4 ms·

Maybe I'm not sufficiently hardware-savvy, but what's the downside here? I am more or less in the market for a modest tablet, but I'm indifferent to whether it

Maybe I'm not sufficiently hardware-savvy, but what's the downside here? I am more or less in the market for a modest tablet, but I'm indifferent to whether it comes from Amazon. Can someone recommend a better deal?

ninjakeyboard 11y ago
Likely it's heavily subsidized vs market value in order to increase initial buy with the hope you will purchase from the marketplace. If you want an ereader get a paperwhite imo. But if you actually want a screen tablet this may not be a bad bet. There are lots of good cheap android devices these days too. Fire does run android but in my dev shop we treat fire with special care due to both the heavy modification and different store. It's not a pure android device so you're going to be very much locked in to the amazon market.
- eclipxe 11y ago
  The new FireOS seems to be much closer to stock Android
tlianza 11y ago
Biggest downside is the FireOS, Amazon store instead of Google Play, etc. If you want to do basic web surfing stuff, this is a phenomenal deal. I doubt you'll find a better one. If you want to experience all that modern Android tablets are capable of, these tablets will not provide that. In particular anything related to Google services (mail/apps) and Android apps that are delivered through the Google Play store but not delivered though the Amazon store. There are a lot of mainstream apps that don't bother to push their apps to Amazon's store.
- 300zxkyle 11y ago
  Excuse my ignorance, what prevents a savvy user from flashing it with a different OS?
  - k__ 11y ago
    locked bootloaders. got a Xoom 2ME here. decent hardware, but I never got a new OS on it
  - gcb0 11y ago
    almost no Android phone allows custom os! understands this. all Samsung phones can only be flashed because someone leaked a internal tool. and still, there must be a huge community effort to get the kernel and drives for each model. now keep in mind that this huge community effort doesn't exist even for for-developers v phones, such was the case with the moto x dev edition. with phones like fire, it's practically non existent! Android devices are not open by any means. they just have a lovely stubborn community.
  - jay_kyburz 11y ago
    I savy user probably values their time more than its worth. Spend a little more and you don't have to.
  - gknoy 11y ago
    As @deng mentioned above, the Amazon tablets have historically had locked bootloaders -- they won't load custom ROMs. The XDA guys seem to believe it's unlikely you'll ever be able to load Cyanogen on one of them.
    - chimeracoder 11y ago
      > The XDA guys seem to believe it's unlikely you'll ever be able to load Cyanogen on one of them. The first-generation Fire tablets definitely support Cyanogenmod, though it was a bit awkward to get around the bootloader lock at first. Are the newer ones not supported?
bsilvereagle 11y ago
From what I could tell, (at least) the $50 Fire is currently ad supported, and by default Amazon Underground is ad supported as well.
- ktsmith 11y ago
  You can pay an additional $15 and get the version that's not ad supported. When you click configure and add to cart you are presented with that as the first option.
- borkabrak 11y ago
  Ouch. This one landed. If this is true, then I think it would turn me off the deal. Unless I wanted to try what someone else mentioned and flash it with CyanogenMod or something. Never done that before, but this might be a good way to start.. edit: It looks like they've got the same situation vis-a-vis ads as all Kindles - yes they have ads, there is some attempt to make them unobtrusive, and they only have ads in the US. http://www.zdnet.com/article/all-kindle-fire-hd-models-ad-supported-but-only-in-the-us/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/all-kindle-fire-hd-models-ad-su... So that explains that. Now to find out how hard flashing a new OS would be. :)
  - eclipxe 11y ago
    Just ads on lockscreen...not too bad.
    - bsilvereagle 11y ago
      Ads on the lockscreen may be fine from a UX perspective, however, that tablet is now using data when it's a sleep which becomes a factor when someone is on a capped connection. Sure, it may only be a handful of MB/month, but to some people, every MB counts.
      - semi-extrinsic 11y ago
        I believe this thing only has wifi, so that's not a relevant problem.

ninjakeyboard 11y ago

Likely it's heavily subsidized vs market value in order to increase initial buy with the hope you will purchase from the marketplace. If you want an ereader get a paperwhite imo. But if you actually want a screen tablet this may not be a bad bet. There are lots of good cheap android devices these days too. Fire does run android but in my dev shop we treat fire with special care due to both the heavy modification and different store. It's not a pure android device so you're going to be very much locked in to the amazon market.

eclipxe 11y ago
The new FireOS seems to be much closer to stock Android

tlianza 11y ago

Biggest downside is the FireOS, Amazon store instead of Google Play, etc. If you want to do basic web surfing stuff, this is a phenomenal deal. I doubt you'll find a better one. If you want to experience all that modern Android tablets are capable of, these tablets will not provide that. In particular anything related to Google services (mail/apps) and Android apps that are delivered through the Google Play store but not delivered though the Amazon store. There are a lot of mainstream apps that don't bother to push their apps to Amazon's store.

300zxkyle 11y ago
Excuse my ignorance, what prevents a savvy user from flashing it with a different OS?
- k__ 11y ago
  locked bootloaders. got a Xoom 2ME here. decent hardware, but I never got a new OS on it
- gcb0 11y ago
  almost no Android phone allows custom os! understands this. all Samsung phones can only be flashed because someone leaked a internal tool. and still, there must be a huge community effort to get the kernel and drives for each model. now keep in mind that this huge community effort doesn't exist even for for-developers v phones, such was the case with the moto x dev edition. with phones like fire, it's practically non existent! Android devices are not open by any means. they just have a lovely stubborn community.
- jay_kyburz 11y ago
  I savy user probably values their time more than its worth. Spend a little more and you don't have to.
- gknoy 11y ago
  As @deng mentioned above, the Amazon tablets have historically had locked bootloaders -- they won't load custom ROMs. The XDA guys seem to believe it's unlikely you'll ever be able to load Cyanogen on one of them.
  - chimeracoder 11y ago
    > The XDA guys seem to believe it's unlikely you'll ever be able to load Cyanogen on one of them. The first-generation Fire tablets definitely support Cyanogenmod, though it was a bit awkward to get around the bootloader lock at first. Are the newer ones not supported?

bsilvereagle 11y ago

From what I could tell, (at least) the $50 Fire is currently ad supported, and by default Amazon Underground is ad supported as well.

ktsmith 11y ago
You can pay an additional $15 and get the version that's not ad supported. When you click configure and add to cart you are presented with that as the first option.
borkabrak 11y ago
Ouch. This one landed. If this is true, then I think it would turn me off the deal. Unless I wanted to try what someone else mentioned and flash it with CyanogenMod or something. Never done that before, but this might be a good way to start.. edit: It looks like they've got the same situation vis-a-vis ads as all Kindles - yes they have ads, there is some attempt to make them unobtrusive, and they only have ads in the US. http://www.zdnet.com/article/all-kindle-fire-hd-models-ad-supported-but-only-in-the-us/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/all-kindle-fire-hd-models-ad-su... So that explains that. Now to find out how hard flashing a new OS would be. :)
- eclipxe 11y ago
  Just ads on lockscreen...not too bad.
  - bsilvereagle 11y ago
    Ads on the lockscreen may be fine from a UX perspective, however, that tablet is now using data when it's a sleep which becomes a factor when someone is on a capped connection. Sure, it may only be a handful of MB/month, but to some people, every MB counts.
    - semi-extrinsic 11y ago
      I believe this thing only has wifi, so that's not a relevant problem.