Amazon Fire Review

The boys spend a lot of time on my tablet to the point I’m running out of room because I have games for them all over it. I also have to spend about half an hour hunting my apps out as they are intermingled among numerous Minecraft or lego apps!

Roll on Amazon asking me to review their Fire tablet. I’ve been curious about these since they dropped in price and became an under £50 tablet.

The Fire tablet 7” I was sent it is currently RRPing on Amazon at £34.99. What you get for this is a 7” screen touchscreen. It comes with 8GB which can be upgraded by popping in an SD card or up to 128gb so storage isn’t really an issue. It had front and rear cameras and comes in a variety of colours.

I was mostly worried about the range of app’s. The Fire doesn’t use google play but amazons own appstore. I was happily surprised to find 99% of the ones I wanted and free! Perfect.

It was incredibly easy to set up the parental controls and keep the boys app’s on their side. It made finding mine incredibly easy. The boys watched a couple of videos from the amazon media range and we all liked how sharp the screen was and the range we found was pretty decent. I also knew once they were on their side they couldn’t access the internet or watch videos I didn’t want them watching.

The sound was good and comparing it to other budget tablets it felt an awful lot more sturdy and higher quality then these. It also has a front which allowed us to skype family and friends abroad. Something I am aware with many of the other tablets in the same price cannot do.

I struggled with the fact that there isn’t a home button key like the fruity handset I use. However, compared to the earlier Fire tablet we had 5 years ago this Fire is unrecognisable. We didn’t try too hard to break it but it does feel relatively stable. Of course, being an Amazon tablet there is a huge range of protective cases on offer cheaper to give you extra security. With two kids, I highly recommend this. We used a glass protection screen and a gel protective case and it’s been taken all over the place and is still going strong. You can buy protection warranty though for extra peace of mind.

 

Compared to the older versions and other price compatible tablets the screen is obviously better and clearer. The colours are also pretty good and so far, has seemed fairly responsive to touch. I love the extra microSD slot which I’m fairly certain is new and increases the storage hugely. Some apps have to be stored on the main 8GB but movies, videos, photos and music can all be put on the card to free up internal space.

Pros:

Cost! There isn’t anything to match it in the under £70 bracket

Kids section – superb. No access to the internet unless granted!

Screen

Front & Rear Camera

Cons:

No google apps – if you want youtube you need to go through browser.

Occasionally sluggish.

Battery life. Suppose to be 7hours – we found about 5/6hours

Overall verdict

This is an amazing tablet for its price and is leagues ahead of all the tablets in its range. It makes an excellent tablet for kids to play their games on and we will be getting another for my eldest. It doesn’t quite work quicker for me to use as a full time tablet but its great to have on me for playing and reading or quickly browsing on line. All in All a perfect tablet for preteens and young teenagers or an occasion tablet.