Amazon Glow review: Pandemic playtime
Our Verdict
The Amazon Glow is a new take on remote, interactive play — but whether your kid will similar it is another matter.
For
- Innovative idea
- Fun interactivity
- Bright project
Against
- Bear on a lilliputian sluggish
- No fashion to customize home screen
- Not all Amazon Kids+ content available
Tom'south Guide Verdict
The Amazon Glow is a new have on remote, interactive play — merely whether your child will like information technology is another matter.
Pros
- +
Innovative idea
- +
Fun interactivity
- +
Bright projection
Cons
- -
Touch a little sluggish
- -
No fashion to customize home screen
- -
Not all Amazon Kids+ content available
Amazon Glow: Specs
Size: 14.2 x 5.six 10 5.4 inches
Mat size: 18.2 ten 12.ane inches
Projection size: 19.2 inches (diagonal)
Display: 8 inches, 1280 ten 800
Camera: 720p
Wireless: 802.11ac (2.4 & 5 GHz), Bluetooth 5.0
Speakers: One 10W
If Covid has laid anything blank, information technology'due south shown that people have had to become creative when trying to connect with others remotely. The Amazon Glow has a real pandemic product experience to information technology; it'south designed so that children tin play with all sorts of Amazon Kids+ content, but at the same time, share that feel with someone watching remotely.
For instance, a grandparent can read books, play games, and depict on the Glow app on a tablet; the Glow projects that screen onto a large white mat; the project is likewise movement-sensitive, and then that both the grandchild and grandparent tin can draw together or flip pages of the same volume. All the while, a small display on the Glow itself lets the kid run into the grandparent's confront and talk with them, as you would any video chat.
As a Solar day 1 Edition product — Amazon'southward own Kickstarter, if you lot volition — the Amazon Glow joins other experimental products, some of which (like the Echo Frames) accept gone on to become available to the public, while others (like the Echo Loop) have never left the testing stage. As yous'll see in our Amazon Glow review, this device has potential, but has some hurdles to articulate.
Amazon Glow: Price, availability, and what you'll need
The Amazon Glow is on sale for $249; nevertheless, it's a so-chosen Day 1 Edition product, meaning that Amazon is still working out the kinks. As such, you can't buy it outright, just have to request an invitation to purchase it. Subsequently this introductory period, the price of the Glow volition increase to $299.
The Amazon Glow comes with a ane-year subscription to Amazon Kids+ (afterward which it costs $2.99 per month). The subscription includes thousands of child-friendly books, movies, TV shows, educational apps, and games, as well equally movies and Television shows, and can be accessed not just on the Glow, but on compatible Fire, Fire Television receiver, Android, iOS and Kindle devices. Content is grouped into age-appropriate categories — 3 to five, six to 8, and 9 to 12 — which is determined when you create a profile for your child in the app.
Like Fire Kids tablets, the Glow comes with a 2-twelvemonth worry-costless guarantee, so that if it breaks, Amazon volition replace it for gratis.
To employ the Amazon Glow app — then yous tin video chat with whoever'south in forepart of the Glow — yous'll need an iPad running iOS 14.0 or later or Android 8.0 or later. Amazon says that the 2021 Burn Hard disk drive ten Tablet will also support the app soon.
Amazon Glow review: Design
The Glow is an all-blackness monolithic-like device that stands almost inches alpine, and is 5.five inches wide. When looking at the Glow from the side, it has a sort of S shape: There's a protrusion at the top which houses its projector, and the bottom of the device juts backwards to provide a sort of foot.
In the center of the front is an 8-inch touchscreen display with a camera just above; below the screen is a speaker, and on the right side is a power button too as two volume controls. Farther up is a physical slider that covers the photographic camera; the shutter is white, which lets you see at a glance whether or not the camera is covered.
The Glow comes with a white rubber mat that measures xviii x 12 inches; the peak of the mat is polish, but the bottom has a grippy texture that helps go on it in place on a java table or hard surface.
Amazon Glow review: Performance
In many ways, the Glow is substantially an Amazon Burn down Kids tablet writ big, simply instead of a touchscreen, the device projects the screen onto a large mat. The projection itself measures 16.7 x 9.iv inches, so there'south a bit of a border around the unabridged mat.
