Cruising Tangent - Tablets for Kids

[TestingH2O]

We are flying to Barcelona for our Med cruise this coming summer. As adults, we’ve started bringing mainly ebooks for trips as they take up much less space. We’d like to get DD a tablet as well to read books and watch some movies on our long international flights.

Does anyone have recommendations? The price of a Fire is appealing, but there seem like a lot of restrictions on being able to access content off line.

It doesn’t need too many bells and whistles as she will only be allowed to use it while traveling, but I’m at a loss for the best choice. With Black Friday coming up, it seems like a good time to make the purchase though.

 

[kmix78]

My kids had a Fire tablets and they were great, and could access stuff offline. The biggest issue for me was the lack of parental controls. This may have been upgraded though, as it's been a few years since my kids have used theirs (once they got phones, the kindles fell out of favor)

 

[Meriweather]

I got DGD a fire...great price.
They do have controls, I believe.....or there is a Fire kid version, that does for sure

 

[TestingH2O]

Is the fire different than the kids fire? The kids fire is what I see having all the annoyances.

 

[hanscarlet]

How old is your kid? My ODD is on the Autism Spectrum so we've always had to travel with tablets, started with the Samsung in 2013 but since 2015 we've done the Apple Mini and it has been great. My kids love Youtube Kids and Minecraft and Roadblox but they know that once on the ship, there is no internet to access these apps so they have enough apps on their tablet that doesn't require the internet and it still keeps them occupied during down time in the stateroom.

 

[TestingH2O]

She’s 5, will be 6 next summer.

The apples are just so expensive.

 

[FigmentSpark]

My kids have Apple ipads. You can get the free Kindle app for the ipad. In my opinion, the kindle app is more powerful and easier to navigate than the Kindle itself (but I have a paperwhite, not Fire). The only thing is there is no antiglare on the ipad, just the kindle. Not sure that's an issue for you, though.

The nice thing about going with an ipad is that so much is available for it. I have Netflix, with download ability on many movies, as well as the tivo app from our cable provider, which allows me to download, as well. Then there's all the games that are available, as well as email and productivity software, in case she has homework. My son even has his textbooks on his ipad, so no taking textbooks on vacation if his teachers give him extra work.

The one downside to not going with a kindle product is you can't 'lend' your child a book you've bought. You can only do that if you both have actual kindles. However, I get around that by making a 'kids' collection and give my kids access to my kindle account. Kindle allows you to have books on more than one device, although some books do have a copy limit. This has been great, because I can then monitor what they are reading and control the purchases.

 

[Club Disney Chandler]

We are flying to Barcelona for our Med cruise this coming summer. As adults, we’ve started bringing mainly ebooks for trips as they take up much less space. We’d like to get DD a tablet as well to read books and watch some movies on our long international flights.

Does anyone have recommendations? The price of a Fire is appealing, but there seem like a lot of restrictions on being able to access content off line.

It doesn’t need too many bells and whistles as she will only be allowed to use it while traveling, but I’m at a loss for the best choice. With Black Friday coming up, it seems like a good time to make the purchase though.

Not saying you shouldn't get the tablet but thought I'd pass along, the major US airlines have screens in the seats on the international flights now. We loaded a bunch of movies on our tablets for our Mediterranean cruise last year and didn't use them because the seat back Entertainment on our Delta flights was way better.

 

[cruiser21]

She’s 5, will be 6 next summer.

The apples are just so expensive.

What about a Nintendo DS or a Switch. My kids are teens and still love Mario, but theirs all kinds of games you can buy for those.

 

[beachdrmn]

We got our son an IPad a few years ago. I have an IPad, IPhone, and IWatch (can you tell I am an Apple person?) and we got my mother-in-law a Fire for her birthday one year and she always calls me with questions and I can't answer them because it is so different from Apple products IMO. When my son has a problem I can actually help him with it without getting completely frustrated and for me that was worth the extra cost of the IPAD.

 

[RedStars]

We have a fire (and it does have really good parental controls), IPad, and Sam galaxy tab. I prefer the tab out of all of them.

The fire is limited on apps (but to does have Netflix). And the Samsung is cheaper than the iPad. Hence, my decision.

 

[Jess_S]

My husband has the Kindle Fire and my son has an iPad (because Grandma paid for it). I actually prefer the Fire for offline content, but that could just be because my husband tends to load more offline content onto the Fire than the iPad. He puts movies and offline games on the Fire before every trip so that we have things to entertain the boy when needed.

 

[cmph]

My kids have Ipad minis. I got a great deal on them on amazon, so keep an eye out. They're linked to my husband's apple account, so it's very easy to put movies, etc on there, and much easier to install apps. Airlines are all over the place with entertainment, even within the same airline. We've been on a great new American plane that had awesome touchscreens for each passenger, lots of choices for shows... and then on the return - zip for entertainment other than using the Gogo app on your own device - which I couldn't get on the Kindle version I have, that I let my 9yo use for reading.

