Amazon’s Android App Store, Kindle, Amazon MP3, Prime Instant video, they’re all there. Think of it more as a web portal into the entire world of Amazon’s online services. See, the Fire is much, much more than Amazon’s usual kindle readers.
Software is where the Fire starts to take shape. Don’t expect top-of-the-line processing power here, but with dual-core chips becoming the norm, we’re fairly confident the Fire will blaze along (yes, I did it again) without too many problems.
The power will come courtesy of a dual-core TI OMAP4 CPU, though at the moment not a great deal is known about it. Gorilla Glass is used for the screen, too, meaning it should cope with all the usual bumps and scrapes these kinds of things always seem to suffer. The parental control features can be accessed on the device or via the parents portal on Amazon, where you can change the age filter, set daily reading goals or add content you’ve purchased on your other Kindle devices or apps.Hardware-wise, we’re told the Fire will sport a 7-inch, multi-touch LCD panel, just like the much maligned Blackberry Playbook. The standard Kindle software is still there, and you can access it by entering your parental control PIN – so you can use it for your own reading when the kids are out or in bed. It disables the web browser and adds achievement badges, Word Wise (which automatically shows the meaning of more difficult words so you don’t have to look them up in the dictionary) and a search function that’s more forgiving of spelling mistakes. The software is a lightly tweaked version of the usual Kindle user interface. The missing titles are available as paid-for titles in the main Kindle store, which of course adds extra expense. Other series are incomplete, so there’s just one of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, four of the nine Demon Dinner Ladies titles and only one of the core Captain Underpants books.
Our tester found that Percy Jackson, Lemony Snicket and Artemis Fowl were all absent, as were popular series such as How To Train Your Dragon. The UK edition’s selection is considerably smaller than the US one, so for example while Harry Potter is present and correct many big names aren’t. A kid who wants to devour the Artemis Fowl series, which isn’t here for UK users, won’t appreciate the Circus Train and The Clowns ebook, which is. There’s no point in having access to a thousand titles if they don’t include the ones your child wants to read. The Kindle for Kids sat next to the Amazon Kindle Oasis (Image credit: Future) Annoyingly, that's not supplied and instead the package just includes the USB cable.
We’ve found that in real-life use the battery claims are accurate, although if you spend a lot of time browsing the store (or disable the Kids Edition software and use the web browser) the battery life will be significantly less.įrom flat, the battery charges to full in about 4 hours with a standard 5W charger. Like the standard Kindle, the Kids Edition promises up to four weeks between charges based on around half an hour of reading per day double the daily reading time and you’ll get about two weeks. The display is clear and it’s easy to adjust the font settings, but it’s very slow to refresh and the lag when using the on-screen keyboard is “annoying”, according to our tweenage reviewer. It has a built-in, adjustable backlight that’ll inevitably be used for reading in bed. The Kindle for Kids has a six-inch e-ink display delivering 167ppi with 16 shades of grey. Storage space is a very respectable 8GB, which for ebooks if more than enough room. The device isn’t waterproof, so you might be glad of the included two-year accidental damage cover. It charges via micro-USB and the only physical control is the wake button: everything else is done via the touchscreen. The device itself is a tenth-generation 2019 Kindle in black plastic. That pink-for-the-girls approach didn’t go down very well with our resident twelve-year-old, who wanted to know why the standard cases couldn’t include neutral colors. US customers can choose from another two designs, outer space or colorful birds. The first thing you’ll notice about the Kindle Kids Edition is its case, which in the UK is either blue or pink.
That extra money gets you a good quality case, two years of no-quibble gadget insurance that includes accidental damage, and in the UK a year of ad-free, multi-device access to Fire for Kids Unlimited with its collection of over 1,000 children’s books.