Update Nov. 7: Unfortunately, this deal has ended. Please check our Best Tablets piece for recommendations. This tablet should be on sale again closer to Black Friday.
“You got games on your phone?” You look down. Yup, there’s a preschooler, complete with gigantic doe eyes and a yen for YouTube Kids, clamoring to grab your thousand-dollar slab of glass with his or her mysteriously sticky fingers and still-wonky motor skills.
There are alternatives. Instead of ceding your digital life into their grubby mitts, you could try a tablet. The Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids Edition (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is our favorite kids tablet, and right now, it’s on sale for $90—$40 off the usual price, and the best price we’ve seen outside of sales like Prime Day.
The Fire HD 8 Kids Edition costs $90 ($40 off) at Amazon
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An Early Black Friday Deal
Black Friday is still a few weeks away. Since a larger 10-inch version of the Fire Tablet Kids Edition was just released, both the Fire HD 8 Kids Edition and the Fire 7 Kids Edition will go on sale (for $80 and $60 each, respectively) on November 22. However, this price is only $10 higher than the BF price, and it’s not a bad deal if you’re traveling that weekend and don’t want to wait.
The tablet comes with a puffy foam case in yellow, pink, and blue. It also features 32 gigabytes of onboard storage and a battery that lasts up to 10 hours. Storage can be expanded using a MicroSD card, which is probably a good idea since apps can add up.
The Kids Edition comes with a year of FreeTime Unlimited, which gives you access to thousands of kid-friendly games, videos, and books. We like FreeTime’s built-in parental controls that let you set educational goals, customize screen time limits, and more. (We also have a few more ways to tweak your parental controls.) After your year-long trial is up, the service renews at $3 per month, though you can cancel it fairly easily.
The Kids Edition also includes a two-year worry-free guarantee. If your kid spills a cup of juice on it or buries it in the sandbox, Amazon will replace it for free.
The biggest downside is that it’s firmly trapped inside Amazon’s universe of content, unlike an iPad or some of our other favorite tablets. If you’re comfortable with Amazon’s ecosystem, be sure to check out our favorite affordable Fire tablets.
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