DETAILS
Amazon content faucet: When you sign up for the Amazon Prime service, you can use all the featured movies, music, TV, and books, buy all the things you can get with your free two-day shipping, and browse your free Amazon photo storage. You can do many of the same things using an Android tablet or iPad, but the Fire OS interface is designed specifically to deliver Amazon goods, with swipeable pages for each type of media sold by Amazon.
Designed for “just enough”: Physically, Amazon’s Fire tablets are made of cheap plastic, but designed with enough care that the build quality won’t bother you too much. Wifi reception is excellent, and the front-facing cameras have improved significantly over the last couple releases. The Kids Editions are also some of the best quality kids tablets, covered in a rugged bumper, and all have microSD slots so you can add more storage. (We recommend this 128-GB microSD card for $17.) You can enable them even more by following our guide to installing the Google Play Store on your Fire device. That will give you access to the full range of Android apps. (Note that some apps won’t work, but 99 percent of existing Android apps will work fine.)
Cheap: Did we mention the price? They all cost $200 or less, save the new Max 11. However, if you stick to the cheap models, they have great value. You can also get them through Amazon’s lock screen ads, which will lower your price by $15.
YOU ARE TIRED
Non-Amazon content is missing: The greatest strength of these pills is also their greatest weakness. If you’re not an Amazon Prime subscriber and don’t plan to get your video, audio, or books from Amazon, the Fire tablet lineup isn’t that compelling. They have Alexa, so that would be a plus, but again, that’s deeply connected to Amazon’s library. You can download third-party apps like Netflix from Amazon’s Appstore, but only a few away which is more limited than what is available on Apple’s iPad or the Google Play Store on standard Android tablets. To help you overcome this limitation, we put together a guide to install the Google Play Store on your Fire device. Installing the Google Play Store gives you access to the full range of Android apps. In the end, you get a $60 tablet that can do 95 percent of what a $330 iPad can do.
Old technology: The technology inside these tablets is old. The processors aren’t the fastest, and you’ll probably notice a slight balance and a general lack of power compared to more expensive Android tablets. Touch screens are not as responsive or sensitive as more expensive tablets. Since most Fire OS apps are built with weak processing power in mind, you don’t notice it much. The operating system is also dated (depending on which Fire tablet you buy), which can hide some of the weaknesses. Amazon’s latest Fire OS is an updated version of Android 11, which came out in 2020. Amazon keeps updating its tablets to some extent, but not nearly as often as it should.
Short guarantees: Only the Fire HD 10 comes with a one-year warranty. Ironically, the smaller devices come with 90-day warranties.
Specials: Over time Amazon’s Special Offers ads have become overt and annoying. We recommend paying the extra $15 to buy a Fire tablet without it.