Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Update: Took off one star. Storage is atrocious (less than 5 gb available, and it fills up in no time), and Amazon makes it incredibly hard to delete content stored in a FreeTime profile. The easiest and most efficient way to delete content is to do a factory reset, but be warned, the tablet will be out of storage again in 24 hours. At this point, I do not recommend this tablet at all. Go for a regular Kindle instead and get 16gb of storage. Original review: The problem is not the tablet; it's Kindle FreeTime Unlimited. The tablet is sturdy and the case, although bulky, is perfect for kids. The tablet just arrived yesterday so I can not comment on how well it performs over the long term, but this will be our family's 6th (7th? 8th?) Kindle and I expect it to be as durable as the other Kindles we've had. So on to Kindle FreeTime Unlimited... the idea behind this service is great (it's pretty much a library of age-appropriate apps and books), but the execution of it is terrible. So what's wrong with it? 1) In a regular Kindle, only the books that I've downloaded appear on my device. With Kindle FreeTime Unlimited, ALL of the books and apps available with Kindle FreeTime appear on the child's Kindle. So what's the problem with this? For one, it's just plain difficult to navigate because there's way too much content on the screen and there's no way to sort it. Two, there are certain books and apps that Amazon might deem as age appropriate but I do not want my child playing with and there is no way to filter them out. So if I want him to read Curious George but skip the SpongeBob books, I'm out of luck. 2) My child is able to read books I've downloaded from our local library using the Overdrive and Blio apps. The problem is that if I set parental controls to allow unlimited reading and to not allow apps during weekdays, he can not access his library books. The alternative would be to allow unlimited app access, but that means that he also has unlimited access to countless other apps available via FreeTime that I do not want him to access at the moment. (Edit: books that require Blio can not be accessed at all from within FreeTime, as Blio has to be sideloaded and sideloaded apps are not available in FreeTime. However, if your library gives you the option of downloading books in Kindle format from the Amazon site, then those books WILL appear in FreeTime.) 3)Documents are not available with Kindle FreeTime. That means that all of the books that I've downloaded via gutenberg.org, for example, are not available. He can read them if I exit his FreeTime profile but then I lose control over what he can access. There might be some app that allows a work around and permit him to access docs, but I don't want to waste time trying to figure out a solution to a problem that shouldn't exist in the first place. 4) Apps and content that I've bought can be added to my child's profile, but the process is very burdensome and time consuming. Ideally, I would be able to purchase online (or on my own Kindle) and deliver the content to my child's Kindle (which is the way it works when you're not using a profile), but the content is not available in my child's FreeTime profile until I specifically add it to his account. In order to do this, I need to enter my password, enter the section that allows me to manage his content, and manually add the title. Unfortunately, Amazon organizes titles alphabetically only, so if I buy, for example, a book titled "Zebras" I would have to scroll past literally hundreds of titles that are in my account in order to add that one book to my child's account. If you haven't purchased a lot of content via Amazon, the process would be more bearable, but for those of us who've been buying Kindle books for many years already, the process is tedious. Conclusion: the tablet is great, but Kindle FreeTime Unlimited needs plenty of work. If you're not satisfied with FreeTime Unlimited's (lack of) parental controls, you might be better off with the regular, $99 Kindle Fire, a sturdy case and a 2 year protection plan. Edit: At the moment (as of 11/30/14), it makes no sense to buy this tablet given the discounts on the Kindle Fire 7. It's currently priced at $109, and if you have an Amazon card and apply code HDL30ARC, you get an additional $30 off. The grand total before taxes is $84.21- that's less than half the price of the 7in kid tablet. Get the tablet, a sturdy case and a 2 year protection plan. Suscribe to Kindle FreeTime Unlimited when it's ready for prime time. Edit: Disregard the above as it no longer applies. I won't delete it for the sake of transparency.