To buy or not to buy a Kindle Fire pro 10 for DS4

[Potter23]

Hi All,

In the spirit of Prime day deals I am contemplating buying a Kindle Fire 10 pro kids tablet for DS age 4 (5 in March).

This would be a Christmas present and his first device of his own.

Currently he occasionally uses my iPad for either educational games or downloaded films/programmes. This is once every couple of weeks at the moment. But he is starting to take more interest in it, especially since starting school and practicing with letters and numbers with some apps.

Examples of Apps I have on my iPad he uses are: Cbeebies games, Numberblocks World, Teach your monster to read, writing practice with alpha blocks and number blocks and a few others.

On long car journeys he uses my iPad with downloaded films etc from Netflix or Disney plus. (we have a tablet holder in the car I usually put my iPad in).

My questions-

• Would a Kindle Fire 10 be able to do these things? I saw the storage is limited so I will get an SD card too, especially if downloading videos.
• What are the pros and cons of the Kindle Fire?
• How do you go about not allowing YouTube or an open browser, is that possible?
• How would you approach setting time limits etc?

Many Thanks for the wisdom of the MN collective 😀

I wouldn't buy a kindle fire, they are very slow.

Also iPad has better parenting controls. I would buy a refurbished one to be honest.

Thank you, I had heard that but I thought the newer models were better? Are they still slow, that definitely wouldn't be ideal after he is used to my iPad! 😬

We have a 10 pro kid one (the older age one with thinner case, device the same). Our 4 yea rold ia fine with it. Uses it for similar to what you describe. Mostly for holidays. Space wise we have alot of apps and managed to download tv and films lasting about 20 odd hours with no issues.

Cheap and cheerful. Not sure where people get this slow thing from. We've not found it slow at all. Obviously if theyre playing more complex games on it, it will be slower and probably not suitable (minecraft and stuff). But for the kind of thing you're talking about its fine. We rarely use at home because to me tablet usage at 4 should be VERY much limited.

You know your child. But to me 4 year olds with ipads are a bit stupid. They're still often clumsy and a bit irrational, so could easily be broken.

Thank you very much,

This is exact one (pro 10) I was looking at. £130 at the moment. Good to hear its not too slow for this type of usage.

I definitely want to keep the time very limited, e.g. downloaded films etc in the car, and educational games occasionally!

I know it can be a slippery slope to too much time on it, so also hoping to restrict the time and to more educational style games.

That being said, he has always been careful with my iPad... but it might be different if it is his own! Gah! too many options

Whatever you get
Buy a solid ‘droppable’ case before he touches it :)

Indeed! I think that’s part of appeal of the Fire tablet actually comes with a droppable case 😂