Amazon Kindle Kids Edition review
Our Verdict
The Kindle Kids Edition is a better east-reader than the original, thanks to a few add-ons that are worth much more than the extra $20 cost.
For
- No lock-screen ads
- Thankfully minimal interface (for kids)
- Valuable warranty, subscription included
- Solid lighting options
- Cute cases
Against
- Distracting interface (in developed way)
- And so-so text resolution
- Reliant on Amazon'due south store, services
Tom'south Guide Verdict
The Kindle Kids Edition is a better eastward-reader than the original, cheers to a few add-ons that are worth much more than than the extra $20 cost.
Pros
- +
No lock-screen ads
- +
Thankfully minimal interface (for kids)
- +
Valuable warranty, subscription included
- +
Solid lighting options
- +
Beautiful cases
Cons
- -
Distracting interface (in adult fashion)
- -
And so-so text resolution
- -
Reliant on Amazon'due south shop, services
Kindle sales!
For a limited fourth dimension, Amazon's got Blackness Friday-level deals on some of its best Kindles. The Kindle Kids Edition is $79 at Amazon ($30 off) right now. You can save $35 on the Kindle Paperwhite, currently $95 at Amazon. The normal Kindle is $25 off, now $65 at Amazon.
Parents with volume-addicted kids have a new must-purchase. The Kindle Kids Edition ($109.99, available at present) takes Amazon's most affordable e-reader and adds a ton of value with a cute case, proactive vocabulary tools, a fantastic warranty and a twelvemonth of free books.
This Kindle Kids Edition review will testify how it'due south so skilful that you may wish Amazon made an developed version, as it's shut to being the best Kindle or e-reader always. Yes, the Kindle Paperwhite has sharper resolution and water resistance, but the Kindle Kids Edition strips abroad all the cruft — hi lock screen ads, Goodreads, experimental browser, recommendations — that Amazon'southward over-blimp the e-reader with over the years. The effect is a Kindle that makes me wish I was still a kid.
Kindle Kids Edition price and warranty
The Kindle Kids Edition starts at $109.99, which gets you a magnetic case, i year of FreeTime Unlimited and Amazon'south 2-year "worry-free guarantee" warranty. If your kid is decumbent to break things, that final item in your listing is probable the almost important.
Dissimilar with other Kindles, you don't need to pay an actress $xx to remove the ads (Amazon calls them "Special Offers") on the Kindle Kids Edition'southward lock screen.
The Kindle Kids Edition was released on October 30, 2019.
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Kindle Kids Edition design
If you've seen Amazon'due south $90 Kindle (2019), the Kindle Kids Edition will look incredibly familiar — because it's that verbal device just with software adjustments and some perks. That means you lot get the same device we chosen "fine" in our review from before this year, with its shadowbox-way frame with a shadow-box-framed screen.
In terms of buttons and ports, yous go the bare minimum: a ability button and a charging port on the bottom, for locking the screen, turning information technology on and bringing information technology dorsum to life when yous hit empty.
The Kindle Paperwhite ($130) has the same gear up of controls and input, while the Kindle Oasis ($250) has concrete buttons, though you shouldn't demand to spend that much to get physical controls for turning the folio and navigating the interface. Yes, the Kindle Kids Edition's e-ink display works fine enough, but plastic buttons don't feel like a premium feature if yous ask me.
Kindle Kids Edition cases
Our test unit came with an adorable instance that features a cartoon of a variety of birds on phone cable wires. Some of those avian friends are smiling, some are wearing winter accessories and one'southward even listening to headphones. On the back side, where the drawing continues, one of these birdies is using a modest, black rectangular-shaped device that could be a Kindle or a smartphone.
Amazon's other case options are solid blue and pink designs, and the fourth is called Space Station, and has aliens and other interplanetary lifeforms, as well as a submarine and some aquatic life. This gear up of four gives parents a solid range to find a case that their child volition appreciate — or at to the lowest degree exist indifferent to.
