ksr5377 Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 We're talking about Christmas already here, and my mom mentioned buying my 2 girls, ages 4 & 6, the LeapPad. In the end she plans on spending $200/each. I told her that I would prefer a REAL tablet and she agreed, but now I have to choose one. I was looking at the Fire because we already have Amazon Prime. The uses would be reading (hopefully), watching movies, maybe getting online, playing some educational apps and Angry Birds. We don't have smart phones or any other tablet in the house, so I'm sure my husband and I will play with them as well, but we don't actually NEED them for anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hsbeth Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 No experience with FIRE but I can say without hesitation not to go with a NOOK for littles. We've got the Nook Color and the Nook Color Tablet and while we initially loved both, neither has held up well to being used by the littles. We've gone through 4 chargers (at almost $40 a piece). We also experience a lot of glitchy freezing/crashing. My girls are pretty gentle with them honestly and we've had them both in nice cases from day one. They show no evidence of screen damage, scratches, dents, etc. so they've honestly not been abused. Myself or one of our older teens do most of the charging so I'm honestly not sure why they don't hold up well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jujsky Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 No experience with FIRE but I can say without hesitation not to go with a NOOK for littles. We've got the Nook Color and the Nook Color Tablet and while we initially loved both, neither has held up well to being used by the littles. We've gone through 4 chargers (at almost $40 a piece). We also experience a lot of glitchy freezing/crashing. My girls are pretty gentle with them honestly and we've had them both in nice cases from day one. They show no evidence of screen damage, scratches, dents, etc. so they've honestly not been abused. Myself or one of our older teens do most of the charging so I'm honestly not sure why they don't hold up well. We haven't had any charger issues with our kids' Nook tablets, but they are starting to randomly freeze -- at least DS's does (out of the two, he uses his the most). Overall, we love them, but if you already have Amazon Prime, you might as well go with the Kindle Fires. I don't, and already had a Nook of my own so it made more sense for us to go with the Nooks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ksr5377 Posted September 24, 2012 Author Share Posted September 24, 2012 How long have you had those before they started to freeze up on you? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
katnorman Posted September 24, 2012 Share Posted September 24, 2012 My 7 year old has a fire and I'm really thinking about getting my 5 and 3 year olds each one for Christmas. They use my 7 year olds ALL the time. We love our fires :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shelsi Posted September 24, 2012 Share Posted September 24, 2012 Call me crazy but I wouldn't give any child as young as 4 & 6 any electronic that costs more than maybe $60 and even that is a stretch. My ds had a leapster until 2nd grade and then he saved up half the amount for a nintendo dsi so we paid for the other half as his birthday gift. That thing has been dropped, sat on, forgotten in the (hot) car, almost washed numerous times, left lying on the floor, amongst other various ways to totally kill an electronic device. It's only officially broken one time (in which he had to pay with his own money to have it fixed) and I attest it to the fact that it is made for kids and therefore a bit sturdier. Dd has a leapster explorer and she's a bit better with things than my 8 yr old (dd is 5) but she's still dropped it at least 10x on our hard tile when she was just carrying it with her to go sit on the couch and play with it. Again, it's only because it's made for kids that it didn't shatter. I have an old-school kindle and if I dropped it on any hard surface I'm fairly certain it would never survive. Kids are rough with things even when they aren't intending to be that way. Personally I'd combine the money, take the $400 and get a desktop computer they could use for educational games, could watch shows, etc. It'd be a heck of a lot less likely to break, kwim? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted September 24, 2012 Share Posted September 24, 2012 I'm not fond of the fire my kids won. The app selection through Amazon is rotten and the lack of control you have over the organization isn't good. I loathe that because it's tied to my account, every adult book I download must be downloaded then deleted from the fire. If you can't go iPad, I'd do a proper Android tablet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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