Amazon Fire HD 10 Kids Pro review

Two-minute review

Where the standard Amazon Fire HD 10 Kids Edition is designed for very young children, the Kids Pro version of the Fire HD 10 is for older kids; the recommended age group is 6 to 12.

That means a less childish-looking but very strong protective case and a more grown-up walled garden of games and apps. As it’s a Fire HD 10 underneath, it has multiple user accounts and you can use it as a standard Fire HD 10 for teenage children, or for grown-ups when the kids are in bed.

This is the largest of the Kids Pro tablets, with a screen that’s well-suited to watching videos and playing games. The 10.1-inch display is roughly the same size as the one on the iPad 10.2 (2020), but it has a different, wider aspect ratio: 16:10 compared to the iPad’s 4:3.

As with other Fire tablets, the parental controls are excellent and very comprehensive, and while the included one-year Kids Plus subscription doesn’t have the same breadth of content as the Google Play Store it isn’t full of dodgy downloads or age-inappropriate apps either.

If the Kids Plus selection is too restrictive it’s easy to get apps from the Amazon Appstore using the parent or guardian’s account and share them with other family members. If you allow it, each child can also send you requests for apps and games they’d like you to approve.

The hardware here isn’t iPad-class, but it’s solidly made and very good for the price you pay. It’s the same spec as the non-Kids version: there’s a 10.1-inch Full HD display, an octa-core processor, 3GB of RAM and 32GB of expandable storage, and while the front and rear cameras aren’t spectacular they’re more than capable for video chat, messing around and everyday photography.

The price includes the protective case and there’s a two-year worry-free guarantee: if the Fire Kids Pro gets broken, Amazon will replace it. That on its own makes this a package worth considering, as the case, guarantee and the Kids Plus subscription more than justify the additional cost over a standard Amazon Fire HD 10.

Amazon Fire HD 10 Kids Pro release date and price

• $199.99 / £199.99 (around AU$270)
• Released May 26, 2021

The Amazon Fire HD 10 Kids Pro is currently selling at $199.99 / £199.99 (around AU$270). That’s $50/£50 more than the non-Kids HD 10 and the same price as the non-Pro Fire HD 10 Kids, which is designed for 3 to 7-year-olds. That price includes the case and a free year’s subscription to the Kids Plus service.

$199/£199 is expensive for a Fire but it’s still considerably less than an iPad, with Apple's range starting at $329/£329. For parents on a budget that’s a big difference.

It's worth noting that the price might drop a bit during sales periods such as Amazon Prime Day, so if that standard price is too steep it could be worth waiting and keeping an eye out during sales.

The Fire HD 10 Kids Pro was released on May 26, 2021 in the US and UK, but at the time of writing it's not available in Australia.

Design and display

• Sturdy, durable build
• A handy stand for video viewing
• 10.1-inch Full HD screen

The Amazon Fire HD 10 Kids Pro is a standard, black Fire HD 10 in a colored case: you can choose between solid black, solid blue, and the patterned Doodle (purple background) and Intergalactic (blue background).

The case is much sleeker than the one on standard Fire Kids Edition tablets, fitting tightly around the bezels and with a useful and sturdy flip-out stand. In landscape mode it’s 256mm wide and 190mm high; thickness is 17mm and it weighs 718g including the case.

The case’s included stand feels sturdy and sits the tablet at a good angle for watching video.

The display here is a bright, crisp 10.1-inch IPS panel with good viewing angles. Its resolution is 1,920 x 1,200, giving it 224 pixels per inch, and it’s protected by strengthened aluminum silicate glass.

It’s a wider aspect ratio than an iPad, at 16:10 rather than 4:3. We think that’s better for watching video but it feels a little odd in portrait mode where its proportions make us feel like we’re holding an enormous phone.

There are twin stereo speakers, twin microphones and a 3.5mm headphone jack; the usual sleep/wake and volume controls are located on the right (or the top/bottom in portrait mode) where we never fail to press the wrong one.

Cameras, connectivity and accessibility

• Acceptable cameras for the price
• Lots of accessibility features

As with other Fire HD tablets, the cameras here are fine rather than fantastic, but they’re better than the ones in the non-HD Fires, such as the Amazon Fire 7 Kids Pro. The front-facing camera is 2MP and the rear 5MP; video recording is just 720p. 

The Amazon Fire 7 for comparison has just a 2MP snapper on both sides, so the main camera on the Fire HD 10 Kids Pro is much better. Picture quality is very respectable in decent lighting but things get noisy in low light environments.

Amazon deserves credit for its accessibility features. The Fire HD 10 Kids Pro has the VoiceView screen reader for blind or visually impaired users, and it can use either text to speech or a connected braille display.

There are good accessibility options including subtitles and high contrast text, color inversion and correction, and conversion of stereo audio to mono, and there’s a useful Screen Magnifier to enlarge on-screen elements.

As you’d expect from Amazon, the Fire HD 10 Kids Pro covers the essentials when it comes to connectivity: Wi-Fi works with every flavor up to 802.11ac dual-band, and there’s Bluetooth 5.0 with A2DP audio. Of course, there's no mobile data here, and certainly not 5G.

Performance and battery life

• Smooth performance in most situations
• 12 hours of battery life

The Amazon Fire HD 10 Kids Pro has a MediaTek octa-core chipset running at 2.0GHz, backed with 3GB of RAM and Mali-G72 graphics. Storage is 32GB, expandable via a microSD card to 1TB. The operating system here is Amazon’s own Fire OS 7, which is based on Android 9.

While this isn't an overly powerful slate, in everyday use the Fire HD 10 Kids Pro is a smooth performer with no stuttering or lag even in fairly demanding video games, and the user interface is instantly responsive. That said, this isn't one for serious gaming.

Claimed battery life is up to 12 hours and we found that the Kids Pro would easily last a week of post-school gaming between charges. Charging is wired via the USB-C port and supplied 9W power adapter, and takes around four hours.

Software, apps and parental controls

• Kids Plus included free for a year
• Lots of age-appropriate content
• Handy and extensive parental controls

The big draw here is Amazon’s software, which creates a walled garden for age-appropriate content. It’s designed to work in conjunction with Amazon’s Kids Plus subscription service, which you get free for a year and which offers a good range of branded content from the likes of Marvel, Disney, Nickelodeon and LEGO.

Content is organized into three age groups – 3 to 6, 6 to 9 and 9 to 12 – and there’s an impressive selection of Amazon ebooks and Audible audiobooks.

The interface for older children is more sober and grown-up than the one for younger children.

For content that isn’t included in Kids Plus, the child can send you a request which you can then approve or deny; you can block access to the Amazon Appstore completely or just block in-app purchases.

That latter one is a very good idea for free games that could otherwise rack up large in-app bills. You can also download apps from the Amazon Appstore using your own account and then share the app or game with other user accounts. That’s useful for the likes of Netflix, Minecraft and Zoom, which aren’t part of the Kids Plus catalog.

Amazon’s parental controls are very comprehensive, with good options for blocking or limiting web access, enabling child-safe communications, and ensuring the kids don’t access content they shouldn’t.

You can set time limits and per-app restrictions, and there are some thoughtful features including discussion cards for specific books and videos, remote locking so the kids actually come to the dinner table, and a 'turn off by' setting to enforce bedtime.

Should you buy the Amazon Fire HD 10 Kids Pro?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

First reviewed: October 2021