Read MNers’ feedback on the Amazon Fire Kids Edition tablet. Non-testers, £300 voucher to be won! NOW CLOSED!

[AaronMumsnet]

This is the feedback thread for those 30 MNers who tested the Amazon Fire Kids Edition tablet.

Here’s what Amazon has to say about the product: “Fire Kids Edition tablets are built around three ideas: 1) kids break things, 2) kids want real tablets, not a toy, and 3) parents don’t want to worry about the bill. Each full-featured tablet comes with a kid-friendly case, and a 2-year worry free guarantee—if they break it, we’ll replace it, no questions asked. The device also comes with a year subscription to Fire for Kids Unlimited for unlimited access to thousands of kid-friendly books, movies, TV shows, educational apps, and games, and best-in-class parental controls to manage usage limits, content access and help set educational goals.”

Testers, please answer the questions below:

• What does your child think about of the Fire Kids Edition tablet? Did they enjoy using it?
• What did you think about the protection package that is included with the device (i.e. the kid-friendly case and 2-year worry free guarantee)?
• How easy did you find the parental controls to use? If so, what were your favourite features?
• Was your child happy with the content available through the 1 year Fire for Kids Unlimited subscription? Did you/they feel anything was missing?
• What did you think about the Parent Dashboard?

Non-testers, what parental control features would be most important to you in a child’s tablet?

All non-testers who post below will be entered into a prize draw and one person will win a £300 voucher.

Thanks and good luck!
MNHQ

Standard Insight T&Cs apply

Non-testers, what parental control features would be most important to you in a child’s tablet?
Security and child's safety whilst roaming on internet. Visibility of contents and websites they are accessing

Non tester.

Ability to turn all internet browsing and ad clicking possibilities off

Non-tester
I would like to control the search facility and stop downloads to limit the content available.
A built in timer to limit use would also be great.

Non-Tester. The most important thing for me would be to control what my child can access. For example I wouldn't want my child to have access to YouTube, or the internet, and I would like to have the power to block access to certain games/TV shows.

Non tester.

I would like to be able to make sure that my children are not exposed to anything inappropriate and that they are unable to access in app purchases AT ALL, EVER!

Non-tester.
Parental controls that are set up in the background are great, then the kids can play to their hearts content without having a grown up check up on them all the time. Also gives us a parent one less thing to worry about.

Non-Tester- it would be great to have a feature where the apps ads are disabled without having to pay a fee! Especially a child's tablet. As the amount of times I've seen my DD click on an ad and it downloads itself, and then we normally have 10-12 new apps just for clicking an ad we want to remove!

Non tester - setting a time limit, and age restrictions on what can be downloaded.

Non-tester:
the most important aspects for me to be able to control are content and extent of time allowed. In terms of content, I worry about images, themes, adverts that are not appropriate to children getting through a filter.

Non - tester My son is always using by mums to watch CBeebies with her. I think the most important function would be to vet what they can download and also view.

Non-testers, what parental control features would be most important to you in a child’s tablet?

Non tester here. I think the absolute most important parental control feature would be limiting exactly what my children can find on the internet. The most innocent of web searches can pull up some truly shocking results so being able to limit what comes up in searches is very important.

If we could somehow build in a "you've been watching annoying shit too long" cut out, that would be pretty amazing too

Non tester. To ensure my kids can't accidentally purchase from the app store.

Non tester - being able to set both time periods (say 8-6) and total time per day (eg 30 min) for online access, apps, and reading separately from each other

Non tester
I think being able to control what’s seen on the internet is the most important thing. I really dislike how easy it is to click on something inappropriate from YouTube

Non tester: I’d want to restrict what internet pages can be opened and restrict lots of YouTube

Non tester - How long can be spent on different types of apps. So the children can access games once time reading or on educational apps has been completed.

Non-tester
The best feature I would like would be something that stops inappropriate content when connecting to the internet. My daughter sometimes clicks away on my iPad and ends up on different websites. I sit with her and supervise so can stop anything inappropriate, but it would be nice to have easy controls.

Non tester.

Ideally something like the fingerprint recognition on phones, rather than a password - not needed to unlock or use the device, but fingerprint required to buy or add apps (even free ones) or access new sites. That would be perfect!

Non-tester here:

I would like to be able to check browsing history (possibly remotely), to apply parental controls regarding content and in-app purchases and to be able to block comments on things like You Tube videos which can often be very inappropriate.

A time limit for length of time used in a day and also being able to block remotely.

DS (12) manages to find and hide his electronics so being able to turn them all off remotely would be wonderful.

Non Tester

I really like the parental control setting that means you can limit screen time. We have 4 children and this way they all know they get a maximum of an hour on throughout the day. We don’t have to police their usage (it’s hard to keep track of four children)

I also like that we can password protect to stop purchases.

One issue we did have is that as children get older some apps for their age may be suitable but others we don’t think are but there doesn’t seem to be that flexibility to control to that level of detail.

(Sorry, meant to say- non - tester but the kids do all have Fire tablets)

Non-testers, what parental control features would be most important to you in a child’s tablet?

My five year old has her own iPad but we control which apps she has. I’d like to better control YouTube and set up a time restriction as she does like to watch rubbish!

Non-tester - I would like to have parental control for final approval on any apps my DDs might want to download. It worries me that an innocent search might throw up some very unsuitable content, and I just want to protect their innocence for as long as possible

Non tester

I'd like to be able to have some sort of dashboard app which can be accessible on my device as well as on my childs that allows me to view/restrict which sites/apps are being used and flag any which would be unsuitable