Reviewed: Kindle Fire in car headrest mount

It’s not an earth-shattering revelation but time is an odd thing. When you’re having a fantastic time, the hours whizz by far too fast. When you’re bored and longing for the minute hand to tick around, it seems to pause.

When you’re doing a car journey with a bored toddler, I think the laws of physics may need rewriting to explain just how slowly (and painfully) time can go past. I’m all for playing I Spy etc – but not while I’m concentrating on a tricky section of motorway or with a two-year-old who hasn’t cracked the alphabet yet.

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Yesterday’s jaunt to Warwick to explore Warwick Castle was a fairly low-key journey – my husband driving, no traffic and a reasonably short trip. But to be on the safe side, it was time to bring out the secret weapon… a film to watch en route.

It’s not the first time I’ve looked for solutions to survive a car journey with a toddler. And after umming and aaahing about getting a proper DVD player, financial considerations won out over long-term practicality.

Although an in-car DVD would mean I can play any of our collection of movies, it’s also about four times more expensive than buying a headrest attachment for my tablet and playing one of the smaller selection of films stored on that.

So that just meant I had to work out a way to play my Kindle Fire in car.

First stop, Amazon to check out what they suggested for a Kindle Fire car holder, which wouldn’t break the bank – resulting in me buying myself the snappily named TFY Kindle Fire HD 7inch Car Headrest Mount – the ‘fast attach, fast release’ version apparently. In black.

EDIT: No longer available but this car headrest mount is similar

When it turned up, it turned out to be suitable for pretty much any tablet including an iPad as it’s adjustable but held the 7in Kindle Fire perfectly.

My brain tends to panic slightly and shut down when confronted with diagrams for use, but this genuinely is straightforward. Firstly, two clips stretch and close around the headrest, so it also means you can use it on a variety of cars.

Then you adjust the other clips to stretch around the tablet, and make sure they’re closed tightly onto it to avoid any chance the tablet might slip (or worse, fly) out while you’re driving.

And that is it. It’s safer than letting Minnie hold the tablet, not to mention more practical as she has a knack for instantly pressing the off button or returning it accidentally to the home screen, but as it’s on the headrest, it’s still easy to see.

It didn’t make her car sick, which was one of my potential fears and it didn’t need me to do anything as we drove, which was the point – one small glitch meant my Kindle paused briefly to send me a message about WiFi, which was wildly unhelpful, so in future I’ll be putting it on aeroplane mode.

Otherwise the only downsides were entirely human rather than device-related – a small soundclash as my husband seized the opportunity to listen to his own music in the front as Minnie watched Rio 2 in the back, requests for different films not on the Kindle and even more requests to explain various bits of the plot which was tricky as I couldn’t see the screen (and haven’t seen the film).

When she’s older, I’d still hope we’ll have other options – audio CDs for example, car games and so on. But for now, this is going to be worth its weight in stress-free moments.

Especially as we have another trip coming up soon to the Isle of Wight.

EDIT: Unfortunately, it seems that one thing lets this down – on the trip to the Isle of Wight, as we attached it to the headrest again… the plastic clip snapped on just its second use.

Although it was still just about useable, it doesn’t inspire me for the future, and I’m not convinced by its safety any more. Shame.

 

Main image courtesy of Depositphotos/product image courtesy of Amazon

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