I remember years agone companies would sell a "laser" keyboard that projected a QWERTY keyboard and allowed you to type on virtually any apartment surface, as it would sense when your fingers tapped on a particular fundamental. The Amazon Glow operates in much the same mode, with the same benefits — and the same limitations.
My three-year-old daughter picked up the concept of how to use the Glow pretty fast — it'south pretty scary how quickly toddlers get proficient at using consumer electronics — just there were still some problems we ran into that you don't become on tablets.
The screen supports multitouch gestures, so you tin draw with more than one finger at a time. However, there were instances where my daughter, in the centre of drawing, would rest her arm on the side of the mat; this would cause the Glow to transport up an error message and not respond to her taps.
Besides, I occasionally establish that the Glow was a hair less responsive to affect than a traditional tablet, then there was a very slight filibuster. While I'm accustomed to waiting, my girl isn't, and would jab repeatedly at an icon, which itself would cause bug.
I had hoped to enlist her help with testing the Glow's other features, but afterward a few minutes, she got it in her caput that the Glow looked likewise much similar a robot, and thus was scary. She and so refused to interact with information technology whatever more, and tried to plough it off, then cover it with the included mat.
To finish testing the Glow, I enlisted the aid of my wife, who chatted with me via the Glow app on an Android tablet. Either of united states of america could select something we wanted to read or play with, and the Glow reacted very apace to both of us drawing on the same surface. The video feed was likewise articulate, with no lag in sound - to be fair, we were on the same Wi-Fi network.
Amazon Glow review: Content and interface
The abode screen (that is, the projected image) is vivid and colorful, and divided into sections: there'due south Featured, Games, Art, and Recommended Books, also every bit some branded areas: Disney, Mattel, Nickelodeon, and Sesame Street. Unfortunately, there's no way to edit the screen to personalize it with favorite books or games, and you're stuck with branded content, whether yous like it or not. Withal, you can search for particular titles.
The Sesame Street category was pretty limited, likewise: but iv selections. You would think there would be more options for a iii-twelvemonth-old.
The Amazon Kids+ content available on the Glow is limited to e-books, Glow's interactive games, visual arts activities, and Animated Storybooks. And then, there'south no way to access videos, apps, sound books, and Alexa skills that you lot could otherwise view on a Burn down tablet.
Draw Together is a fun piddling sketchpad that lets you draw with someone. You lot can select different castor styles, colors, and add stickers.
A neat feature lets you "scan" objects placed in front end of it. It substantially takes a motion-picture show of any you place on the mat, and so lets you dispense that film by resizing and moving it effectually the screen; yous can too create virtual jigsaw puzzles out of whatsoever you scan. It's a lot of fun, but the scanning blitheness is a bit misleading. After you select the scan button, some royal laser-similar lines pan over the object you want to scan. The display then goes white, making y'all think that the process is complete. However, you have to wait an actress second or ii for the object to be scanned. The beginning few times I tried this with my hand, I pulled it off as well presently, and then nothing or only part of my hand would exist scanned.
Some other inventive game is Glow Bits, modest triangular pieces of plastic with little magnets in each corner. A child can snap them together on the Glow'south mat, and so the Glow tin can scan information technology and create a virtual model, which a parent can so dispense on their tablet.
There'due south a decent choice of Recommended Books, though it seems to aggregate picks from a lot of the branded content areas. Pete The True cat and Goodnight Moon sat aslope The Incredibles and Luca. Books fall into two types: Standard ones where you can but flip pages, and blithe storybooks, which have interactive elements on each page. For example, a Toy Story book lets you motility Woody around on one page, and activate Fizz Lightyear's alert on some other page.
Amazon Glow: Verdict
The Amazon Glow is a new twist on some quondam engineering, and it by and large works. The interactive play experience is inventive, and information technology's squeamish to be able to run into the person you're playing with — though to be honest, y'all'll spend more of your fourth dimension looking at the large projection than you will the Glow's 8-inch screen.
At $249 ($299 later on the introductory period), it's significantly pricier than Amazon'south other kid-focused tech. Unlike Amazon's Fire Kids tablets, which range in toll from $99 to $199, this represents a bigger — and less mobile — investment, with less content available. And, while my girl isn't the largest of focus groups, I'd be a little put out if I were to buy a $300 gadget and have it not go used. But, the Glow does give you lot an interactive experience that yous tin can't detect on Amazon'due south tablets, or anywhere else.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/amazon-glow
Posted by: anthonydandreepild.blogspot.com
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