Wife is thinking about getting her 9 y/o grandson a Kindle Fire tablet for Christmas. Question we have is: can it access the internet just the same as a laptop or other computer? We know it has Wi-Fi capability but we don't know what all it can do with that capability.

Any dangers to turning a 9 y/o loose with something like this?

All advice and info is appreciated.

Thanks in advance for any help you tech-savvy guys can give to an old fart.

Tim

Yes you can access the internet with it. It's not as easy to 'navigate' around the internet with it as a laptop, but you can do it nonetheless.

My 5 year old niece loves my wife's Fire.

My wife lets the 4 year old grandson play with hers.

He plays all of the free games but we don't let it connect to the net.
They are pretty tough.

You can use it pretty much like a laptop. Some things are a little different of course. The kid oughta love it.

Having owned a few Kindles, typing this on one right now, I'd take a closer look at the ones that use the regular Android OS instead of the Amazon product.

My kids each have one. Yes, you can access all of what the internet has to offer, good and bad. Before gifting one, I would make sure mom and dad are up for the idea. There are some parental controls that can be activated but I do not know how robust they are.

Actually, any android tablet should work. I used to have a Kindle Fire, and then I switched to a Samsung coz it had a slightly bigger screen. If one wants to read kindle books on them, all they need to do is download the Kindle app from Amazon for free and all the free books and games will be available to download.

By all means, get either one...and preload it with all three of my novels. THAT will be a lucky kid.

If you did not know, today you can get the 7in fire on sale for 34.99.

Its the devil! My daughter reads like 20 books a month and it is costing me a fortune...

Mine does the same on hers. You can go broke buying them but I'm not about to tell her to stop reading.

You guys do know you can get free books from the library for the kindle.

There are lots of free Kindle books on Amazon and a Kindle Unlimited membership gets many more on loan for free. The reader can have up to 10 books out at a time with the Unlimited plan. And as you said, get a card from the library and check out library books from your recliner. The drawback to the library checkout is often a long wait. The last Kindle book I borrowed had a wait time of two and a half months.

Thanks guys! Wife ordered two of them today. One for the grandson and one for the step-grandaughter.

Yes, but I said my daughter was the reader. You just can't tell them what to read.

Nope, but you can tell YOUR MONEY how many books it buys.......

Actually there is no limit on books. It could be worse, Barbies or such junk. The investment will pay off...

I recommend getting the rubber case for the kindle. My daughter has one and I swear you can ounce that thing like a basketball. Worth the extra cost several times over