Tablet for kids

[SunnyAquaFish]

We are going away in the summer and facing a 4 hour flight, and then a 60-90 minute coach journey to our hotel on the other end. I have a 4 & 2 year old and usually very anti-device as a whole, but I really am considering a tablet (each?) for the journey there and back! I just don't see stickers and colouring and whatever else I'll have in their bags cutting it.

Recommendations please - amazon fire or refurbed Apple iPad? Help!

My two have Amazon fire kids 7 inch tablets, they have been great. Especially for travelling with some decent noise limiting kids headphones

Please take headphones

Amazon fire are perfect for this are, agree re headphones. As well as fun educational games you can load them up with tv shows and movies they like. I would still take sticker & colouring books. One thing I use to do was carry small colouring books and boxs of crayons ( I still carry these) in my bag. The party bag size ones so it’s no big deal if they loose or break the crayons there is always more.

We've done this with a 2.5 year old and my tip if you are generally anti-device is: get them used to the headphones beforehand, otherwise you will be screwed if they refuse to wear them. We only had one toddler and a little baby, so only needed one tablet, and just ended up using one of our own ipads with a few episodes of In the Night Garden downloaded onto it. We had lots of alternatives (story books, little toys, reusable stickers, snacks etc.) and the flight itself is pretty exciting for at least the first half hour, so we held out for the tablet till we definitely felt we needed it.

Get reconditioned ipads, Amazon Fire are crap unless they've really improved in the last few years.

Don’t waste your money on a Kindle Fire, get a refurb iPad instead.

A lot of people say the fires are no good, but we haven't found that. My nearly 4 year old uses one that was originally her older sisters, we bought it in 2019 I think!

She plays games, has iPlayer and Disney apps which I download stuff to so she can watch offline

Kindle fire.

You'll gwt people claim they're crap, just get an ipad etc. But for the price they re not bad at all. The space is limited on them so make sure it's expandable and get a micro sd card. The amazon kids subscription included for a year allows you to download games. Loads for that age group that work well.

My 4 year old has a kindle fire and it's been great. Can't fault it. Sure if you have an 8 year old using high memory games they're not so good. But for little kids they're perfect.

If their limitations will work for you, kindle fires are great. My kids have had them for years now - think we've been through 2-3 each which is still nothing close to what we would have spent on an ipad. And I don't panic when they drop them / spill stuff on them / whatever.

They basically use them as portable tellys but have a few games and such on them as well.

And please please please ensure they use headphones. Cannot stand how common it's becoming for people to just make everyone else listen to their devices.