Amazon Fire 7" (5th Generation)

Recently Amazon was running a sale on the 7″ Fire tablet. Normally $50, this one was down to $40. $40! It only comes with 8GB of storage so I added a 32GB SD card which brought the price to $50. For a tablet. Amazing.

The screen resolution is low. The tablet is thick and fairly heavy for a 7″ tablet. The bezel is friggin huge. But hey, it’s cheap

This most sensible tablet came in most sensible wrapping. Very retail-esque. Looks like it should be hanging from a display shelf.

Unboxing was easy. Pull a tab, and the whole thing is wrapped in protective plastic. I turned it on, and the battery was already at 75%, not terrible.

In the hand, it feels cheap. Cheap matte plastic on the back, huge bezel, very plain looking. No physical buttons on the front, but the top is super busy. The volume buttons, micro-usb charger port, power button, microphone, and headphone jack are all on the top. Busy.

 
Even though this Fire says “Mark’s 2nd Fire”, I’ve never owned one before. I do have a Kindle, but it doesn’t say “Mark’s 2nd Kindle” since this isn’t branded as Kindle. It’s branded as Fire, nothing else. Very odd.  

So what do you do with a $40 Kindle Fire? Root it, install Google Play, and dump all of the Amazon stuff. Now, I do somewhat regret getting rid of some of the Amazon stuff. Amazon Video isn’t available on Google Play, so I don’t get that anymore. But I rarely ever use it anyway. Not a huge loss.

 
 I just got this tablet today, so I haven’t had much time to play with it. Obviously the Amazon stuff works well. Even after rooting and installing Google Play, Blue Shade works. That’s Amazon’s night reading mode, to be easier on your eyes in the dark. Apple is coming out with that in iOS9.3 and Androids and PC can get the same thing with the program Flux. Nice to have.

Netflix plays well. The speakers aren’t great but they’re loud enough for a tablet.

It’s not a high end tablet. But to replace my aging HP Touchpad, it will more than suffice. And it was $40.