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  • April 23, 2018

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Get the latest news on e-Books, Audiobooks, Digital Publishing, Manga, Anime and Tablets

Amazon Announces 4 New Fire Tablets and they are Terrible

September 17, 2015 By Michael Kozlowski 12 Comments

Fire_HD_8_Colors_webready

Over the past few weeks we have given you a preview about what Amazons new Fire tablets are all about and now we finally have an official announcement. Today, Amazon unveiled 4 new tablets that are fairly modern, but still not as good as last years HDX models.

$50 Fire Tablet

Fire_webready

The seven inch Fire tablet has a resolution of 1024×600 and underneath the hood is a quad-core ARM cortex-A7 1.3 GHZ processor with Mali-450 graphics, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage. There is expandable memory via the SD card, so you can jack it up to 128 GB. You will be able to snap pictures with the rear facing 2MP camera or access on-demand video chat via the 0.3MP front camera. Customers can also choose to buy Fire as a six-pack for less than $250.

4

Last year, Amazon released the Fire Kids tablet, and many people saw it as a critical flop. Not to be dissuaded, Amazon has taken the hardware from the $50 Fire Tablet and is offering a Kid’s Tablet variant for $99. This tablet comes with a rubber shell, a two-year warranty, and a one-year subscription to Freetime Unlimited, Amazon’s kid’s subscription service.

Fire 8 and 10 inch tablets

amazon-fire-ten-inch-tablet

I simply have no words about these two tablets, other to say they are a tremendous downgrade from last years models. The Fire HD 8 and Fire HD 10 have a resolution of 1280 x 800 and run on a quad-core MediaTek MT8135 CPU with PowerVR Rogue G6200 graphics, 1GB RAM, 8Gb or 16GB internal storage, a pair of cameras (5MP and 1MP), Bluetooth, and Wifi. They also have Dolby Audio, which actually gives you better sound than most other tablets on the market.

To give you an indication on the resolution downgrade, last years Kindle Fire HDX 7 had a resolution of 1920×1200 pixels and the HDX 8.9 had 2560x1600p pixels with 339 ppi.

Fire HD 8 is available for pre-order beginning today with 8GB or 16GB of memory starting at $149.99 at www.amazon.com/FireHD8 and comes in four fun color options: black, magenta, blue, and tangerine. Fire HD 8 starts shipping September 30. Fire HD 10 is also available for pre-order beginning today with 16GB or 32GB of memory starting at $229.99 at www.amazon.com/FireHD10.

I would honestly skip all of the new tablets Amazon announced today, except for the $50 Fire tablet. The cheap one, will not be your primary device, but will be good for the kids.

Michael Kozlowski (7743 Posts)

Michael Kozlowski is the Editor in Chief of Good e-Reader. He has been writing about electronic readers and technology for the last four years. His articles have been picked up by major and local news sources and websites such as the Huffington Post, CNET and more. Michael frequently travels to international events such as IFA, Computex, CES, Book Expo and a myriad of others. If you have any questions about any of his articles, please send Michael Kozlowski an email to michael@goodereader.com

Author Info

News Items of Interest

  • Amazon Expected to Announce New Fire Tablets This WeekAmazon Expected to Announce New Fire Tablets This Week
  • New Fire 7 and Fire HD 8 Now Available for Pre-OrderNew Fire 7 and Fire HD 8 Now Available for Pre-Order
  • Amazon Shipped out 2.2 Million Fire Tablets Q1 2017Amazon Shipped out 2.2 Million Fire Tablets Q1 2017
  • Pocketbook Announces the Aqua 2 e-ReaderPocketbook Announces the Aqua 2 e-Reader
  • Amazon Reveals the Specs for the $50 Kindle Fire TabletAmazon Reveals the Specs for the $50 Kindle Fire Tablet
  • $50 Amazon Fire Tablet Review$50 Amazon Fire Tablet Review

Filed Under: Tablet PC News

  • JV

    Amazon….what are you doing? You have so much potential…

  • Good E-Reader

    This years models, are all about downgrades, but you are still paying a premium price.

  • Craig Saboe

    Is the Voyage 2 going to be a separate event then? Any idea when?

  • vegas68

    Thank you, I have the same question about the Voyage, I was hoping to see it today, wouldn’t it be strange to release just one product later on? Maybe the there is no new Vayage this year…?

  • Good E-Reader

    Here is what my thoughts are on the new voyage. Amazon will likely be using the new dual core freescale processors, but they aren’t reading for mass production until October/November. Likely, Amazon will announce the Voyage 2, closer to thanksgiving, in order to really ramp up sales on their website. They could announce it near October, and get it ready for shipping in mid/end of November.

  • Imprevist

    Is there any word whatsoever on the new Nook glowlight 2? I can’t find a single thing anywhere online regarding its release date and I remember your article a few weeks ago saying that it should be released any day.
    The new nook Samsung tablet was released and still yet no word anywhere on the new nook glowlight…

  • EReader61 .

    Thanks Michael,
    I agree. I admit being always excited when Amazon introduces new devices, and these new tablets do seem to have nicer looking laminated displays than the specs would indicate. They must have researched where their market is. They seem to think it is not in Holland because I have no access to Amazon video streaming and Kindle Unlimited and lending library. The final straws were the disappearance of the Netflix app from the Amazon app store (really), no new Underground app store, the new high ebook prices, and being barred from pre ordering the new tablets while at the same time being recommended to join or buy these products. I’ve now switched to an iPad mini and gave my Paperwhite to my son. The HDX 8.9 is only used for watching Netflix as long as that service is functional and the high book prices drove me to
    Scribd, reading admittedly older titles but much cheaper.

  • Maud Lean

    I have a cheap lenovo tablet which has similar specs to the $50 Amazon one. It is my primary device, in fact I rarely use my laptop anymore. It’s fast, battery life is good and the 8 gb storage is enough for apps and a few personal files (the rest on sd). It’s hi tech snobbery – beating down perfectly good devices just because they’re cheap or older or not as shiny. Judging by specs alone, the Amazon tablet will certainly be good for more than just kids!!

  • EReader61 .

    Yes, good points. according to some hands-on reviews they seem a compelling option especially the HD8 having a good price/quality ratio.

  • Karen K.

    Judging from the Kindle discussions on Amazon, some customers think that the new higher end tablets are yet to be announced and these four Fires are for people with less demanding needs, e.g. kids and people who don’t want all the more expensive features nor want to pay higher prices.

  • Karen K.

    Never mind….saw where they designated the HDX as previous generation devices to be replaced by the newer tablets with reduced features.

  • Karen K.

    Further note: Just found this section for developers on Amazon in which two Amazon Fire tablets are carried over to the current list of Fire tablets.

    https://developer.amazon.com/public/solutions/devices/fire-tablets/specifications/01-device-and-feature-specifications

    The two devices carried over as “current” are:
    1) Fire 8.9″ HDX (4th Gen) tablet (2014)

    2) Fire HD 6 (4th Gen) (2014)

    The rest on the current Amazon devices are the 7″, 8″, and 10.1″ Amazon 5th Gen 2015 tablets just announced, making the list of 5 tablets total so far. The fact that the most advanced 2014 Fire tablet is on the current list gives reason for the thinking that there’s still more to come.

    All the rest are legacy devices.

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