I have just gotten my hands on my brand new Fire Tablet 7″ and I though I should share my thoughts on this here at my Amazon related blog. Before continuing you need to chew on the fact that this tablet only cost 50 bucks as you buy it on Amazon.com!
If you are in a hurry and want to order a Fire Tablet 7″ for $50, then just click the link beneath and visit Amazon.com and order one yourself!
Before continuing let me tell you that since I do not live in a country with an Amazon store I had to trick the system a bit, and that is why I ordered my Fire 7″ tablet from the German Amazon store and used a virtual address provided by Mailboxde and had the package forwarded to my home another in another country by them. You can read more about Amazon Package forwarding in this article if you need such help yourself!
Fire Tablet 7″ review
Let me start by saying that a tablet only costing 50 USD, 50 GBP or 60 Euro is a winner in itself, even before actually using it. This is about one third of the price of all its competitors. But, what makes it so cheap?
I have been using the tablet for a while myself already and here are my thoughts on the tablet!
Technical specs
The Fire Tablet 7″ has an internal storage space of 8GB and you can of course buy extra SD card to get more storage space if needed. It has a resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels and it has Quad-Core 1.3 GHz processor and 1 GB of RAM. A quite similar tablet to this one, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4, currently cost 143 USD on Amazon.com. If you use the tablet without stop it can keep it going for about seven hours, of course depending on the brightness on your screen and what you actually use the tablet for in that period.
The Fire Tablet in use
The brand new Fire tablet is made for Amazon users and it is extremely Amazon. It is also worth knowing that it is running the Fire OS and not the very common Android system. It shares lots of similarities with the Android system, but it is still different and you will soon notice this as you try to use it. An interesting difference is for example the way the menus look, because instead of scrolling between the windows to the left and right you need to scroll up and down to find the different icons and apps available on your home screen!
It has built in menus for different Amazon categories, meaning that as you pull your finger to the right or to the left on the screen you will jump between the home screen and sites for books, videos, games, apps, music, audiobooks and more. And of course every category is very well connected to the Amazon store so that you easily can buy a new book, a new audiobook, an Amazon Instant Video or a new game to play.
Since the tablet is registered with your Amazon profile it also knows everything about you, so do not be surprised as you find all your Kindle books in the books category, all your video downloads in the video category, your audiobooks and the category with the same name and so on.
Is this close connection to the actual Amazon profile and Amazon store a positive thing? It can be, but if you just want a normal tablet without any danger of actually spending money on new content regularly you might find it to be a bit annoying. The fact that it is impossible to delete the Amazon icons from the home screen is making it even harder to forget how closely this is connected to Amazon. You can of course move them around on the start screen, but actually deleting the Amazon icons is impossible.
The Fire tablet and its applications
As I first tried the brand new Fire 7″ tablet from Amazon I looked through the different categories and found my Kindle books and more and suddenly asked myself a question: Is there a browser on this device? I looked back on my home screen and then after looking at it more thoroughly I noticed an icon saying Silk Browser. And yes, that is the browser available on the Fire tablet. It is working just like most other browsers, so I would not need another one, but if I did, I would not find one, because as I searched for Opera and Firefox in the application store I could not find any of them. So, I guess I will remain using the Silk browser for future searches as well.
While there is a lack of standard programs for the Fire tablet, you will still be able to find lots of other applications such as applications for HBO Now, CBS, Netflix, Hulu and similar streaming services.
The Fire tablet as a tablet for children
If you have a family with children then you have two different options. One is to buy one tablet per person or the other is to create users for all children and yourself on one tablet. The Fire tablet is made for being children and teenager friendly and the way it works is simply amazing. I am not sure if it wise to give smaller children a tablet and let them use it for hours every day, but if I were to give a child a tablet, it would for sure be a Fire tablet.
If you start Freetime at the tablet you will at once be able to create a user for a child or a teenager. As you choose for example a child you will then be able to decide which films, books and applications you want to give the user access to, and thus you can safely give the tablet to the child and they will only be able to access the films, books and applications you actually allow them access to.
But, to make things better you do in fact have a lot of power as you create a profile for a child. Just take a look at the following menu giving you options for how much the child profile can be used on weekdays and on weekends, giving goals for amount of reading that is to be done, setting bed times meaning that the device can not be used after that and so on!
Did you notice the chance to block all entertainment content until all daily educational goals are met? That is a goal one, and makes it impossible to actually do the “cool” stuff before you are finished with the rest. Guess that function should exist on the tablets of some adults as well!
Some last thoughts on the Fire 7″ tablet
The camera
The tablet has a front and a rear camera, but you should not expect to great quality of pictures made using these cameras. They work to make pictures and you can create profile pictures etc, but no high quality stuff will origin from this camera.
The size
Just perfect for a 7″ tablet. It is easy to hold, nice to look at, the weight is fine and it has a good grip.
No sponsored screensaver
If you are about to buy a Fire tablet then you will meet the option to buy the no sponsored screensaver or not. This will cost you 15 USD extra, and the question is whether it is worth it or not. I went on a budget as I bought the Fire tablet so I did not pay extra for this, meaning that I do get commercials every time I start up the tablet after it has gone to bed. It is just to move your finger across the screen at once and then the commercial is gone, so no problem having it there, though it would of course be nicer not to have it there. Conclusion? If it is important to you then just buy an upgrade later to get rid of them, no need to buy this at once!
Amazon Prime subscription
If you have an Amazon Prime subscription you will be able to enjoy your Fire tablet even more. The tablet is very closely related to Prime and they work great together. The fact that you as a Prime member can download Prime videos to the tablet as well makes it great. This can of course be done using the Amazon Video application also on an Android device, but it simply looks better on the Fire tablet. The tablet works great without Prime, but it works even better with Prime.
Fire 7″ tablet review conclusion
If you are a fan of Amazon and want to get hold of the cheapest tablet on the market, run and buy. If you have no intention at all of ever shopping from Amazon; be it books, videos, audiobooks or magazine, and all you want is a tablet for surfing, calling with Skype and just play games, then maybe you should look for another one. But, if you have the slightest interest in Amazon and do not mind getting Amazon products and services thrown at you now and then I have no other thing to say to you than to run and buy! Or was it click and buy?
Have you tried the Fire 7″ tablet? Did you like it? Would you recommend it to others? Please write a comment and share your thoughts on this brand new tablet from Amazon!
