4 ms·

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

by 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?

by tlianza 11y ago

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?