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Aside from looking beautiful, the cases provide protection to the still-pretty-fragile e-ink screen, as their magnetic covers require some forcefulness to open. Hopefully, this means a Kindle Kids Edition can survive even the about cluttered backpack.
That front cover flap also sticks to the back of the case, making it easier to use when reading.
Kindle Kids Edition brandish
Kids don't need to plough a light on to keep reading. The Kindle Kids Edition features the same front light that Amazon added to the normal Kindle, which brought its price from $lxxx to $ninety. It still feels like a worthwhile bump here, especially for how much more reading children can accomplish when other sources of lighting aren't available.
Equally I read a chip of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in a dark room at the Tom'southward Guide office, I saw that it gets more than bright enough, peculiarly when you turn its brightness up to maximum luminance.
I only wish its forepart calorie-free automatically adjusted per the ambient lighting effectually you, every bit kids will need to fiddle with the settings. And while the iii steps information technology takes — tapping one time to open up the menu bar, tapping Settings then selecting the right brightness on a scale of one to 24 — may not sound like a lot of piece of work, it would be not bad to have.
Nosotros might not have liked near of the Nook GlowLight 3, but even that e-reader had less friction in its effulgence adjustment.
The Kindle Kids Edition'due south 167 pixel-per-inch resolution is good enough, merely not great. When I increased the size of the font (as kids certainly will) on both a 300 ppi Kindle Haven and the Kindle Kids Edition, I saw the quondam create smoother text and the latter show letters that were not as crisp.
Then again, this is a device for children, who probably don't have every bit discerning an eye when information technology comes to this. Flipping through a choose-your-own-adventure way Star Wars volume about Han and Chewie, I saw its illustrations announced clearly, without cause for business concern.
Kindle Kids Edition reading experience
The Kindle Kids Edition practically idealizes the art of e-reading. Not only does it place helpful definitions above complicated words (adjusted to the user'south age), but it strips out all of the stuff we at Tom's Guide wish Amazon wasn't pushing and so hard.
That means opening a volume brings y'all straight to the book, and doesn't throw you into a window of Amazon and Goodreads-powered metadata and questions about sharing your content. Parents are already concerned about who their kids collaborate with online, and it's a smart move to take social media out of this Kindle.
Long-pressing on a give-and-take brings up a Word Wise window, which is like a vocabulary card. There you lot learn which part of speech a word is (nouns, adjectives, etc), like words and the definition — the meat of the carte du jour. All of the words you open in Word Wise show upward in the Vocabulary Builder, so y'all tin review all of the words you had trouble with afterward.
Amazon includes ix fonts, including its own Amazon Ember and Bookerly, besides as industry standards Helvetica and Futura. You likewise get multiple options for standard customization settings — line spacing (iii), margins (3), orientation (portrait, landscape) and alignment (center or left).
Kids looking for larger words can select from 6 boldness settings (including off) and fourteen font sizes. Once your kid's establish the mix that's but right, they tin salve those settings as a theme, which I'm guessing could be great for the particular readers.
Of course, kids get all the other standard e-reader reading experiences, such as digital bookmarks and indicators for time left in the book. Amazon left so much of what's practiced well-nigh the Kindle in the Kids Edition that younger readers will certainly feel respected, and non talked downwardly to.
Kindle Kids Edition interface
Even though I'1000 in my thirties, I withal adopt (most of) the Kindle interface that kids get. That'southward because it'south all books, and just books. From the domicile screen — which shows your books, followed by recently opened books, similar books, category sections and rows for new and popular books — to the menus, you'll see little that isn't directed at focusing your attending on reading.
The only exception is the Awards section, where Amazon will nowadays little trophies to your immature reader, encouraging them to read more. This gamification isn't an affront, and could provide adept motivation for kids to proceed reading.
When you switch to a parent business relationship, you regain access to the Kindle and Audible stores, likewise equally a lot of stuff I wish wasn't in there by default. The near prominent of those features are the heavily-criticized Goodreads social media platform and the Experimental Browser.
