CABLING
A tap for Amazon content: If you subscribe to Amazon’s Prime service, you can consume all the included movies, music, TV shows, and books, shop all the items you can get with its free two-day shipping, and explore Amazon’s free photo storage. You can do most of the same things from an Android tablet or iPad, but the Fire OS interface is designed specifically for delivering Amazon products, with slide-out pages for each type of media Amazon sells.
Built “good enough”: Physically, Amazon’s Fire tablets are made of cheap plastic, but they’re designed with enough care that the build quality won’t bother you too much. The kids editions are also some of the best quality tablets for kids, they are protected by a sturdy bumper and all have microSD slots so you can add extra storage. (We recommend this 128GB microSD card (For $17.) You can make them even more capable 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 the apps available for Android will work just fine.)
Cheap: Did we mention the price? They are all $200 or less, except for the new Max 11. However, if you stick with the cheaper models, they are a great option. You can also get them with Amazon ads on your lock screen, which will reduce the price by $15.
TIRED
Missing non-Amazon content: The greatest strength of these tablets is also their greatest weakness. If you’re not an Amazon Prime subscriber and don’t plan to get your videos, audios, or books from Amazon, the Fire line of tablets is much less attractive. They have Alexa, so that could be a plus, but again, that’s deeply tied to Amazon’s content library. You can download third-party apps like Netflix on the Amazon Appstore, but the selection is far more limited than what’s available on Apple’s iPad or Google Play Store on standard Android tablets. To help you get around this limitation, we put together a guide to installing 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’s capable of doing 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 minor lags and a general lack of power compared to more expensive Android tablets. Since many of the apps for Fire OS are built with weak processing power in mind, you don’t notice it too much. The operating system is also dated (depending on which Fire tablet you buy), which could hide some of the weaknesses. Amazon’s latest Fire OS is a modified version of Android 11, which came out in 2020. Amazon continues to update its tablets to some extent, but not as frequently as it should.
Short guarantees: Only the Fire HD 10 comes with a full one-year warranty. Interestingly, the smaller devices come with 90-day warranties.
Special offers: Over time, Amazon’s special offer ads have become more noticeable and annoying. We recommend paying the extra $15 to buy a Fire tablet without them.