Amazon’s Fire tablets got a refresh, and there’s a new Kids Edition for its Fire HD 8 device. The Fire 7 is now thinner and lighter, with a slight improvement in its display for improved contrast and clearer text. The Fire HD 8 remains the same, but Amazon is cutting its price from $89.99 to $79.99. The Fire 7 will remain at $49.99. The new devices start shipping on June 7th with preorders starting today.
The kids edition of Fire 8 HD means parents get parental controls through Amazon’s FreeTime Unlimited software on that variant of the tablet. FreeTime Unlimited is a $2.99 per month subscription service that lets parents monitor and control a kid’s device usage by app and restricts the types of content kids can access across all categories, from books and games to videos and websites.
Before this, Amazon only offered a Fire 7 Kids Edition for $99.99. The Fire HD 8 is $30 more, putting the Kids Edition version at $129.99. You get one year free of FreeTime Unlimited, the Kids Edition devices also come with a free two-year “worry free” guarantee, meaning Amazon will replace the device no questions asked regardless of the type of damage done to it. It also come with protective cover in blue, pink and yellow.
Amazon is making Alexa available on all Fire tablets in the UK. The new tablets will receive the Alexa update out of the box. Older devices in the UK will get in as an over-the-air software update some time soon. This is an expansion from the US releases. No word on the rest of the world as of yet.