While well-nigh have probably forgotten the very-beta version web browser that is hopefully not taking upwardly much storage space on the device, Goodreads integration is everywhere. Spread throughout the Kindle interface like a virus, in that location's a Goodreads button in tiptop menu bar and information technology appears when you open up a new book for the starting time time.
And since the Kids accounts don't take access to the Kindle Store, they don't go the prompts to buy related titles from that store. When I flipped to the terminate of that start Harry Potter volume, I just got the ISBN number, similar I was reading a book. It'southward dainty to have a device that respects my power to go find another book on my ain.
Arguably, the best feature nearly the Kindle Kids Edition is its lack of lock screen ads — which typically costs $20 extra when yous purchase the $90 Kindle — which makes sense, as what parent wants their kid to see more ads? Instead, your lock screen is filled with child-friendly drawings, like a set of cute moonlit islands, a swimming sea turtle and a little dude who looks like Bigfoot, just lying dorsum and reading a book.
Aye, you can disable the ads (by paying) and turn off all the above features that may badger, but yous accept to practice all of those ane-by-i. A better Kindle would have a Lite manner, with just the books, that you enable with a single tap of a virtual push during setup.
Kindle Kids Edition battery life and storage
Expect weeks of reading, and minimal complaints from your child. Since the Kindle Kids Edition features the same verbal Kindle Amazon released before this year — its production folio literally lists "Kindle (tenth generation)" equally 'included' in the purchase — we can look dorsum at how that Kindle did during our testing.
Amazon claims you lot should look "upward to iv (iv) weeks, based on a half hour of reading per mean solar day with wireless off and the calorie-free setting at xiii. Bombardment life volition vary based on lite settings, wireless usage."
Reading for nearly half an hour per day (with Wi-Fi on, and lighting at 50%, we drained 5 percent per solar day — which would empty the Kindle in 20 days — which sounds like Amazon's estimate is close.
Kindle Kids Edition content
Going from the Kids Mode home screen, tots are primarily directed to find books from FreeTime Unlimited, Amazon's vault of thousands of titles. Prominent titles include the aforementioned Harry Potter books, the Star Wars choose your own adventure story, and a title nearly Moana.
At that place's as well a section that organizes content by topics and brands, including Classic Literature (Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass, Grimm'due south Fairy Stories), Sesame Street and Mysteries and Investigations (including the Boxcar Children books). I imagine parents and kids might run through that selection quickly, which makes information technology very good that parents tin virtually share east-books they own with their kids.
Amazon throws in a free year of the service with each buy of the Kindle Kids Edition. Normally, FreeTime Unlimited costs $2.99 per month for Prime number Members and $iv.99 per month for everyone else.
Audiobook support, via Amazon's own Audible subsidiary, is coming presently, and non available now.
Kindles can besides go books from public libraries, but the Kobo Libra H2o does it better. In our testing, library systems had thousands more Nook-compatible EPUBs than Kindle-compatible Mobis for perusal.
Don't wait PDFs to look practiced on this Kindle either. It lacks the power to zoom, which is almost crippling on this 6-inch screen.
Bottom line
I wouldn't be surprised if the Kindle Kids Edition is a hot item this holiday season. Information technology makes a ton of sense for families who already alive in the Kindle ecosystem, with kids who want an e-reader of their own. From the pleasantly stripped-down interface and reading experience to a lack of ads and the included case, this Kindle is more than worth the extra $20 — especially with its two-year warranty.
If Amazon opened the Kindle up to more formats, and fabricated information technology easier to borrow books from libraries, this would be a much more than interesting device. Kobo doesn't make a kids version of its due east-readers, and neither does Barnes & Noble.
Nosotros'd also love this device more than if its lighting were automatic and its resolution were sharper, just neither are dealbreakers for this situation. The Kindle Kids Edition's combination of hardware and services make it a practically ideal e-reader for families comprised of of bookworms. Sure, you tin can share, but what near when everyone wants to read at the same fourth dimension?
Credit: Tom's Guide
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/amazon-kindle-kids-edition
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