A couple of weeks ago Amazon announced its new line of Fire tablets.
The entry level device, a 7 inch $50 tablet, can actually be purchased as a six-pack that basically gives you one free tablet with the bundle. The package has been so popular that there is now a month long backlog for order fullfilment.
I ordered just one of these $50 Fire tablets from Amazon so that I could check it out and see how it performs. Having never tried one of Amazon's Fire devices, this is a new experience for me and I will be bringing you my thoughts about that more in depth in a couple of weeks. In the interim I did get the device unboxed and setup so I wanted to share those images with you now.
The only hardware related flaw I have seen to this point is a single white pixel that is constantly turned on about two-thirds of the way down in portrait mode on the right edge of the screen. I have not asked Amazon about their return policy for this but I will be researching that as I continue to use the device. It is on the edge of the screen so it does not interfere with using the tablet.
I do have a few Initial observations though:
- Flaky/Slow WiFi connectivity
- Slow navigation between menus and dialog boxes
- Needs a case or stand for watching streaming videos
- Streaming seems to work great and image quality is good. The WiFi issues I mentioned above only seem to be in and around the tablet OS itself.
- The single speaker is on the back of the tablet so all of the sound goes away from your ears.
- The Amazon Underground app store is full of free apps and games including DLC and in app purchases.
I will of course be bringing you more about this tablet in the near future.
Did you grab one of these yourself? What are your initial impressions about the device?