I just purchased this new Kindle Fire as I wanted a new one with the larger 8 inch screen, more internal device memory and longer battery life. I have been using the last generation Kindle Fire 7 inch design. One of the reasons that I have kept on purchasing Kindle Fires is that every one of them is still working despite their age. Some are over 4 years old. They are also an excellent buy based on the price versus the technology that you are getting.
Are they the best tablets available? No they are not. The Apple tablets and Samsung tablets are more powerful and better, but they cost a lot, lots more. If you want to use a tablet for work or school, type letters, create spreadsheets and do advanced graphics/drawing then buy an Apple tablet or a Samsung. If you want to play games, read books, glance at emails and watch videos or browse the internet then use a Kindle Fire and save money. The Fire tablets are reliable and they work well. For the price they are powerful enough for these tasks and you can get one for every member of your family.
They are ideal for adults and children. They are an easy size to hold and carry. I purchased the one with 32GB of memory as that is good for those that read a lot of books and load a lot of movies and game apps. You can also add in up to 256 GB of Micro SD card space but most people need no more than 64 gig. I found with 8 and 16 GIG of internal device storage that I constantly had to delete items from the tablet to make more room for new apps. I have even had to delete apps and data just to accomplish operating system updates. That is because there was not enough available room on a tablet to download, decompile, backup and install the operating system update. The larger 32 GB of memory helps to resolve that problem. I installed a SanDisc Ultra 128 GIG micro SD card in my new Fire as I load a ton of books, videos and apps onto my tablet.
I own over 1300 Kindle books. Some games are 450 to 900+MB and they can chew up your onboard device memory space. Loading movies can also be a killer on memory allocation. Make sure that you allow apps and any other download to be stored on the SD card when possible and reserve the device memory when you can. Please be aware that many large game apps will not load onto your SD card. This means that they will take up a lot of your device memory space and do so very quickly.
Here is a real world example of how memory space can be used.
• After turning on the tablet and doing the mandatory update of the operating system I had 25.22 GB of free space out of 26.57 GB available.
• The newly installed SD card had 119 GB free out of 119 GB available.
• I installed 42 Audible books, 1180 Kindle books and about 100+ large game apps.
• The Audible books and the Kindle books were stored on the SD card along with about 70 percent of the game apps. Each game app leaves a smaller portion of the app data in the device memory. Some game apps were stored on the internal device memory as they will never transfer to the SD card.
• My SD memory dropped from 119GB free to 70.06 free. That is a usage of 49.00GB. Apps and games used 34.39GB, Audible used 5.76GB, books used 2.36GB and the tablet downloaded videos without my requesting them using the Amazon On Deck video program and used an additional 4.72GB of SD storage.
• My device internal memory was pretty much free until I downloaded the apps and games. An amazing 13.09GB of storage was used by the apps and games. This is an area that users may have to watch as many apps refuse to load onto the SD card and some of the apps can be over 1GB in size.
• As you can see I installed a lot of items on the tablet and I must admit that they all worked well I could even link the Bluetooth to my car’s stereo and play my audio books. Just make sure to set aside a lot of time to set up and transfer item to your new tablet. This took me over 8 hours of downloading data.
Overall, for the price this is a good tablet. It is not much different technically from the last generation. It is what I would call a good basic tablet sold at a fair price. I rate it based on that as a 5 star tablet. Just understand what you are getting and you will be happy with it.
I also like the additional battery size that can last up to 12 hours. This is a big improvement over the 7 hours of battery life on my last Kindle Fire 7 inch unit.
Where can you purchase a reasonably powered 8 inch tablet with 32 gig of memory, expandable memory with an SD card, good display and 12 hour battery life for $109.99? It even comes with an AC power supply and a charging cable.
In addition to the tablet you get a micro USB to USB charging cable that is 39.37 inches long. (One meter). There is also an AC wall charger that operates on 100 to 240 VAC at 50/60 Hertz. It outputs 5 VDC at 1 Amp.
On the con side:
• I wish it came with more warranty than 3 months. That is weak, it is just a way to sell a longer warranty to every user.
• The web browser is not up to par with those on more expensive tablets. I find it slower and more difficult to use.
• The display is good for the price but not up to par with more expensive tablets. It is 189 PPI versus 324 PPI on an iPad mini 4 for example but it costs about 1/3 as much.
• While the Kindle Fire has a rear camera it is only 2 MP with 720P HD video recording. That doesn't compare to the more expensive tablets. It also has a front facing camera rated at 0.3MP.
• The speaker system is just OK. The speaker's are on the side of the tablet and they were loud enough to listen to my audio books and enjoy them.
• There is no instruction manual included in the package. While startup is easy for experienced Kindle users it may be complicated for new users and non technical people.
• The basic tablet still has ads on it when I open it. This is my 6th Kindle Fire and I am just used to ignoring the ads. I have never purchased an item from one of the ads. They don't bother me anymore.
Overall a good buy for the features and money and a good starter tablet for a youngster or an adult wanting to read books and play games. I am really enjoying this tablet and adding a 128 GIG SD card helped me to load my books and apps to the tablet. So far the tablet is working well and I am enjoying it. I like the additional battery life and the ability to greatly expand the memory storage area.
For the money this has been a good tablet and it has performed well.
This tablet has good performance and expandability for a low price.