[RavenclawPrefect]

My three younger ones (7, 9, 11) each got a Kindle Fire for Christmas.  They wanted Nintendo 3DS but we looked at various options before going with the Fire.  What tipped us over the edge was the parental controls and time limits we can place on the Fire.  Each of them got a different case or skin and are just thrilled with it.  They like the apps they can get and the ability to watch Netflix.  We did disable the shopping feature.

Between Kindle FreeTime and Kids Place, we are fairly confident that we have them blocked from shopping or accessing things we would prefer they not.  Email is blocked, social media is blocked..

I am less thrilled that my Kindle Fire, from last Christmas, suddenly stopped charging.  A call to Amazon and a replacement is in the mail (hopefully be here on Thursday)

We love our Kindle Fires! 

Mine - Sirius Black  (DecalGirl skin Moontree)
11 yr old - The Doctor (clear case, TARDIS skin)
7 yr old - Gizmo (red faux leather case)
9 yr old - Her name (since I refused to rename it Katy Perry) (Pink case that looks like a purse)

 

[CrystalStarr]

My boy's got Fire's too.  I don't think I ever would have done it without the limits and controls in the Kindle Freetime App.  It is just absolutely perfect.  They are thrilled!  They couldn't decide what to do first, build Legos, read one of the new books they got, or play with their Fire's.  Pretty good Christmas around here!

 

[RavenclawPrefect]

We had contemplated itouch vs Kindle Fire and the parental controls are what convinced us to go with the Fire.  I also like that it is larger and makes it easier to read books on it. 

Only one asked about a camera on it and even then, he was not disappointed that it didn't have one.  I am okay with them not having a camera handy.

 

[booklover888]

My 7 yo DD got a new non-HD Fire, with the free time unlimited subscription. She loves it. It is in a nice marware pink case. She is looking at all the books and apps now. Downloading to her heart's delight!

I got my 9 yo DD a 7" Lenovo android, and she has her own kindle account on it, with many, many books for age 9-12 that I have gotten free, and a few that I bought. She's watching Netflix on it now.

 

[TraceyC/FL]

Awesome!!!!

My kids got Nabi tablets - and they are in love!!!!! I love hearing, "Thank you mommy!!!" over and over... and over.... and over..... makes the headaches of learning to deal with android worth it.

I haven't heard how the Fire I set up for my friends DD went - it was a replacement for  stolen one, so i'm assuming fine. BUt now she has the camera and hopefully she gets her Dad to set up Skype.

That was the biggest hit here this morning - skyping with their grandparents!!

Oh and I have also refused to buy a DS for the last 3 years... i think this is the first time she hasn't talked about it non-stop.

 

[Carol (was Dara)]

I'm glad to hear the Fires are so kid-friendly. My eight-year-old daughter is begging for one (I suspect she really just wants it for playing Angry Birds) but I'm probably going to make her wait another year or so because she's pretty hard on her stuff. Has anyone else had any problems with their kids losing or breaking their Kindles?

 

[RavenclawPrefect]

That is another thing that tipped us in favor of the Kindle Fire over an itouch.  We thought it was a bit more hefty and less easy to break.  My kids have messed with my Fire for a year now and never dropped it (that I know of)

We put cases on the ones the kids got today, to help protect them. 

 

[Leslie]

I gave my niece my hand-me-down Fire (which was practically brand new--replaced in late September and I've barely used it) and she was thrilled. I also gave her a $25 gift card so she could buy some apps. Within 2 minutes she was signed in to her mother's account (with some help from her mom), had her new Kindle named, had the gift card on her account and had bought W.E.L.D.E.R.

Meanwhile, her mom had received a new iPad3 to replace her original iPad. She back up the original iPad to the Cloud (with my help) which took an hour. Then she tried to connect the iPad3 to the existing account to download her apps and so on and got the message, "No content in the Cloud" or "No account to link to." She restarted several times and then set it aside to say, "i'll try to figure this out tomorrow..."

Hmmm....

L

 

[TraceyC/FL]

She restarted several times and then set it aside to say, "i'll try to figure this out tomorrow..."

Christmas iTunes overload....happens every year.

Interestingly enough, Amazon had a MAJOR cloud outage impacting a huge chunk of their PAYING customers.... apparently they guarantee a 99.1% uptime with redundancy.... which failed. THe only things that stayed up at that level was their own stuff. I know in the past Apple has leased space from Amazon - that could be part of it too. But, the nabi tablets my kids have are still recovering the server outage issues. I was happy I had set them up early.

 

[Betsy the Quilter]

Christmas iTunes overload....happens every year.

Interestingly enough, Amazon had a MAJOR cloud outage impacting a huge chunk of their PAYING customers.... apparently they guarantee a 99.1% uptime with redundancy.... which failed. THe only things that stayed up at that level was their own stuff. I know in the past Apple has leased space from Amazon - that could be part of it too. But, the nabi tablets my kids have are still recovering the server outage issues. I was happy I had set them up early.

It also affected Netflix, Amazon's Prime Instant Video competition. Hmmm....

Betsy