I wouldn't necessarily get whatever is cheapest on the assumption it'll get used rarely. Some public libraries have e-book lending services. A lot of the tech the kids get access to from school will be available on apps as well. My son has a math app that his teachers used over the summer. They have access to a free online library with a code the school pays for. And little ones can use it for Razz kids, Tumblebooks, etc. Mine didn't have tablets at that age, but I wish they had. They had to use my desktop computer. I used to homeschool my daughter, and some of the materials I used had accompanying electronic material - so even if you're homeschooling, you might end up using a tablet for school stuff. My kids also use them to facetime their grandparents, cousins, distant friends, or my husband or me when we're out of town. I'm not a big Apple person (definitely switching back to an Android next phone change) but the ipads have been far more useful in our household than Kindles. if you're 100% sure it'll get used rarely for travel reading, then ignore the entire rest of this paragraph.

 

[oakleycat]

My kids (11 and 8) have ipad minis and love them, but before they got those they had Kindle Fires and loved those as well. For a 5-6 year old I think the Fire will be fine, especially if you're like us and and buy all your movies through Amazon. We just download movies before the trip and make sure they have the apps they want, and they use them for travel. No tablets once on the ship. THe process for us was the same with ipads and Kindles as we don't have data plans for our kids, just wifi where available.

 

[darnheather]

Fire. Download the content you want her to have and then turn off the wi-fi.

 

[rcchello]

I am using my new Fire HD 10. It has adult and child profiles available. You can download movies and tv shows and watch them when not connected. If you are watching things downloaded from amazon, once you start watching a movie you have to finish it within 48 hrs of you are not connected to the internet. If you are downloading a lot of movies you probably need a micro sd card.

The biggest problem with the fire is it comes with Amazon app store and not google play appstore. If you want apps not in the Amazon app store ( Google calendar, vudu, direct tv now) you will need to sideload the Google store. Instructions can be found on the internet.

 

[Numtini]

The Fire HD8 is an amazing deal--even more if you get it on sale. I recommend spending the extra for the 8 instead of the 7 not just for the larger screen, but because it has far better speakers and kids in my experience generally end up watching movies with the speakers not a head set. Also for the built in mic which gets used in a couple of apps.

For offline, if you have Amazon Prime or Netflix, you can download several hours worth of video onto the tablet from those services instead of streaming. Also with Movies Unlimited, if you get a digital code with your disk or buy a Disney/Marvel/SW movie (and now a few more studios) on itunes, vudu, amazon or whatever, you can watch it on any service including Amazon and that includes download rights (or at least it does for the movies we have).

As someone said, there's a few applications that you can't get through the Amazon app store, but there are third party stores. The only thing I can remember that we wanted that wasn't available was the official youtube app, but there's a "youtube" app on the Amazon store that loads the mobile youtube website and looks just like an app and works fine. I think the only issue is you can't "cast" videos to a tv.

The kids version comes with a case and a no questions asked replacement policy. It's otherwise exactly the same.

 

[tj48103]

We got our DS a Kids Kindle Fire 8 for his 6th birthday over the summer. He loves it. The kids actually fight over it. They'd often rather be on that then the iPad because there is so much content with Kindle Free time (included for 1 year). You can download some of the books and games ahead of time so they are accessible without wifi. Also if you have netflix you can put the netflix app on there and download some of her favorite shows and movies ahead of time. I think we got it for $69 on Amazon Prime Day. That included the case, tablet, 1 year of Kindle free time, and it has a 2 year no questions asked replacement policy. I've had to replace my older son's iPad screen twice now so I find that warranty really valuable. The parental controls are great. I can set an age range for the content I want him to be able to have access to in Kindle Free Time. Plus I can set time limits and even break down the time limits for different things. Like give him more time for reading books than watching videos. I feel like at this age this tablet does everything they would need and I can't see spending hundreds more for an iPad. If I were you I'd wait for Black Friday and go for the Kids Kindle Fire.

 

[cadien]

The kid-specific Fire has great content available (except for games), but downloading things is a pain and it runs out of space fast if you're loading it with movies for a long flight. My 6-year old always asks for my iPad Mini after a couple hours, which has many apps that you can't get on Amazon devices. But when they have the movies in the seat backs, that holds his attention. We also bought him a DS for his birthday but for some reason that hasn't grabbed him, despite playing on the Wii all the time.

 

[PrincessTrisha]

I'm a strong support of Samsung products. Many of them now have micro SD slots which allow for much more storage space.

Frankly, if you're looking for movies and whatnot to keep her occupied, I'd look for a cheaper tablet that accepts a micro SD card, download a whole bunch of content and go from there. Also, with her age, I'd recommend a really good case. No matter how careful a 5-6 year old is, there is bound to be an accident at some point.