This is what I’ve been looking for. I have a Samsung 3, but when I first bought it I couldn’t watch movies without jumping through a lot of hoops. I didn’t really care as I wanted it more for internet, games and pulling photos from my camera.
My girls like playing with mine, but they fight over it so I figured I could get a second one, one that would play movies when we go away. And yes, having a USB stick would be nice, but kids do toss things.
It seems now, I looked today, Amazon now allows streaming of videos to most devices. I wasn’t able to download the movies I’ve bought before through them, but now maybe I can.
Note the word “streaming” and your OP. No Internet, no streaming.
There are two forms of Amazon Video:
Prime. Comes with an Amazon Prime subscription. Very small selection of free movies. Almost none from the past year you’d want to watch. Okay-ish for TV series, but I haven’t checked kids selections.
Amazon Video: Better selection, not as good as Netflix. Costs more.
I’m not sure how they do non-streaming. You have to “rent”/“buy” a video. This can be very pricey. E.g., I saw the other day that it was $14.99 to “rent” The Skeleton Twins. I’d rather wait for it to be on Redbox.
You’re correct to point out that “streaming” implies an internet connection—one that’s at least moderately fast.
Are you sure you’re interpreting it correctly? I’m seeing $14.99 to buy (in HD; $12.99 in SD), $5.99 to rent. Other new releases seem to be similarly priced. Still kinda pricey IMHO.
As I mentioned before, some of Amazon’s Prime videos can be downloaded and watched while you’re offline; others can only be streamed while you’re connected to the internet. The downloadability seems to be more common for TV episodes than movies.
Amazon also offers something called FreeTime Unlimited, with lots of content specifically for kids (maybe younger than the OP’s; I can’t tell); but I don’t really know anything about it.
Nope, it was to rent when it was first available. Buying was quite a bit higher. Prices drop a bit after release. Apparently it wasn’t renting well. Most such movies rent at 6.99 before dropping to 4.99.
Amazon is always playing with prices to see what the market will bear.
Or I could be flat out wrong … but what are the chances of that?:smack:
Before considering the tablet itself, I’d focus on the services you’ll use to get the movies.
Can you just copy movie files to an SD card? If so, you can use many different movie players, and you’ll just need a tablet with an SD card slot, and you’d never need to connect to WiFi. That’s really common on Android devices, even at the cheaper end. (I just spent $80 on an 8" device that would be perfect for this use. Here it is at Best Buy.)
Some services only allow streaming, like NetFlix. That would require an Internet connection to watch.
Many TV services have a download option. Dish has been advertising that. I have Comcast and know that it will work on my tablet (though Comcast only allows 3 devices per household). You’d need to connect to WiFi for the download, but could then disable it later.
Since a Fire tablet can run many third-party apps, you’d want to look at the services you have available and how many support Fire. Really, though, the tablet is going to be your most flexible piece of the puzzle - figure out which media services you’ll be using first, then pick a tablet that fits your budget.
(Personally, I’d second the recommendation that you just go with a portable DVD player. The kids will already know how to use it, and you won’t spend a lot of time worrying about parental controls and how to load content.)