with the kid’s account.

Ok, thanks.

thanks all. Think I’ll take a punt

Got some at Christmas for the kids £35 from John Lewis. No issue with the adverts as they are only on the unlock screen. Kids love them but battery life isnt great compared to an iPad. Then again they were only £35!!

I got a couple on Black Friday for £30 each.

Insanely good value. We gave them to our boys for the Christmas travel (Thailand – London – Dublin – Derry – Exeter – London – Thailand) and they were great. Amused the children and for the money it’s hard to beat. A level below my adored Hudl but also a 1/3 of the price.

I got one for my mum to play bejwelled on basically. It’s ridiculously good for the price but it does have some pain in the arse wee foibles too, I think it’s close enough to vanilla android to make it feel really jarring when it’s different, or something. Not sure I’d buy one myself but no denying the value.

A level below my adored Hudl

Maybe Hudl 2 – but ours are better than the Hudl 1 we have I reckon. Screen worse, but quicker in use.

I went for Hudl 2’s for my girls for Christmas.

Bit pricier than the Fire – but about the same cost as the Kids Fire and no ongoing subscription fees etc.

But the main thing that swung it for me was the specs:
Hudl 2 has a 1920×1200 8.3-inch screen, 1.83 GHz CPU and 2GB RAM, 5MP camera
Fire has a 1024×600 7inch screen, 1.3 GHz CPU and 1GB of RAM, 2MP camera

I got two for £30 each during a deal, one for my mum, and one for my eldest

Amazon found that some were shipped with faulty chargers, so Amazon credited me £15 for each to help me through the trauma.

Good value? Not half.

We got two Fires last Christmas (ie, 14 months ago) for our then 6 yr olds. They have held up well despite a few drops. The charger socket on one is a little iffy now but otherwise they are great.

We got some SD card storage for them too so now they are loaded with films for travelling and they can download games to their hearts’ are content (well they can once we have typed in the master parental control password anyway).

We set them up as Kids versions for about 5 minutes then reverted to the standard view as it didn’t seem to have much value in it other than visual simplicity. We can still fully control them with parental controls (ie, no internet, no in app purchases, no downloading, disabled at certain times etc).

Amazon found that some were shipped with faulty chargers

We just got replacement chargers 🙁

I went for Hudl 2’s for my girls for Christmas.

Bit pricier than the Fire

Depends what you wnt to do. For me, kids unlimited seals it. Endless ad-free in-game purchase free decent quality kids games and books, without feeling like you’re being used. And younger kids don’t care about specs or screen quality.

However older kids getting into specific games that you want to buy – open Android might be better.

older kids getting into specific games that you want to buy

Minecraft – do I need Kids Unlimited for that or “open Android”? The boys are already trusted with an “open” iPad.

Kids unlimited is a load of free games and content, that you sign up for.

Normal apps, games and books come from the Amazon store, Minecraft is on there and NOT on kids unlimited.

Open android is not amazon related, it’s what you get on Hudls and other android tablets, and everything on there you download from Google Play store. Minecraft is also on there.

How easy is it to load a proper version of Android on the Fire tablet?

GrahamS – Member
I went for Hudl 2’s for my girls for Christmas.

Bit pricier than the Fire – but about the same cost as the Kids Fire and no ongoing subscription fees etc.

But the main thing that swung it for me was the specs:
Hudl 2 has a 1920×1200 8.3-inch screen, 1.83 GHz CPU and 2GB RAM, 5MP camera
Fire has a 1024×600 7inch screen, 1.3 GHz CPU and 1GB of RAM, 2MP camera

I’ve got a Hudl2 and it’s a great but of kit but you don’t need to have an on going sub to use a Kindle Fire and I don’t think Tesco are going to be supporting or pushing updates for Hudls anymore. 😐

you don’t need to have an on going sub to use a Kindle Fire

True, but the Kids Unlimited package is £7.99 a month for up to four kids (or £4.99 a month if you already have Amazon Prime).

It’s sometihng like £1.99 for one kid when bought with a Prime membership. And you can use the same account on two tablets, so I’ve merged my kids like Station dude from Bill and Ted’s bogus journey.

“Maybe Hudl 2”

Yes. Should’ve said.